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Are they denying intelligence, or are they redefining it in such a way that only humans can be intelligent? Can you come up with a definition of intelligence th

Are they denying intelligence, or are they redefining it in such a way that only humans can be intelligent? Can you come up with a definition of intelligence that would apply to crows and ant colonies, which are obviously intelligent to some degree, but not the current generation of AI systems?

mitxela 6d ago
Nobody knows what intelligence is. We've recently discovered a lot of things that it isn't.
- fasterik 6d ago
  Intelligence is a word we invent to describe things we see in nature. We don't "discover" intelligence like it's some natural resource. To say we know nothing about it is also a bit strange. Cognitive science has been studying it for decades. Of course it's hard to give a precise definition, but it's related to capabilities like abstraction, reasoning, planning, problem solving, etc.
- infinite_spin 6d ago
  Why would a set of dictionary definitions not suffice?
  - mitxela 6d ago
    Those are distillations of existing knowledge. They are necessarily behind the status quo. "You can't call this newfangled contraption a computer, because a computer is a person!"
    - infinite_spin 6d ago
      > Those are distillations of existing knowledge. Definitions are "formal statements of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, idiom, etc" (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/definition https://www.dictionary.com/browse/definition) > They are necessarily behind the status quo. The existing state or condition would be what is written in the dictionary, not whatever personal definitions you've constructed. > "You can't call this newfangled contraption a computer, because a computer is a person!" Seems like a straw man. A computer is not a mammal, no matter how much you twist a set of definitions.
      - quicklime 6d ago
        > A computer is not a mammal, no matter how much you twist a set of definitions. I’m not the person you replied to, but I believe they’re referring to the occupation of “computer”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation) So yes, at one time all computers were mammals. The people who write dictionaries generally take a descriptivist approach, that’s why slang terms enter the dictionary after they start to become popular. The state of the art of human knowledge would be another step ahead of the common use of any language.
        infinite_spin 6d ago
        That's an interesting take, and I can see how "computer" could refer to a human a hundred years ago, but they also mentioned "status quo", which should indicate that a reasonable person should use a modern definition.
        quicklime 6d ago
        Again I’m not the person who wrote the comment, but I think they were exaggerating for effect and maybe lost the audience in doing so. While “computer” has meant the same thing for many decades now, the term “intelligence” really does seem like a moving goalpost?
        infinite_spin 6d ago
        I think it's only a moving goalpost if you can show that the goalpost has moved with a new definition that fits our current usage of it. The people saying "this isn't intelligence", and then claim "we don't even know what intelligence is", are encouraged to offer such a definition.
        mitxela 6d ago
        Several decades ago, "computer" was a moving goalpost due to the invention of the electronic computer, and then the digital computer.
    - handoflixue 6d ago
      > They are necessarily behind the status quo. That seems like a really bizarre way to describe a tool that solved an open Millennium Prize Problem. They are, empirically and repeatedly, ahead of the status quo. So if your argument depends on them being behind the status quo, reality has already disproven it multiple times over.
      - mitxela 6d ago
        I wasn't aware a dictionary definition solved a Millennium Prize problem. Which one and how?
      - ben_w 6d ago
        I believe the argument you're responding to is "a set of dictionary definitions does not suffice to define intelligence"? I will admit the first time I read the thing you're replying to, I had a similar thought as you; From the sibling reply from them, I think they think they were obvious, but that also means I wouldn't expect their reply to help unless you had the same flash of inspiration I had.
- 4fddd3 6d ago
  What we know is intelligence is definitely comprised of the trait of adaptability. E.g. humans get exposed to new LLM model - yeah its powerful - 1 week later - eh, that thing? Yeah it's whatever. I'm still employed. The human's ability to adapt so efficiently is mind-boggling - so much so it pi1sses sam altman and dario off.
ben_w 6d ago
How many examples you need to get good. Don't misunderstand: I'm happy saying AI models "think" or "have learned a thing", and for in-context learning I'd call them smart even by this definition… …but also, any living creature that needed as many examples as machine learning currently needs, would starve to death before figuring out how to eat. While training, machine learning processes (not just LLMs, also applies to e.g. self driving cars), are really really stupid and only make up for this by being really really stupid really really fast. To what I wrote upthread: the "victories" of humanity over machine keep getting closer, but we have yet to wake up one day in great confusion as we find an entire city is no longer in communication with anyone, nor finding ourselves in a state of utter disbelief when the reports come in that the city stopped communicating because it is entirely gone.
- fasterik 6d ago
  If we're including the training process and not just the final product, why shouldn't we include the billions of years of natural selection encoded in DNA sequences?
  - ben_w 6d ago
    Because our evolutionary environment doesn't contain cars, poetry, calculus, Star Craft, hamburgers, touch screen computers, or doors, and yet we are able to learn these things with (relative to a computer) very few examples. Most of the effort of evolution was making cells work at all, and even then it's a bit weird, e.g. no plant or animal produces vitamin B12 and we all get this from some bacteria and archaea. And evolution is kinda hard to time right: bacteria can reproduce in minutes, humans in decades, but only mutations that survive reproduction can be passed on. This makes it even starker as a difference: bacteria had order of 1e13 generations to become multicellular, while human DNA had about 40,000 generations to cope with fire, 220 generations for evolution to do anything with the invention of the wheel, and one generation to cope with the invention of Minecraft. The analogy here would be: DNA is to our brains like a VN replicator bootstrapping a computer all the way up to a bare-metal-no-OS untrained model, and perhaps a few crude "hard coded" modules like a smiling-face-detector. It's a lot, but it's also missing a lot. If biology used the models and training processes that are state of the art in ML, it would take around a millennia to talk like a child and still fail the Sally-Anne test, and million years or so to pass a degree.

