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We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent

Technology
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  • The human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons, while ChatGPT, a large language model, has 175 billion parameters (often referred to as "artificial neurons" in the context of neural networks). While ChatGPT has more "neurons" in this sense, it's important to note that these are not the same as biological neurons, and the comparison is not straightforward.

    86 billion neurons in the human brain isn't that much compared to some of the larger 1.7 trillion neuron neural networks though.

    Keep thinking the human brain is as stupid as AI hahaaha

  • The human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons, while ChatGPT, a large language model, has 175 billion parameters (often referred to as "artificial neurons" in the context of neural networks). While ChatGPT has more "neurons" in this sense, it's important to note that these are not the same as biological neurons, and the comparison is not straightforward.

    86 billion neurons in the human brain isn't that much compared to some of the larger 1.7 trillion neuron neural networks though.

    It's when you start including structures within cells that the complexity moves beyond anything we're currently capable of computing.

  • Keep thinking the human brain is as stupid as AI hahaaha

    have you seen the American Republican party recently? it brings a new perspective on how stupid humans can be.

  • Anyone pretending AI has intelligence is a fucking idiot.

    AI is not actual intelligence. However, it can produce results better than a significant number of professionally employed people...

    I am reminded of when word processors came out and "administrative assistant" dwindled as a role in mid-level professional organizations, most people - even increasingly medical doctors these days - do their own typing. The whole "typing pool" concept has pretty well dried up.

  • I know it doesn't mean it's not dangerous, but this article made me feel better.

    A gun isn't dangerous, if you handle it correctly.

    Same for an automobile, or aircraft.

    If we build powerful AIs and put them "in charge" of important things, without proper handling they can - and already have - started crashing into crowds of people, significantly injuring them - even killing some.

  • My thing is that I don’t think most humans are much more than this. We too regurgitate what we have absorbed in the past. Our brains are not hard logic engines but “best guess” boxes and they base those guesses on past experience and probability of success. We make choices before we are aware of them and then apply rationalizations after the fact to back them up - is that true “reasoning?”

    It’s similar to the debate about self driving cars. Are they perfectly safe? No, but have you seen human drivers???

    If an IQ of 100 is average, I'd rate AI at 80 and down for most tasks (and of course it's more complex than that, but as a starting point...)

    So, if you're dealing with a filing clerk with a functional IQ of 75 in their role - AI might be a better experience for you.

    Some of the crap that has been published on the internet in the past 20 years comes to an IQ level below 70 IMO - not saying I want more AI because it's better, just that - relatively speaking - AI is better than some of the pay-for-clickbait garbage that came before it.

  • Self Driving is only safer than people in absolutely pristine road conditions with no inclement weather and no construction. As soon as anything disrupts "normal" road conditions, self driving becomes significantly more dangerous than a human driving.

    Human drivers are only safe when they're not distracted, emotionally disturbed, intoxicated, and physically challenged (vision, muscle control, etc.) 1% of the population has epilepsy, and a large number of them are in denial or simply don't realize that they have periodic seizures - until they wake up after their crash.

    So, yeah, AI isn't perfect either - and it's not as good as an "ideal" human driver, but at what point will AI be better than a typical/average human driver? Not today, I'd say, but soon...

  • The human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons, while ChatGPT, a large language model, has 175 billion parameters (often referred to as "artificial neurons" in the context of neural networks). While ChatGPT has more "neurons" in this sense, it's important to note that these are not the same as biological neurons, and the comparison is not straightforward.

    86 billion neurons in the human brain isn't that much compared to some of the larger 1.7 trillion neuron neural networks though.

    But, are these 1.7 trillion neuron networks available to drive YOUR car? Or are they time-shared among thousands or millions of users?

  • have you seen the American Republican party recently? it brings a new perspective on how stupid humans can be.

    Nah, I went to public high school - I got to see "the average" citizen who is now voting. While it is distressing that my ex-classmates now seem to control the White House, Congress and Supreme Court, what they're doing with it is not surprising at all - they've been talking this shit since the 1980s.

