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> I am somewhat surprised to see some of the errors current models make given their intelligence They have no intelligence. These are very very very refined pr

> I am somewhat surprised to see some of the errors current models make given their intelligence They have no intelligence. These are very very very refined prediction engines. > A common set is having Claude take some product photos and turn them into lifestyle ones using ChatGPT via Claude in Chrome. It's a pretty well-honed workflow at this point, but it'll still return images where the product is obviously not correct and seemingly not notice them. Obvious to you or I, or someone with actual intelligence. But things like this slip by a frontier model in the same way AI from a few years ago would generate an image with seven fingers. They do not count. They do not understand. They do not consider. No matter how good these models appear to be at intelligent tasks, it's foolish to give them "a company" to run, because they cannot understand when they've made a mistake the way even the least competent human can.

jeremyjh 20d ago
> They have no intelligence. These are very very very refined prediction engines. "Very refined prediction engine" is not a bad working definition for intelligence. It is not the only component you need, but it might be the most important over-all capability. If its making lots of errors, its not doing a very good job of predicting the outcome of its actions.
- zallen 19d ago
  It's a terrible definition of intelligence. Intelligence is far more than just predicting things based on a massive set of similar things. We do do pattern recognition, but I don't need to have seen 10k dogs to be able to recognize a dog. And it's not a difference of degree, either. "Meaning" is something I am able to derive from my experiences, and it is not something an LLM does or will ever be able to do (nor is training data even analogous to having experiences in any way shape or form.)
  - senordevnyc 19d ago
    Is "meaning" inherent to intelligence? Is emotion and the ability to have a subjective experience inherent to meaning? Genuine questions that I'm not sure we have good answers for yet. Your other point that humans need very few examples for learning vs. what LLMs need is an interesting one. A few researchers talked about this very thing on the most recent episode of Dwarkesh's podcast. My own view is that it seems unfair to compare an LLM's training with just what a human gets over the course of a lifetime, because our brains have been trained by a billion years of evolution for pattern matching. I'm not at all confident that AI models won't catch up.
  - jeremyjh 19d ago
    I didn't say anything about training methods. I said an intelligence can predict things accurately, most particularly if it can predict the outcomes of possible actions it can take then it can do planning. Its especially important that it should be able to predict outcomes in cases that are not exactly the same as things it has seen before, but how it gets to that capability level is not important for understanding what the capability unlocks. This is one of the most distinctive qualities of human intelligence compared to many animals - is our ability to adapt to new situations and make accurate predictions of the outcomes of our actions. Other animals can also do this but over very narrow time horizons and situations. AI agents are better at it than any animal, and better at it than humans in some domains.
idopmstuff 20d ago
> They have no intelligence. These are very very very refined prediction engines. Silly and pointless criticism. Why do the semantics of the word intelligence matter? Also, you need to understand that language evolves over time, and people often use a word to describe a thing that is newly discovered or invented that's similar to the word being used, because it's a helpful way of describing it that the listener will understand better than a longwinded technical description. The purpose of language is to communicate thoughts, not engage in pedantry. > But things like this slip by a frontier model in the same way AI from a few years ago would generate an image with seven fingers. Yes, you make an excellent point here that over time, the capabilities of these models to recognize certain categories of problems have increased dramatically. I expect this will continue! > it's foolish to give them "a company" to run, because they cannot understand when they've made a mistake the way even the least competent human can. The words of someone who has not spent time with the least competent human, or anything close to it.
- nouveaux 20d ago
  > Silly and pointless criticism. Why do the semantics of the word intelligence matter? It matters because, we're still sorting out what intelligence means for an AI agent. As you pointed out, language evolves over time. The question remains whether or not attributing intelligence to the current iteration of models is correct. This is not settled and I don't see why it's wrong to bring it up.
  - lampiaio 20d ago
    It's not wrong to bring it up, but the other comment did not "bring it up". It purported to correct someone by categorically stating "it is not intelligence, you are wrong and I am right", while not once saying what, then, intelligence is. One thing is clear: LLMs at least already are capable of 1) not making the same mistake that person made, and 2) clearly seeing why the other person's post was "wrong" in both reasoning and tone.
    - deleted 19d ago
      [deleted]
edawg88 19d ago
"Judgement" is the #1 thing missing from AI if you ask me. You give AI an input, and then an output is created...a very coherent and deep output in fect...but, there is very little understanding of alternatives or downstream implications in my experience. I think its a very good text/image generator on any subject. But I am not finding much in the way of understanding tradeoffs or downstream implications in a non-pro's and con's list. It's like a human that has a particular type of brain damage...they can make an infinite pro/con list, but not reasonable decision is reliably made.
senordevnyc 19d ago
I'm curious what your working definition of "actual intelligence" is.

