3 ms·

Never understood all this talk about moving goalposts - you understand that's how science works, right? We improve, we learn, we recalibrate our expectations ba

Never understood all this talk about moving goalposts - you understand that's how science works, right? We improve, we learn, we recalibrate our expectations based on what we've learned. If we never "moved the goalposts", we'd be stuck scoring the same goals over and over.

NitpickLawyer 2mo ago
> We improve, we learn, we recalibrate our expectations based on what we've learned. That's not what people mean when they say "moving the goalposts". It means that people are adamant that something wasn't important/hard/impressive once the "AI" solves it. And then they come up with another thing that needs to be solved in order to prove it is important/hard/impressive. And once that happens, they do it again. And again. That's what "moving the goalposts" means. It's also very much not a new phenomenon. It's been happening since the 1980s. As you can see from this quote from GEB by Hofstadter: > There is a related "Theorem" about progress in AI: once some mental function is programmed, people soon cease to consider it as an essential ingredient of "real thinking". The ineluctable core of intelligence is always in that next thing which hasn't yet been programmed. This "Theorem" was first proposed to me by Larry Tesler, so I call it Tesler's Theorem: "AI is whatever hasn't been done yet."
- Chance-Device 2mo ago
  Yes, this is exactly what is meant by “moving the goalposts”. And it’s a fairly well known expression applying wherever people retroactively change their requirements in reaction to those requirements having been met.
  - danparsonson 2mo ago
    It's almost like I disagree with your use of the phrase in this context, rather than that I don't know the meaning of it.
    - monktastic1 2mo ago
      So you defined your own idiosyncratic version of "moving the goalposts" and used it to rebut his argument, with a condescending "you understand that's how science works, right?"--instead of being honest that it is you who are changing the definition, and not his failure to understand anything. I don't see how that's any better.
      - seanhunter 2mo ago
        He rebutted the argument about moving the goalposts by moving the goalposts. It’s better by dint of sheer bravado.
      - danparsonson 2mo ago
        You got me - I've been rumbled. Actually, I'm really an LLM and this whole thing was a clever bluff.
    - albedoa 2mo ago
      How were any of us meant to know that you were using your own personal and undisclosed definition of a well-established phrase?
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- danparsonson 2mo ago
  If it seems like I don't understand the meaning of that very well-known phrase, then clearly I have failed to make my point. I'll try again. And please note that I will use some generalizations to make my point more clearly, rather than because I don't understand nuance; kindly grant me a charitable reading. In recent years, I have commonly seen the phrase "you're moving the goalposts" deployed by the "it might be sentient" crowd to shoot down the "it's a stochastic parrot" crowd when the latter respond to a new development with "OK but...". In a well-understood field of inquiry, that would be a clear case of goalpost-moving, in the commonly-understood meaning of the phrase where requirements are retroactively changed in response to them having been met. Thank you OP. 'Artificial Intelligence', and indeed intelligence in general, is very much not a well-understood field of inquiry - in fact we don't even have a common agreement about what 'intelligence' is. We are therefore learning as we go (even after all this time!) but making rapid progress in recent years. When rapid progress is made in a poorly-understood field, then how can our definitions and requirements for success not change? This is arguably one of the most pathological development projects ever - what are the requirements? 'It thinks like a human'? What does that mean? And the answer is we don't know what that means, and we're working it out as we go - moving the goalposts. If we didn't move the goalposts, then by definition we already knew exactly where we were headed at the beginning, and we very clearly did not. Side note that, in case it's not obvious, none of this detracts from how impressive LLMs are. They're a marvel of the modern age, all the problems notwithstanding. However I reserve the right to stay sceptical about their capabilities.
  - Windchaser 2mo ago
    > If we didn't move the goalposts, then by definition we already knew exactly where we were headed at the beginning, and we very clearly did not. To me, the goalposts were already defined by the person you were responding to. "The impact of AI is getting undeniable", so, the goalposts are "the impact of AI". Probably something like "the impact of AI is high, or will be soon". Note that this does not depend on things like AI sentience or defining "intelligence" more rigorously, it just depends on AI impact.