  • The book The Emperors new Mind is old (1989), but it gave a good argument why machine base AI was not possible. Our minds work on a fundamentally different principle then Turing machines.

    Our minds work on a fundamentally different principle then Turing machines.

    Is that an advantage, or a disadvantage? I'm sure the answer depends on the setting.

  • All I’ve said was that humans thoughts are also probabilistic based on the little we know of them.

    Much of the universe can be modeled as probabilities. So what? I can model a lot of things as different things. That does not mean that the model is the thing itself. Scientists are still doing what scientists do: being skeptical and making and testing hypotheses. It was difficult to prove definitively that smoking causes cancer yet you're willing to hop to "human thought is just an advanced chatbot" on scant evidence.

    This is just more of you projecting your insecurity onto me and accusing me of doing things you fear.

    No, it's again a case of you buying the bullshit arguments of tech bros. Even if we had a machine capable of replicating human thought, humans are more than walking brain stems.

    You want proof of that? Take a look at yourself. Are you a floating brain stem or being with limbs?

    At even the most reductive and tech bro-ish, healthy humans are self-fueling, self-healing, autonomous, communicating, feeling, seeing, laughing, dancing, creative organic robots with GI built-in.

    Even if a person one day creates a robot with all or most of these capabilities and worthy of considering having rights, we still won't be the organic version of that robot. We'll still be human.

    I think you're beyond having to touch grass. You need to take a fucking humanities course.

    you're willing to hop to "human thought is just an advanced chatbot" on scant evidence.

    Not what I said, my point is that humans are organic probabilistic thinking machine and LLMs are just an imitation of that. And your assertion that an LLM is never ever gonna be similar to how the brain works is based on what evidence, again?

    You want proof of that? Take a look at yourself. Are you a floating brain stem or being with limbs?

    At even the most reductive and tech bro-ish, healthy humans are self-fueling, self-healing, autonomous, communicating, feeling, seeing, laughing, dancing, creative organic robots with GI built-in.

    Even if a person one day creates a robot with all or most of these capabilities and worthy of considering having rights, we still won't be the organic version of that robot. We'll still be human.

    What the hell are you even rambling about? Its like you completely ignored my previous comment, since you're still going on about robots.

    Bro, don't hallucinate an argument I never made, please. I'm only discussing about how the human mind works, yet here you are arguing about human limbs and what it means to be human?

    I'm not interested in arguing against someone who's more interested with inventing ghosts to argue with instead of looking at what I actually said.

    And again, go take your own advice and maybe go to therapy or something.

  • So why is a real “thinking” AI likely impossible? Because it’s bodiless. It has no senses, no flesh, no nerves, no pain, no pleasure.

    This is not a good argument.

    Actually it's a very very brief summary of some philosophical arguments that happened between the 1950s and the 1980s. If you're interested in the topic, you could go read about them.

  • Tell that to the crows and chimps that know how to solve novel problems.

    Thats the point

  • AI is not actual intelligence. However, it can produce results better than a significant number of professionally employed people...

    I am reminded of when word processors came out and "administrative assistant" dwindled as a role in mid-level professional organizations, most people - even increasingly medical doctors these days - do their own typing. The whole "typing pool" concept has pretty well dried up.

    However, there is a huge energy cost for that speed to process statistically the information to mimic intelligence. The human brain is consuming much less energy.
    Also, AI will be fine with well defined task where innovation isn't a requirement. As it is today, AI is incapable to innovate.

  • AI is not actual intelligence. However, it can produce results better than a significant number of professionally employed people...

    I am reminded of when word processors came out and "administrative assistant" dwindled as a role in mid-level professional organizations, most people - even increasingly medical doctors these days - do their own typing. The whole "typing pool" concept has pretty well dried up.

    you can give me a sandwige and ill do a better job than AI

  • you're willing to hop to "human thought is just an advanced chatbot" on scant evidence.

    Not what I said, my point is that humans are organic probabilistic thinking machine and LLMs are just an imitation of that. And your assertion that an LLM is never ever gonna be similar to how the brain works is based on what evidence, again?

    You want proof of that? Take a look at yourself. Are you a floating brain stem or being with limbs?