jeremyjh 20d ago

> They have no intelligence. These are very very very refined prediction engines. "Very refined prediction engine" is not a bad working definition for intelligence. It is not the only component you need, but it might be the most important over-all capability. If its making lots of errors, its not doing a very good job of predicting the outcome of its actions.

zallen 19d ago
It's a terrible definition of intelligence. Intelligence is far more than just predicting things based on a massive set of similar things. We do do pattern recognition, but I don't need to have seen 10k dogs to be able to recognize a dog. And it's not a difference of degree, either. "Meaning" is something I am able to derive from my experiences, and it is not something an LLM does or will ever be able to do (nor is training data even analogous to having experiences in any way shape or form.)
- senordevnyc 19d ago
  Is "meaning" inherent to intelligence? Is emotion and the ability to have a subjective experience inherent to meaning? Genuine questions that I'm not sure we have good answers for yet. Your other point that humans need very few examples for learning vs. what LLMs need is an interesting one. A few researchers talked about this very thing on the most recent episode of Dwarkesh's podcast. My own view is that it seems unfair to compare an LLM's training with just what a human gets over the course of a lifetime, because our brains have been trained by a billion years of evolution for pattern matching. I'm not at all confident that AI models won't catch up.
- jeremyjh 19d ago
  I didn't say anything about training methods. I said an intelligence can predict things accurately, most particularly if it can predict the outcomes of possible actions it can take then it can do planning. Its especially important that it should be able to predict outcomes in cases that are not exactly the same as things it has seen before, but how it gets to that capability level is not important for understanding what the capability unlocks. This is one of the most distinctive qualities of human intelligence compared to many animals - is our ability to adapt to new situations and make accurate predictions of the outcomes of our actions. Other animals can also do this but over very narrow time horizons and situations. AI agents are better at it than any animal, and better at it than humans in some domains.

idopmstuff 20d ago

> They have no intelligence. These are very very very refined prediction engines. Silly and pointless criticism. Why do the semantics of the word intelligence matter? Also, you need to understand that language evolves over time, and people often use a word to describe a thing that is newly discovered or invented that's similar to the word being used, because it's a helpful way of describing it that the listener will understand better than a longwinded technical description. The purpose of language is to communicate thoughts, not engage in pedantry. > But things like this slip by a frontier model in the same way AI from a few years ago would generate an image with seven fingers. Yes, you make an excellent point here that over time, the capabilities of these models to recognize certain categories of problems have increased dramatically. I expect this will continue! > it's foolish to give them "a company" to run, because they cannot understand when they've made a mistake the way even the least competent human can. The words of someone who has not spent time with the least competent human, or anything close to it.

nouveaux 20d ago
> Silly and pointless criticism. Why do the semantics of the word intelligence matter? It matters because, we're still sorting out what intelligence means for an AI agent. As you pointed out, language evolves over time. The question remains whether or not attributing intelligence to the current iteration of models is correct. This is not settled and I don't see why it's wrong to bring it up.
- lampiaio 20d ago
  It's not wrong to bring it up, but the other comment did not "bring it up". It purported to correct someone by categorically stating "it is not intelligence, you are wrong and I am right", while not once saying what, then, intelligence is. One thing is clear: LLMs at least already are capable of 1) not making the same mistake that person made, and 2) clearly seeing why the other person's post was "wrong" in both reasoning and tone.
  - deleted 19d ago
    [deleted]

edawg88 19d ago

"Judgement" is the #1 thing missing from AI if you ask me. You give AI an input, and then an output is created...a very coherent and deep output in fect...but, there is very little understanding of alternatives or downstream implications in my experience. I think its a very good text/image generator on any subject. But I am not finding much in the way of understanding tradeoffs or downstream implications in a non-pro's and con's list. It's like a human that has a particular type of brain damage...they can make an infinite pro/con list, but not reasonable decision is reliably made.

senordevnyc 19d ago

I'm curious what your working definition of "actual intelligence" is.