    - danparsonson 2mo ago
- gowld 2mo ago
  What you are doing is "motte and bailey". The motte is "AI useful". The bailey is "Singularity is nigh".
  - enraged_camel 2mo ago
    >> The motte is "AI useful". The bailey is "Singularity is nigh". But there are people like Ed Zitron, frequently posted and cited here, who disagree even with the former.
    - 8note 2mo ago
      to an extent zitron is saying its not useful, but as a more nuanced opinion, "ai is not cost effective, nor is it improving profits or revenue"
      - scarmig 2mo ago
        From a random article I grabbed of his (https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/): "it isn't clear whether generative AI actually provides much business value at all" "cannot seem to find a product that people will pay for, in part because the results are so mediocre" "Last week, we got our first real, definitive glimpse of what’s around that corner that future. And boy, was it underwhelming." "OpenAI claims that o1 “performs similarly to PhD students on challenging benchmark tasks in physics, chemistry, and biology.” Just not in geography, it seems. Or basic elementary-level English language tests. Or math. Or programming. " "Worse still, it's kind of hard to explain why anybody should give a shit about o1." "o1 shows that OpenAI is both desperate and out of ideas." "the software is not becoming more useful" Honestly, every other line is quotable in this context.
        lackoftactics 2mo ago
        Yep, he is a PR stunt guy, and the number of videos that come up when you type Ed Zitron into YouTube should tell you how many people are eager to feed their cognitive biases.
- mag7269 2mo ago
  “AGI will only, truly, be achieved when the machine can destroy an industrial-type toilet after downing a Supreme Burrito and a large Baja Blast.” -Alan Turing (allegedly)
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- claytongulick 2mo ago
  > And then they come up with another thing that needs to be solved in order to prove it is important/hard/impressive. And once that happens, they do it again. And again. That's what "moving the goalposts" means. The fundamental argument that I've personally made since the early days of this is that LLMs are not reasoning, in the way that word is commonly understood. There are lots of reasons why that argument needs to evolve that could certainly appear to be "moving the goalposts", but let's take an example. A lot of AIs were tripped up by the question "Should I walk or drive 50m to the carwash?" Several folks liked to use that as an example that illustrates that LLMs aren't reasoning, but as the models have been trained on that specific example, it's of course less useful. An AI can mostly nail it now. So a different example is needed. A new demonstration of how these things fail at basic reasoning a child can do. Did I move the goalposts? I don't think so. The fundamental argument stays the same. It's not hard to find lots of examples that trip up LLMs, because they are what they are: statistical inference machines. Nothing more and nothing less. Useful, sure. But also commonly misapplied to areas for which they are inappropriate solutions.
emceestork 2mo ago
They aren't claiming that science doesn't progress by moving goal posts. They're talking about how critics of AI have claimed it isn't revolutionary/useful, then progressively changed what would it mean for AI to be actually revolutionary/useful. Not long ago many folks were saying AI was the same as the crypto bubble. No real useful technology and only hype.
- gowld 2mo ago
  Did you know that "revolutationary" is not equivalent to "useful", and "revolutionary" is quite ambiguous?
  - emceestork 2mo ago
    I don't know if you're trying to dunk on me. I didn't intend to imply they are synonyms. I think AI is clearly both revolutionary and useful. Revolutionary insofar as the job I do has changed almost completely in a year or so span.
f6v 2mo ago
> Never understood all this talk about moving goalposts - you understand that's how science works, right? I agree with the parent that we need to acknowledge that we're at a turning point in history. I lived through some of them (internet, ubiquitous personal computing). But it's somewhat difficult to comprehend the impact of this one for many people. I do biomedical research at one of the top European research institutions. We're very well-funded, but I can clearly see the gap between us (say, top-100) and top-10. I also realize this gap is going to get so much wider unless we invest heavily in AI access (and I'm not so sure I can sell anything more expensive than $20 Claude subscription to the leadership). I think people having 6-7 figure SOTA AI budgets will move exponentially faster than those who don't. That makes me worried. So, for me, it's not a question of recalibrating expectations. We're way past that.

