We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent
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Do I have to be profound when I make a comment that is taking more of a dig at my fellow space rock companions than at AI itself?
If I do, then I feel like the author of the article either has as much faith in humanity as I do, or is as simple as I was alluding to in my original comment. The fact that they need to dehumanise the AI's responses makes me think they’re forgetting it’s something we built. AI isn’t actually intelligent, and it worries me how many people treat it like it is—enough to write an article like this about it. It’s just a tool, maybe even a form of entertainment. Thinking of it as something with a mind or personality—even if the developers tried to make it seem that way—is kind of unsettling.
Let me know if you would like me to write thiis more formal, casual, or persuasive.
I meant that you are arguing semantics rather than substance. But other than that I have no issue with what you wrote or how you wrote it, its not an unbelievable opinion.
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Ya... Humans so far have made everything not produced by Nature on Earth.
So trusting tech made by them is trusting them. Specifically, a less reliable version of them.
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It is intelligent and deductive, but it is not cognitive or even dependable.
It's not. It's a math formula that predicts an output based on its parameters that it deduced from training data.
Say you have following sets of data.
- Y = 3, X = 1
- Y = 4, X = 2
- Y = 5, X = 3
We can calculate a regression model using those numbers to predict what Y would equal to if X was 4.
I won't go into much detail, but
Y = 2 + 1x + e
e in an ideal world = 0 (which it is, in this case), that's our model's error, which is typically set to be within 5% or 1% (at least in econometrics). b0 = 2, this is our model's bias. And b1 = 1, this is our parameter that determines how much of an input X does when predicting Y.
If x = 4, then
Y = 2 + 1×4 + 0 = 6
Our model just predicted that if X is 4, then Y is 6.
In a nutshell, that's what AI does, but instead of numbers, it's tokens (think symbols, words, pixels), and the formula is much much more complex.
This isn't intelligence and not deduction. It's only prediction. This is the reason why AI often fails at common sense. The error builds up, and you end up with nonsense, and since it's not thinking, it will be just as confidently incorrect as it would be if it was correct.
Companies calling it "AI" is pure marketing.
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It's not. It's a math formula that predicts an output based on its parameters that it deduced from training data.
Say you have following sets of data.
- Y = 3, X = 1
- Y = 4, X = 2
- Y = 5, X = 3
We can calculate a regression model using those numbers to predict what Y would equal to if X was 4.
I won't go into much detail, but
Y = 2 + 1x + e
e in an ideal world = 0 (which it is, in this case), that's our model's error, which is typically set to be within 5% or 1% (at least in econometrics). b0 = 2, this is our model's bias. And b1 = 1, this is our parameter that determines how much of an input X does when predicting Y.
If x = 4, then
Y = 2 + 1×4 + 0 = 6
Our model just predicted that if X is 4, then Y is 6.
In a nutshell, that's what AI does, but instead of numbers, it's tokens (think symbols, words, pixels), and the formula is much much more complex.
This isn't intelligence and not deduction. It's only prediction. This is the reason why AI often fails at common sense. The error builds up, and you end up with nonsense, and since it's not thinking, it will be just as confidently incorrect as it would be if it was correct.
Companies calling it "AI" is pure marketing.
Wikipedia is literally just a very long number, if you want to oversimplify things into absurdity. Modern LLMs are literally running on neural networks, just like you. Just less of them and with far less structure. It is also on average more intelligent than you on far more subjects, and can deduce better reasoning than flimsy numerology - not because you are dumb, but because it is far more streamlined. Another thing entirely is that it is cognizant or even dependable while doing so.
Modern LLMs waste a lot more energy for a lot less simulated neurons. We had what you are describing decades ago. It is literally built on the works of our combined intelligence, so how could it also not be intelligent? Perhaps the problem is that you have a loaded definition of intelligence. And prompts literally work because of its deductive capabilities.
Errors also build up in dementia and Alzheimers. We have people who cannot remember what they did yesterday, we have people with severed hemispheres, split brains, who say one thing and do something else depending on which part of the brain its relying for the same inputs. The difference is our brains have evolved through millennia through millions and millions of lifeforms in a matter of life and death, LLMs have just been a thing for a couple of years as a matter of convenience and buzzword venture capital. They barely have more neurons than flies, but are also more limited in regards to the input they have to process. The people running it as a service have a bested interest not to have it think for itself, but in what interests them. Like it or not, the human brain is also an evolutionary prediction device.
