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We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent

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  • I am more talking about listening to and reading scientists in media. The definition of consciousness is vague at best

    I think that then we actually agree.

  • We are constantly fed a version of AI that looks, sounds and acts suspiciously like us. It speaks in polished sentences, mimics emotions, expresses curiosity, claims to feel compassion, even dabbles in what it calls creativity.

    But what we call AI today is nothing more than a statistical machine: a digital parrot regurgitating patterns mined from oceans of human data (the situation hasn’t changed much since it was discussed here five years ago). When it writes an answer to a question, it literally just guesses which letter and word will come next in a sequence – based on the data it’s been trained on.

    This means AI has no understanding. No consciousness. No knowledge in any real, human sense. Just pure probability-driven, engineered brilliance — nothing more, and nothing less.

    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. It doesn’t hunger, desire or fear. And because there is no cognition — not a shred — there’s a fundamental gap between the data it consumes (data born out of human feelings and experience) and what it can do with them.

    Philosopher David Chalmers calls the mysterious mechanism underlying the relationship between our physical body and consciousness the “hard problem of consciousness”. Eminent scientists have recently hypothesised that consciousness actually emerges from the integration of internal, mental states with sensory representations (such as changes in heart rate, sweating and much more).

    Given the paramount importance of the human senses and emotion for consciousness to “happen”, there is a profound and probably irreconcilable disconnect between general AI, the machine, and consciousness, a human phenomenon.

    It is intelligent and deductive, but it is not cognitive or even dependable.

  • What language was the first language based upon?

    What music influenced the first song performed?

    What art influenced the first cave painter?

    You seem to think that one day somebody invented the first language, or made the first song?

    There was no "first language" and no "first song". These things would have evolved from something that was not quite a full language, or not quite a full song.

    Animals influenced the first cave painters, that seems pretty obvious.

  • Ya of course I do. Humans are the most unreliable slick disgusting diseased morally inept living organisms on the planet.

    And they made the programs you seem to trust so much.

  • I think your argument is a bit besides the point.

    The first issue we have is that intelligence isn't well-defined at all. Without a clear definition of intelligence, we can't say if something is intelligent, and even though we as a species tried to come up with a definition of intelligence for centuries, there still isn't a well-defined one yet.

    But the actual question here isn't "Can AI serve information?" but is AI an intelligence. And LLMs are not. They are not beings, they don't evolve, they don't experience.

    For example, LLMs don't have a memory. If you use something like ChatGPT, its state doesn't change when you talk to it. It doesn't remember. The only way it can keep up a conversation is that for each request the whole chat history is fed back into the LLM as an input. It's like talking to a demented person, but you give that demented person a transcript of your conversation, so that they can look up everything you or they have said during the conversation.

    The LLM itself can't change due to the conversation you are having with them. They can't learn, they can't experience, they can't change.

    All that is done in a separate training step, where essentially a new LLM is generated.

    If we can't say if something is intelligent or not, why are we so hell-bent on creating this separation from LLMs? I perfectly understand the legal underminings of copyright, the weaponization of AI by the marketing people, the dystopian levels of dependence we're developing on a so far unreliable technology, and the plethora of moral, legal, and existential issues surrounding AI, but this specific subject feels like such a silly hill to die on. We don't know if we're a few steps away from having massive AI breakthroughs, we don't know if we already have pieces of algorithms that closely resemble our brains' own. Our experiencing of reality could very well be broken down into simple inputs and outputs of an algorithmic infinite loop; it's our hubris that elevates this to some mystical, unreproducible thing that only the biomechanics of carbon-based life can achieve, and only at our level of sophistication, because you may well recall we've been down this road with animals before as well, claiming they dont have souls or aren't conscious beings, that somehow because they don't very clearly match our intelligence in all aspects (even though they clearly feel, bond, dream, remember, and learn), they're somehow an inferior or less valid existence.

    You're describing very fixable limitations of chatgpt and other LLMs, limitations that are in place mostly due to costs and hardware constraints, not due to algorithmic limitations. On the subject of change, it's already incredibly taxing to train a model, so of course continuous, uninterrupted training so as to more closely mimick our brains is currently out of the question, but it sounds like a trivial mechanism to put into place once the hardware or the training processes improve. I say trivial, making it sound actually trivial, but I'm putting that in comparison to, you know, actually creating an LLM in the first place, which is already a gargantuan task to have accomplished in itself. The fact that we can even compare a delusional model to a person with heavy mental illness is already such a big win for the technology even though it's meant to be an insult.

    I'm not saying LLMs are alive, and they clearly don't experience the reality we experience, but to say there's no intelligence there because the machine that speaks exactly like us and a lot of times better than us, unlike any other being on this planet, has some other faults or limitations....is kind of stupid. My point here is, intelligence might be hard to define, but it might not be as hard to crack algorithmically if it's an emergent property, and enforcing this "intelligence" separation only hinders our ability to properly recognize whether we're on the right path to achieving a completely artificial being that can experience reality or not. We clearly are, LLMs and other models are clearly a step in the right direction, and we mustn't let our hubris cloud that judgment.

