this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 93 points 7 months ago (11 children)

I don't want to spam this link but seriously watch this 3blue1brown video on how text transformers work. You're right on that last part, but its a far fetch from an intelligence. Just a very intelligent use of statistical methods. But its precisely that reason that reason it can be "convinced", because parameters restraining its output have to be weighed into the model, so its just a statistic that will fail.

Im not intending to downplay the significance of GPTs, but we need to baseline the hype around them before we can discuss where AI goes next, and what it can mean for people. Also far before we use it for any secure services, because we've already seen what can happen

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

but its a far fetch from an intelligence. Just a very intelligent use of statistical methods.

Did you know there is no rigorous scientific definition of intelligence?

Edit. facts

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

That statement of yours just means "we don't yet know how it works hence it must work in the way I believe it works", which is about the most illogical "statement" I've seen in a while (though this being the Internet, it hasn't been all that long of a while).

"It must be clever statistics" really doesn't follow from "science doesn't rigoroulsy define what it is".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes, corrected.

But my point stads: claiming there is no intelligence in AI models without even knowing what "real" intelligence is, is wrong.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think the point is more that the word "intelligence" as used in common speech is very vague.

I suppose a lot of people (certainly I do it and I expect many others do it too) will use the word "intelligence" in a general non-science setting in place of "rationalization" or "reasoning" which would be clearer terms but less well understood.

LLMs easilly produce output which is not logical, and a rational being can spot it as not following rationality (even of we don't understand why we can do logic, we can understand logic or the absence of it).

That said, so do lots of people, which makes an interesting point about lots of people not being rational, which nearly dovetails with your point about intelligence.

I would say the problem is trying to defined "inteligence" as something that includes all humans in all settings when clearly humans are perfectly capable of producing irrational shit whilst thinking of themselves as being highly intelligent whilst doing so.

I'm not sure if that's quite the point you were bringing up, but it's a pretty interesting one.

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