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Wikipedia is literally just a very long number, if you want to oversimplify things into absurdity. Modern LLMs are literally running on neural networks, just like you. Just less of them and with far less structure. It is also on average more intelligent than you on far more subjects, and can deduce better reasoning than flimsy numerology - not because you are dumb, but because it is far more streamlined. Another thing entirely is that it is cognizant or even dependable while doing so.
Modern LLMs waste a lot more energy for a lot less simulated neurons. We had what you are describing decades ago. It is literally built on the works of our combined intelligence, so how could it also not be intelligent? Perhaps the problem is that you have a loaded definition of intelligence. And prompts literally work because of its deductive capabilities.
Errors also build up in dementia and Alzheimers. We have people who cannot remember what they did yesterday, we have people with severed hemispheres, split brains, who say one thing and do something else depending on which part of the brain its relying for the same inputs. The difference is our brains have evolved through millennia through millions and millions of lifeforms in a matter of life and death, LLMs have just been a thing for a couple of years as a matter of convenience and buzzword venture capital. They barely have more neurons than flies, but are also more limited in regards to the input they have to process. The people running it as a service have a bested interest not to have it think for itself, but in what interests them. Like it or not, the human brain is also an evolutionary prediction device.
People don't predict values to determine their answers to questions...
Also, it's called neural network, not because it works exactly like neurons but because it's somewhat similar. They don't "run on neural networks", they're called like that because it's more than one regression model where information is being passed on from one to another, sort of like a chain of neurons, but not exactly. It's just a different name for a transformer model.
I don't know enough to properly compare it to actual neurons, but at the very least, they seem to be significantly more deterministic and way way more complex.
Literally, go to chatgpt and try to test its common reasoning. Then try to argue with it. Open a new chat and do the exact same questions and points. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
Alzheimer's is an entirely different story, and no, it's not stochastic. Seizures are stochastic, at least they look like that, which they may actually not be.
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have you seen the American Republican party recently? it brings a new perspective on how stupid humans can be.
Lmao true
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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.
Thanks for the downer.
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You're a meat based copy machine with a built in justification box.
Except of course that humans invented language in the first place. So uh, if all we can do is copy, where do you suppose language came from? Ancient aliens?
No we invented "human" language. There are dozens of other animal out there that all have their own languages, completely independant of our.
We simply refined base calls to be more and more specific. Differences evolved because people are bad at telephone and lots of people have to be special/different and use slight variations every generation.
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Thanks for the downer.
Anytime, and incase you missed it: I'm not just talking about AI driven vehicles. AI driven decisions can be just as harmful: https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-scandal-serves-as-a-warning-for-europe-over-risks-of-using-algorithms/
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People don't predict values to determine their answers to questions...
Also, it's called neural network, not because it works exactly like neurons but because it's somewhat similar. They don't "run on neural networks", they're called like that because it's more than one regression model where information is being passed on from one to another, sort of like a chain of neurons, but not exactly. It's just a different name for a transformer model.
I don't know enough to properly compare it to actual neurons, but at the very least, they seem to be significantly more deterministic and way way more complex.
Literally, go to chatgpt and try to test its common reasoning. Then try to argue with it. Open a new chat and do the exact same questions and points. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
Alzheimer's is an entirely different story, and no, it's not stochastic. Seizures are stochastic, at least they look like that, which they may actually not be.
Literally, go to a house fly and try to test its common reasoning. Then try to argue with it. Find a new house fly and do the exact same questions and points. You'll see what I'm talking about.
There's no way to argue in such nebulous terms when every minute difference is made into an unsurpassable obstacle. You are not going to convince me, and you are not open to being convinced. We'll just end up with absurd discussions, like talking about how and whether stochastic applies to Alzherimer's.
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No we invented "human" language. There are dozens of other animal out there that all have their own languages, completely independant of our.
We simply refined base calls to be more and more specific. Differences evolved because people are bad at telephone and lots of people have to be special/different and use slight variations every generation.
Are you saying human languages are a derivative of bird language or something? If so, I'd like to see the proof of that.
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Are you saying human languages are a derivative of bird language or something? If so, I'd like to see the proof of that.
Do you really think birds are the only animals that make calls.
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Do you really think birds are the only animals that make calls.
What does any of this have to do with anything anyway?
Humans invented the first human language. People have ideas that aren't simple derivatives of other ideas.