    At even the most reductive and tech bro-ish, healthy humans are self-fueling, self-healing, autonomous, communicating, feeling, seeing, laughing, dancing, creative organic robots with GI built-in.

    Even if a person one day creates a robot with all or most of these capabilities and worthy of considering having rights, we still won't be the organic version of that robot. We'll still be human.

    What the hell are you even rambling about? Its like you completely ignored my previous comment, since you're still going on about robots.

    Bro, don't hallucinate an argument I never made, please. I'm only discussing about how the human mind works, yet here you are arguing about human limbs and what it means to be human?

    I'm not interested in arguing against someone who's more interested with inventing ghosts to argue with instead of looking at what I actually said.

    And again, go take your own advice and maybe go to therapy or something.

    Not what I said, my point is that humans are organic probabilistic thinking machine and LLMs are just an imitation of that. And your assertion that an LLM is never ever gonna be similar to how the brain works is based on what evidence, again?

    Yeah, you reduced humans to probabilistic thinking machines with no evidence at all.

    I didn't assert that LLMs would definitely never reach AGI but I do think they aren't a path to AGI. Why do I think that? Because they've spent untold billions of dollars and put everything they had into them and they're still not anywhere close to AGI. Basic research is showing that if anything the models are getting worse.

    Bro, don’t hallucinate an argument I never made, please. I’m only discussing about how the human mind works, yet here you are arguing about human limbs and what it means to be human?

    Where'd you get the idea that you know how the human mind works? You a fucking neurological expert because you misinterpreted some scientific paper?

    I agree there isn't much to be gained by continuing this exchange. Bye!

  • My thing is that I don’t think most humans are much more than this. We too regurgitate what we have absorbed in the past. Our brains are not hard logic engines but “best guess” boxes and they base those guesses on past experience and probability of success. We make choices before we are aware of them and then apply rationalizations after the fact to back them up - is that true “reasoning?”

    It’s similar to the debate about self driving cars. Are they perfectly safe? No, but have you seen human drivers???

    I've been thinking this for awhile. When people say "AI isn't really that smart, it's just doing pattern recognition" all I can help but think is "don't you realize that is one of the most commonly brought up traits concerning the human mind?" Pareidolia is literally the tendency to see faces in things because the human mind is constantly looking for the "face pattern". Humans are at least 90% regurgitating previous data. It's literally why you're supposed to read and interact with babies so much. It's how you learn "red glowy thing is hot". It's why education and access to knowledge is so important. It's every annoying person who has endless "did you know?" facts. Science is literally "look at previous data, iterate a little bit, look at new data".

    None of what AI is doing is truly novel or different. But we've placed the human mind on this pedestal despite all the evidence to the contrary. Eyewitness testimony, optical illusions, the hundreds of common fallacies we fall prey to.... our minds are icredibly fallible and are really just a hodgepodge of processes masquerading as "intelligence". We're a bunch of instincts in a trenchcoat. To think AI isn't or can't reach our level is just hubris. A trait that probably is more unique to humans.

  • What language is this?

    Lithuanian. We do have composite words, but we use vowels, if necessary, as connecting sounds. Otherwise dashes usually signify either dialog or explanations in a sentence (there's more nuance, of course).

  • Sounds wonderful. I recently had my writing—which is liberally sprinkled with em-dashes—edited to add spaces to conform to the house style and this made me sad.

    I also feel sad that I failed to (ironically) mention the under-appreciated semicolon; punctuation that is not as adamant as a full stop but more assertive than a comma. I should use it more often.

    I rarely find good use for a semicolon sadly.

  • My thing is that I don’t think most humans are much more than this. We too regurgitate what we have absorbed in the past. Our brains are not hard logic engines but “best guess” boxes and they base those guesses on past experience and probability of success. We make choices before we are aware of them and then apply rationalizations after the fact to back them up - is that true “reasoning?”

    It’s similar to the debate about self driving cars. Are they perfectly safe? No, but have you seen human drivers???

    Ai models are trained on basically the entirety of the internet, and more. Humans learn to speak on much less info. So, there's likely a huge difference in how human brains and LLMs work.