mitxela 6d ago

Nobody knows what intelligence is. We've recently discovered a lot of things that it isn't.

fasterik 6d ago
Intelligence is a word we invent to describe things we see in nature. We don't "discover" intelligence like it's some natural resource. To say we know nothing about it is also a bit strange. Cognitive science has been studying it for decades. Of course it's hard to give a precise definition, but it's related to capabilities like abstraction, reasoning, planning, problem solving, etc.
infinite_spin 6d ago
Why would a set of dictionary definitions not suffice?
- mitxela 6d ago
  Those are distillations of existing knowledge. They are necessarily behind the status quo. "You can't call this newfangled contraption a computer, because a computer is a person!"
  - infinite_spin 6d ago
    > Those are distillations of existing knowledge. Definitions are "formal statements of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, idiom, etc" (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/definition https://www.dictionary.com/browse/definition) > They are necessarily behind the status quo. The existing state or condition would be what is written in the dictionary, not whatever personal definitions you've constructed. > "You can't call this newfangled contraption a computer, because a computer is a person!" Seems like a straw man. A computer is not a mammal, no matter how much you twist a set of definitions.
    - quicklime 6d ago
      > A computer is not a mammal, no matter how much you twist a set of definitions. I’m not the person you replied to, but I believe they’re referring to the occupation of “computer”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation) So yes, at one time all computers were mammals. The people who write dictionaries generally take a descriptivist approach, that’s why slang terms enter the dictionary after they start to become popular. The state of the art of human knowledge would be another step ahead of the common use of any language.
      - infinite_spin 6d ago
        That's an interesting take, and I can see how "computer" could refer to a human a hundred years ago, but they also mentioned "status quo", which should indicate that a reasonable person should use a modern definition.
        quicklime 6d ago
        Again I’m not the person who wrote the comment, but I think they were exaggerating for effect and maybe lost the audience in doing so. While “computer” has meant the same thing for many decades now, the term “intelligence” really does seem like a moving goalpost?
        infinite_spin 6d ago
        I think it's only a moving goalpost if you can show that the goalpost has moved with a new definition that fits our current usage of it. The people saying "this isn't intelligence", and then claim "we don't even know what intelligence is", are encouraged to offer such a definition.
        mitxela 6d ago
        Several decades ago, "computer" was a moving goalpost due to the invention of the electronic computer, and then the digital computer.
  - handoflixue 6d ago
    > They are necessarily behind the status quo. That seems like a really bizarre way to describe a tool that solved an open Millennium Prize Problem. They are, empirically and repeatedly, ahead of the status quo. So if your argument depends on them being behind the status quo, reality has already disproven it multiple times over.
    - mitxela 6d ago
      I wasn't aware a dictionary definition solved a Millennium Prize problem. Which one and how?
    - ben_w 6d ago
      I believe the argument you're responding to is "a set of dictionary definitions does not suffice to define intelligence"? I will admit the first time I read the thing you're replying to, I had a similar thought as you; From the sibling reply from them, I think they think they were obvious, but that also means I wouldn't expect their reply to help unless you had the same flash of inspiration I had.
4fddd3 6d ago
What we know is intelligence is definitely comprised of the trait of adaptability. E.g. humans get exposed to new LLM model - yeah its powerful - 1 week later - eh, that thing? Yeah it's whatever. I'm still employed. The human's ability to adapt so efficiently is mind-boggling - so much so it pi1sses sam altman and dario off.

ben_w 6d ago

How many examples you need to get good. Don't misunderstand: I'm happy saying AI models "think" or "have learned a thing", and for in-context learning I'd call them smart even by this definition… …but also, any living creature that needed as many examples as machine learning currently needs, would starve to death before figuring out how to eat. While training, machine learning processes (not just LLMs, also applies to e.g. self driving cars), are really really stupid and only make up for this by being really really stupid really really fast. To what I wrote upthread: the "victories" of humanity over machine keep getting closer, but we have yet to wake up one day in great confusion as we find an entire city is no longer in communication with anyone, nor finding ourselves in a state of utter disbelief when the reports come in that the city stopped communicating because it is entirely gone.

fasterik 6d ago
If we're including the training process and not just the final product, why shouldn't we include the billions of years of natural selection encoded in DNA sequences?
- ben_w 6d ago
  Because our evolutionary environment doesn't contain cars, poetry, calculus, Star Craft, hamburgers, touch screen computers, or doors, and yet we are able to learn these things with (relative to a computer) very few examples. Most of the effort of evolution was making cells work at all, and even then it's a bit weird, e.g. no plant or animal produces vitamin B12 and we all get this from some bacteria and archaea. And evolution is kinda hard to time right: bacteria can reproduce in minutes, humans in decades, but only mutations that survive reproduction can be passed on. This makes it even starker as a difference: bacteria had order of 1e13 generations to become multicellular, while human DNA had about 40,000 generations to cope with fire, 220 generations for evolution to do anything with the invention of the wheel, and one generation to cope with the invention of Minecraft. The analogy here would be: DNA is to our brains like a VN replicator bootstrapping a computer all the way up to a bare-metal-no-OS untrained model, and perhaps a few crude "hard coded" modules like a smiling-face-detector. It's a lot, but it's also missing a lot. If biology used the models and training processes that are state of the art in ML, it would take around a millennia to talk like a child and still fail the Sally-Anne test, and million years or so to pass a degree.