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Everyone involved in AI should have read The Library of Babel [1]. It's about many things, but perhaps the most relevant idea here is that no information matte
by Planktonne 6d ago
Everyone involved in AI should have read The Library of Babel [1].
It's about many things, but perhaps the most relevant idea here is that no information matters without understanding. We could generate all possible knowledge, but unless someone--a human--can verify and understand it, it doesn't count. The cure for mortality could be written on the moon, but if no one reads it, it hasn't really been discovered.
[1] https://maskofreason.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/the-library-of-babel-by-jorge-luis-borges.pdf https://maskofreason.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/0...
- thomasfromcdnjs 6d agoWhile I get the point and it's true. I'm a little more flexible, if the new knowledge (that human's don't understand) can be put into a mechanism and have an observable effect, I'd be happy enough. e.g. a new type of rocket fuel that burns 1000x more efficiently.
- spartacusnacho 5d agoWe already don't understand LLMs and they are having oberservable effects
- codebje 5d agoIf some LLM somewhere managed to produce a coherent and _correct_ explanation of how it worked inside, but no human ever saw it, would it matter? We know how to apply LLms to problems, which is a subtly different thing to understanding how they do what they do. It's similar to fire: I can cook using fire, but I don't really understand how fire _works_. Heat+oxygen+fuel, sure, but what goes on chemically? I dunno. Doesn't stop me using it. (Pretty sure _humanity_ knows how fire works, though).
- yubblegum 6d agoUpdate: "I own nothing, have no privacy, [never have to think, and am not required to solve any problems,] and life has never been better." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You'll_own_nothing_and_be_happy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You'll_own_nothing_and_be_happ...
- dinfinity 6d ago> but unless someone--a human--can verify and understand it, it doesn't count Does it need to be a human or can it be some other form of life?
- TwisterK 5d agoIt can be other form of life, but that other form of life need to be extremely aligned and keep humanity interest as top priority.
- tom_alexander 5d ago> unless someone--a human--can verify and understand it, it doesn't count. One counter-point: Humans have not figured out how general anesthesia works, but we use it every day to great effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaesthetic_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaestheti...
- uejfiweun 5d agoSeems a bit nitpicky, we certainly understand how to use it with great effect, we just don't understand the biochemical mechanism.
- pkulak 5d agoOnly because we understand everything _except_ how it works.
- mrheosuper 5d agohow can we understand absolute everything and still don't know how it work ?
- ScoobleDoodle 5d agoTrial and error :)
- mrheosuper 5d agoI wouldn't say that is "understanding". We must fully be able to explain to say that we understand it.
- SirSavary 5d agoThere are two types of understanding: knowing how a candle works and knowing how a candle works.
- Kinrany 5d ago
- somenameforme 5d agoI don't think this necessarily follows. The point of the Library of Babel is more one of permutations/combinatorics than of knowledge accumulation itself. In 'our' Library of Babel, each book would be informative, if not perhaps flawed in some ways. That's quite different from one in which in which the number of books that contain anything coherent whatsoever cleanly rounds to zero.
- matheusmoreira 5d agoDoubt. If I vibecode a video game and manage to sell it on Steam, the information definitely mattered even though I didn't understand any of it. There are drugs that nobody truly understands how they work and they are being used by professionals in actual treatments literally right now. We know purely statistical facts like "if drug X is used for condition Y it will help Z% of patients" and can only speculate as to their mechanism of action. They are used anyway and still benefit a lot of people.
- undersuit 5d agoYeah that information mattered when someone wrote it down, not when the LLM regurgitated an approximation.
- matheusmoreira 5d agoThe regurgitated approximation can matter just as much depending on what results it accomplishes. If I somehow make money out of this, then it's mission accomplished. Arguably, they might even matter more than my artisanal hand crafted software projects which never paid me a living wage.
- undersuit 5d agoMaking money matters? Weird.
- goosejuice 5d agoIronies of automation might be better suited to explain the problem.
- esafak 5d agoSome things can simply be beyond humans, but what if an AI could understand it? Just because we don't understand something, it does not mean that it does not matter.
- aaron695 5d ago[dead]
- ralfd 5d ago> but unless someone--a human--can verify and understand it Why though a human? Mathematical proofs are very ivory-towery, but if OpenAI would solve a subkind of Cancer, without mortal humans understanding, cancer is still be healed.
- sfn42 5d agoNot unless humans were able to produce the medicine or perform the surgery or whatever is necessary to actually heal someone. In order for that to happen it has to be verified and understood by humans, like the other commenter said.
- gattr 5d agoDoes it, though? What if future AI can do everything from designing the cure to building a self-contained universal surgical medcapsule? "Just lay down and I'll fix your cancer real good, trust me, bruh." If it was shown to work, would you use it?
- sfn42 5d agoWell sure, if it's already proven why wouldn't I use it? The AI we currently have can't do that though. The AI we currently have is a glorified chatbot. It can't fabricate anything and I doubt it could even reliably design simple real world devices. It's a really cool and useful technology, and maybe one day it will be as good as you describe, but right now it just isn't and there's no guarantee it ever will be.
- looofooo0 5d agoBut we have pretty good understanding of the logical foundations and the truth of computer generated math. So having a big library which humans could never produce or fully understand has still a value on its own. It is just another level of abstraction.