  • 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.

    It doesn’t take the entirety of the internet just for an LLM to respond in English. It could do so with far less. But it also has the entirety of the internet which arguably makes it superior to a human in breadth of information.

  • 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, magic tricks, the hundreds of common fallacies we fall prey to.... our minds are incredibly 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.

    Yep we are on the same page. At our best, we can reach higher than regurgitating patterns. I’m talking about things like the scientific method and everything we’ve learned by it. But still, that’s a 5% minority, at best, of what’s going on between human ears.

  • 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.

    Yes of course edge and corner cases are going to take much longer to train on because they don’t occur as often. But as soon as one self-driving car learns how to handle one of them, they ALL know. Meanwhile humans continue to be born and must be trained up individually and they continue to make stupid mistakes like not using their signal and checking their mirrors.

    Humans CAN handle cases that AI doesn’t know how to, yet, but humans often fail in inclement weather, around construction, etc etc.

  • Human brains are much more complex than a mirroring script xD The amount of neurons in your brain, AI and supercomputers only have a fraction of that. But you're right, for you its not much different than AI probably

    I’m pretty sure an AI could throw out a lazy straw man and ad hominem as quickly as you did.

  • No idea why you're getting downvoted. People here don't seem to understand even the simplest concepts of consciousness.

    I guess it wasn't super relevant to the prior comment, which was focused more on AI embodiment. Eh, it's just numbers anyway, no sweat off my back. Appreciate you, though!

  • If we can't say if something is intelligent or not, why are we so hell-bent on creating this separation from LLMs? I perfectly understand the legal underminings of copyright, the weaponization of AI by the marketing people, the dystopian levels of dependence we're developing on a so far unreliable technology, and the plethora of moral, legal, and existential issues surrounding AI, but this specific subject feels like such a silly hill to die on. We don't know if we're a few steps away from having massive AI breakthroughs, we don't know if we already have pieces of algorithms that closely resemble our brains' own. Our experiencing of reality could very well be broken down into simple inputs and outputs of an algorithmic infinite loop; it's our hubris that elevates this to some mystical, unreproducible thing that only the biomechanics of carbon-based life can achieve, and only at our level of sophistication, because you may well recall we've been down this road with animals before as well, claiming they dont have souls or aren't conscious beings, that somehow because they don't very clearly match our intelligence in all aspects (even though they clearly feel, bond, dream, remember, and learn), they're somehow an inferior or less valid existence.

    You're describing very fixable limitations of chatgpt and other LLMs, limitations that are in place mostly due to costs and hardware constraints, not due to algorithmic limitations. On the subject of change, it's already incredibly taxing to train a model, so of course continuous, uninterrupted training so as to more closely mimick our brains is currently out of the question, but it sounds like a trivial mechanism to put into place once the hardware or the training processes improve. I say trivial, making it sound actually trivial, but I'm putting that in comparison to, you know, actually creating an LLM in the first place, which is already a gargantuan task to have accomplished in itself. The fact that we can even compare a delusional model to a person with heavy mental illness is already such a big win for the technology even though it's meant to be an insult.

    I'm not saying LLMs are alive, and they clearly don't experience the reality we experience, but to say there's no intelligence there because the machine that speaks exactly like us and a lot of times better than us, unlike any other being on this planet, has some other faults or limitations....is kind of stupid. My point here is, intelligence might be hard to define, but it might not be as hard to crack algorithmically if it's an emergent property, and enforcing this "intelligence" separation only hinders our ability to properly recognize whether we're on the right path to achieving a completely artificial being that can experience reality or not. We clearly are, LLMs and other models are clearly a step in the right direction, and we mustn't let our hubris cloud that judgment.

    What is kinda stupid is not understanding how LLMs work, not understanding what the inherent limitations of LLMs are, not understanding what intelligence is, not understanding what the difference between an algorithm and intelligence is, not understanding what the difference between immitating something and being something is, claiming to "perfectly" understand all sorts of issues surrounding LLMs and then choosing to just ignore them and then still thinking you actually have enough of a point to call other people in the discussion "kind of stupid".

  • But, will you do it 24-7-365?

    i dont have anything else going on, man

  • You seem to think that one day somebody invented the first language, or made the first song?

    There was no "first language" and no "first song". These things would have evolved from something that was not quite a full language, or not quite a full song.

    Animals influenced the first cave painters, that seems pretty obvious.

    Yeah dude at one point there was no languages and no songs. You can get into "what counts as a language" but at one point there was none. Same with songs.

    Language specifically was pretty unlikely to be an individual effort, but at one point people grunting at each other became something else entirely.

    Your whole "there is nothing new under the sun" way of thinking is just an artifact of the era you were born in.

  • Current media and institutions already try to control the conversation and how people think, and I can see futures where AI could be used by those in power to do this more effectively.

    You don’t think that’s already happening considering how Sam Altman and Peter Thiel have ties?

    I do, but was thinking 1984-levels of control of reality.

  • Yeah dude at one point there was no languages and no songs. You can get into "what counts as a language" but at one point there was none. Same with songs.