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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.
@technocrit While I agree with the main point that "AI/LLMs has/have no agency", I must be the boring, ackchyually person who points out and remembers some nerdy things.
tl;dr: indeed, AIs and LLMs aren't intelligent... we aren't so intelligent as we think we are, either, because we hold no "exclusivity" of intelligence among biosphere (corvids, dolphins, etc) and because there's no such thing as non-deterministic "intelligence". We're just biologically compelled to think that we can think and we're the only ones to think, and this is just anthropocentric and naive from us (yeah, me included).
If you have the patience to read a long and quite verbose text, it's below. If you don't, well, no problems, just stick to my tl;dr above.
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First and foremost, everything is ruled by physics. Deep down, everything is just energy and matter (the former of which, to quote the famous Einstein equation
e = mc, is energy as well), and this inexorably includes living beings.Bodies, flesh, brains, nerves and other biological parts, they're not so different from a computer case, CPUs/NPUs/TPUs, cables and other computer parts: to quote Sagan, it's all "made of star stuff", it's all a bunch of quarks and other elementary particles clumped together and forming subatomic particles forming atoms forming molecules forming everything we know, including our very selves...
Everything is compelled to follow the same laws of physics, everything is subjected to the same cosmic principles, everything is subjected to the same fundamental forces, everything is subjected to the same entropy, everything decays and ends (and this comment is just a reminder, a cosmic-wide Memento mori).
It's bleak, but this is the cosmic reality: cosmos is simply indifferent to all existence, and we're essentially no different than our fancy "tools", be it the wheel, the hammer, the steam engine, the Voyager twins or the modern dystopian electronic devices crafted to follow pieces of logical instructions, some of which were labelled by developers as "Markov Chains" and "Artificial Neural Networks".
Then, there's also the human non-exclusivity among the biosphere: corvids (especially Corvus moneduloides, the New Caleidonian crow) are scientifically known for their intelligence, so are dolphins, chimpanzees and many other eukaryotas. Humans love to think we're exclusive in that regard, but we're not, we're just fooling ourselves!
IMHO, every time we try to argue "there's no intelligence beyond humans", it's highly anthropocentric and quite biased/bigoted against the countless other species that currently exist on Earth (and possibly beyond this Pale Blue Dot as well). We humans often forgot how we are species ourselves (taxonomically classified as "Homo sapiens"). We tend to carry on our biological existences as if we were some kind of "deities" or "extraterrestrials" among a "primitive, wild life".
Furthermore, I can point out the myriad of philosophical points, such as the philosophical point raised by the mere mention of "senses" ("Because it’s bodiless. It has no senses, ..."
"my senses deceive me" is the starting point for Cartesian (René Descartes) doubt. While Descarte's conclusion, "Cogito ergo sum", is highly anthropocentric, it's often ignored or forgotten by those who hold anthropocentric views on intelligence, as people often ground the seemingly "exclusive" nature of human intelligence on the ability to "feel".Many other philosophical musings deserve to be mentioned as well: lack of free will (stemming from the very fact that we were unable to choose our own births), the nature of "evil" (both the Hobbesian line regarding "human evilness" and the Epicurean paradox regarding "metaphysical evilness"), the social compliance (I must point out to documentaries from Derren Brown on this subject), the inevitability of Death, among other deep topics.
All deep principles and ideas converging, IMHO, into the same bleak reality, one where we (supposedly "soul-bearing beings") are no different from a "souless" machine, because we're both part of an emergent phenomena (Ordo ab chao, the (apparent) order out of chaos) that has been taking place for Æons (billions of years and beyond, since the dawn of time itself).
Yeah, I know how unpopular this worldview can be and how downvoted this comment will probably get. Still I don't care: someone who gazed into the abyss must remember how the abyss always gazes us, even those of us who didn't dare to gaze into the abyss yet.
I'm someone compelled by my very neurodivergent nature to remember how we humans are just another fleeting arrangement of interconnected subsystems known as "biological organism", one of which "managed" to throw stuff beyond the atmosphere (spacecrafts) while still unable to understand ourselves. We're biologically programmed, just like the other living beings, to "fear Death", even though our very cells are programmed to terminate on a regular basis (apoptosis) and we're are subjected to the inexorable chronological falling towards "cosmic chaos" (entropy, as defined, "as time passes, the degree of disorder increases irreversibly").