NitpickLawyer 2mo ago

> We improve, we learn, we recalibrate our expectations based on what we've learned. That's not what people mean when they say "moving the goalposts". It means that people are adamant that something wasn't important/hard/impressive once the "AI" solves it. And then they come up with another thing that needs to be solved in order to prove it is important/hard/impressive. And once that happens, they do it again. And again. That's what "moving the goalposts" means. It's also very much not a new phenomenon. It's been happening since the 1980s. As you can see from this quote from GEB by Hofstadter: > There is a related "Theorem" about progress in AI: once some mental function is programmed, people soon cease to consider it as an essential ingredient of "real thinking". The ineluctable core of intelligence is always in that next thing which hasn't yet been programmed. This "Theorem" was first proposed to me by Larry Tesler, so I call it Tesler's Theorem: "AI is whatever hasn't been done yet."

Chance-Device 2mo ago
Yes, this is exactly what is meant by “moving the goalposts”. And it’s a fairly well known expression applying wherever people retroactively change their requirements in reaction to those requirements having been met.
- danparsonson 2mo ago
  It's almost like I disagree with your use of the phrase in this context, rather than that I don't know the meaning of it.
  - monktastic1 2mo ago
    So you defined your own idiosyncratic version of "moving the goalposts" and used it to rebut his argument, with a condescending "you understand that's how science works, right?"--instead of being honest that it is you who are changing the definition, and not his failure to understand anything. I don't see how that's any better.
    - seanhunter 2mo ago
      He rebutted the argument about moving the goalposts by moving the goalposts. It’s better by dint of sheer bravado.
    - danparsonson 2mo ago
      You got me - I've been rumbled. Actually, I'm really an LLM and this whole thing was a clever bluff.
  - albedoa 2mo ago
    How were any of us meant to know that you were using your own personal and undisclosed definition of a well-established phrase?
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
danparsonson 2mo ago
If it seems like I don't understand the meaning of that very well-known phrase, then clearly I have failed to make my point. I'll try again. And please note that I will use some generalizations to make my point more clearly, rather than because I don't understand nuance; kindly grant me a charitable reading. In recent years, I have commonly seen the phrase "you're moving the goalposts" deployed by the "it might be sentient" crowd to shoot down the "it's a stochastic parrot" crowd when the latter respond to a new development with "OK but...". In a well-understood field of inquiry, that would be a clear case of goalpost-moving, in the commonly-understood meaning of the phrase where requirements are retroactively changed in response to them having been met. Thank you OP. 'Artificial Intelligence', and indeed intelligence in general, is very much not a well-understood field of inquiry - in fact we don't even have a common agreement about what 'intelligence' is. We are therefore learning as we go (even after all this time!) but making rapid progress in recent years. When rapid progress is made in a poorly-understood field, then how can our definitions and requirements for success not change? This is arguably one of the most pathological development projects ever - what are the requirements? 'It thinks like a human'? What does that mean? And the answer is we don't know what that means, and we're working it out as we go - moving the goalposts. If we didn't move the goalposts, then by definition we already knew exactly where we were headed at the beginning, and we very clearly did not. Side note that, in case it's not obvious, none of this detracts from how impressive LLMs are. They're a marvel of the modern age, all the problems notwithstanding. However I reserve the right to stay sceptical about their capabilities.
- Windchaser 2mo ago
  > If we didn't move the goalposts, then by definition we already knew exactly where we were headed at the beginning, and we very clearly did not. To me, the goalposts were already defined by the person you were responding to. "The impact of AI is getting undeniable", so, the goalposts are "the impact of AI". Probably something like "the impact of AI is high, or will be soon". Note that this does not depend on things like AI sentience or defining "intelligence" more rigorously, it just depends on AI impact.
  - danparsonson 2mo ago
gowld 2mo ago
What you are doing is "motte and bailey". The motte is "AI useful". The bailey is "Singularity is nigh".
- enraged_camel 2mo ago
  >> The motte is "AI useful". The bailey is "Singularity is nigh". But there are people like Ed Zitron, frequently posted and cited here, who disagree even with the former.
  - 8note 2mo ago
    to an extent zitron is saying its not useful, but as a more nuanced opinion, "ai is not cost effective, nor is it improving profits or revenue"
    - scarmig 2mo ago
      From a random article I grabbed of his (https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/): "it isn't clear whether generative AI actually provides much business value at all" "cannot seem to find a product that people will pay for, in part because the results are so mediocre" "Last week, we got our first real, definitive glimpse of what’s around that corner that future. And boy, was it underwhelming." "OpenAI claims that o1 “performs similarly to PhD students on challenging benchmark tasks in physics, chemistry, and biology.” Just not in geography, it seems. Or basic elementary-level English language tests. Or math. Or programming. " "Worse still, it's kind of hard to explain why anybody should give a shit about o1." "o1 shows that OpenAI is both desperate and out of ideas." "the software is not becoming more useful" Honestly, every other line is quotable in this context.
      - lackoftactics 2mo ago
        Yep, he is a PR stunt guy, and the number of videos that come up when you type Ed Zitron into YouTube should tell you how many people are eager to feed their cognitive biases.
mag7269 2mo ago
“AGI will only, truly, be achieved when the machine can destroy an industrial-type toilet after downing a Supreme Burrito and a large Baja Blast.” -Alan Turing (allegedly)
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
claytongulick 2mo ago
> And then they come up with another thing that needs to be solved in order to prove it is important/hard/impressive. And once that happens, they do it again. And again. That's what "moving the goalposts" means. The fundamental argument that I've personally made since the early days of this is that LLMs are not reasoning, in the way that word is commonly understood. There are lots of reasons why that argument needs to evolve that could certainly appear to be "moving the goalposts", but let's take an example. A lot of AIs were tripped up by the question "Should I walk or drive 50m to the carwash?" Several folks liked to use that as an example that illustrates that LLMs aren't reasoning, but as the models have been trained on that specific example, it's of course less useful. An AI can mostly nail it now. So a different example is needed. A new demonstration of how these things fail at basic reasoning a child can do. Did I move the goalposts? I don't think so. The fundamental argument stays the same. It's not hard to find lots of examples that trip up LLMs, because they are what they are: statistical inference machines. Nothing more and nothing less. Useful, sure. But also commonly misapplied to areas for which they are inappropriate solutions.