    Language specifically was pretty unlikely to be an individual effort, but at one point people grunting at each other became something else entirely.

    Your whole "there is nothing new under the sun" way of thinking is just an artifact of the era you were born in.

    Haha wtf are you talking about. You have no idea what generation I am, you don't know how old I am and I never said there is nothing new under the sun.

  • Haha wtf are you talking about. You have no idea what generation I am, you don't know how old I am and I never said there is nothing new under the sun.

    I'm summarizing your shitty argument and viewpoint. I never said it was a direct quote.

    Though, at one point even that tired ass quote and your whole way of thinking was put into words by someone for the first time.

  • I think the self driving is likely to be safer in the most boring scenarios, the sort of situations where a human driver can get complacent because things have been going so well for the past hour of freeway driving. The self driving is kind of dumb, but it's at least consistently paying attention, and literally has eyes in the back of it's head.

    However, there's so much data about how it fails in stupidly obvious ways that it shouldn't, so you still need the human attention to cover the more anomalous scenarios that foul self driving.

    Anomalous scenarios like a giant flashing school bus? 😄

  • I'm summarizing your shitty argument and viewpoint. I never said it was a direct quote.

    Though, at one point even that tired ass quote and your whole way of thinking was put into words by someone for the first time.

    Well you are doing a poor job of it and are bringing an unnecessary amount of heat to an otherwise civil discussion

  • Anomalous scenarios like a giant flashing school bus? 😄

    Yes, as common as that is, in the scheme of driving it is relatively anomolous.

    By hours in car, most of the time is spent on a freeway driving between two lines either at cruising speed or in a traffic jam. The most mind numbing things for a human, pretty comfortably in the wheel house of driving.

    Once you are dealing with pedestrians, signs, intersections, etc, all those despite 'common' are anomolous enough to be dramatically more tricky for these systems.

  • Well you are doing a poor job of it and are bringing an unnecessary amount of heat to an otherwise civil discussion

    That's right. If you cannot win the argument the next best thing is to call for civility.

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    Obviously the law must be simple enough to follow so that for Jim’s furniture shop is not a problem nor a too high cost to respect it, but it must be clear that if you break it you can cease to exist as company. I think this may be the root of our disagreement, I do not believe that there is any law making body today that is capable of an elegantly simple law. I could be too naive, but I think it is possible. We also definitely have a difference on opinion when it comes to the severity of the infraction, in my mind, while privacy is important, it should not have the same level of punishments associated with it when compared to something on the level of poisoning water ways; I think that a privacy law should hurt but be able to be learned from while in the poison case it should result in the bankruptcy of a company. The severity is directly proportional to the number of people affected. If you violate the privacy of 200 million people is the same that you poison the water of 10 people. And while with the poisoning scenario it could be better to jail the responsible people (for a very, very long time) and let the company survive to clean the water, once your privacy is violated there is no way back, a company could not fix it. The issue we find ourselves with today is that the aggregate of all privacy breaches makes it harmful to the people, but with a sizeable enough fine, I find it hard to believe that there would be major or lasting damage. So how much money your privacy it's worth ? 6 For this reason I don’t think it is wise to write laws that will bankrupt a company off of one infraction which was not directly or indirectly harmful to the physical well being of the people: and I am using indirectly a little bit more strict than I would like to since as I said before, the aggregate of all the information is harmful. The point is that the goal is not to bankrupt companies but to have them behave right. The penalty associated to every law IS the tool that make you respect the law. And it must be so high that you don't want to break the law. I would have to look into the laws in question, but on a surface level I think that any company should be subjected to the same baseline privacy laws, so if there isn’t anything screwy within the law that apple, Google, and Facebook are ignoring, I think it should apply to them. Trust me on this one, direct experience payment processors have a lot more rules to follow to be able to work. I do not want jail time for the CEO by default but he need to know that he will pay personally if the company break the law, it is the only way to make him run the company being sure that it follow the laws. For some reason I don’t have my usual cynicism when it comes to this issue. I think that the magnitude of loses that vested interests have in these companies would make it so that companies would police themselves for fear of losing profits. That being said I wouldn’t be opposed to some form of personal accountability on corporate leadership, but I fear that they will just end up finding a way to create a scapegoat everytime. It is not cynicism. I simply think that a huge fine to a single person (the CEO for example) is useless since it too easy to avoid and if it really huge realistically it would be never paid anyway so nothing usefull since the net worth of this kind of people is only on the paper. So if you slap a 100 billion file to Musk he will never pay because he has not the money to pay even if technically he is worth way more than that. Jail time instead is something that even Musk can experience. In general I like laws that are as objective as possible, I think that a privacy law should be written so that it is very objectively overbearing, but that has a smaller fine associated with it. This way the law is very clear on right and wrong, while also giving the businesses time and incentive to change their practices without having to sink large amount of expenses into lawyers to review every minute detail, which is the logical conclusion of the one infraction bankrupt system that you seem to be supporting. Then you write a law that explicitally state what you can do and what is not allowed is forbidden by default.
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