emceestork 2mo ago

They aren't claiming that science doesn't progress by moving goal posts. They're talking about how critics of AI have claimed it isn't revolutionary/useful, then progressively changed what would it mean for AI to be actually revolutionary/useful. Not long ago many folks were saying AI was the same as the crypto bubble. No real useful technology and only hype.

gowld 2mo ago
Did you know that "revolutationary" is not equivalent to "useful", and "revolutionary" is quite ambiguous?
- emceestork 2mo ago
  I don't know if you're trying to dunk on me. I didn't intend to imply they are synonyms. I think AI is clearly both revolutionary and useful. Revolutionary insofar as the job I do has changed almost completely in a year or so span.

f6v 2mo ago

> Never understood all this talk about moving goalposts - you understand that's how science works, right? I agree with the parent that we need to acknowledge that we're at a turning point in history. I lived through some of them (internet, ubiquitous personal computing). But it's somewhat difficult to comprehend the impact of this one for many people. I do biomedical research at one of the top European research institutions. We're very well-funded, but I can clearly see the gap between us (say, top-100) and top-10. I also realize this gap is going to get so much wider unless we invest heavily in AI access (and I'm not so sure I can sell anything more expensive than $20 Claude subscription to the leadership). I think people having 6-7 figure SOTA AI budgets will move exponentially faster than those who don't. That makes me worried. So, for me, it's not a question of recalibrating expectations. We're way past that.