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Comment by qarl | Hacker News Reader

Well... except... cats can't talk.

And as Marvin Minsky taught us, which is probably one of the most profound insights in the entire field, talking seems like an accomplishment to us because it's the least developed part of our capacities. It's so conscious a task not because it's a sign of intellect but because it's the least developed and most novel thing our brains do, which is why it's also likely the fastest to learn for a machine.

Moving as smoothly as a cat and navigating the world is the part that actually took our brains millions of years to learn, and movement is effortless not because it's easy but because it took so long to master, so it's also going to be the most difficult thing to teach a machine.

The cognitive stuff is the dumb part, and that's why we have chess engines, pocket calculators and chatbots before we have emotional machines, artificial plumbers and robots that move like spiders.

I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it.

Ten years ago, it was common to hear the argument: "Are cats intelligent? No, they can't speak." Language was seen as the pinnacle of the mind. Lately that's been flipped on its head, but only because machines have gotten so good at it.

I think the real reason we don't have robots that move like spiders is that robots don't have muscles, and motors are a very poor approximation.

>I think the real reason we don't have robots that move like spiders is that robots don't have muscles

If that was the real reason we'd have self driving cars deserving of that label before we had ChatGPT. In the world of atoms we still struggle with machines that are magnitudes less sophisticated than even a worm. No, it's because being embedded in the world is much more like being a cat and much less like a LLM or a chess computer.

Making something that's like a curious five year old who can't do a lot of impressive things and has no market value but who is probably closer to genuine intelligence is going to be much harder than making a search engine for the internet's latent space.

Cats and spiders are good at navigating physical space - but aren't really known for intelligence. And they're terrible drivers.

I'll grant you that LLMs are terrible at what I'd call "animal intelligence" - but I'm not so sure that animal intelligence is what is needed to, say, discover the laws of the universe. Solving mathematical problems is much more like playing chess than driving a car.

I believe my cats sometimes get frustrated with the limitations of their own vocalizations and try to work around them when communicating with me. If, say, they want a treat, they are only able to meow and perform "whiny" body motions, and maybe I'll give them pets or throw a ball instead. So they have adapted a bit:

- both of them will spit regular kibble out in front of me when they want a fancier treat (cats are hilarious)

- the boy cat has developed very specific "sweet meows" (soft, high-pitched) for affection and "needy meows" (loud, full-chested) for toys or food; for the first few years he would simply amp up the volume and then give a frustrated growl when I did the wrong thing

- the lady cat (who only has two volumes, "yell" and "scream"), instead stands near what she wants before meowing; bedroom for cuddles, water bowl for treats, hallway or office for toys

- the lady cat was sick a while back and had painful poops; for weeks afterwards if she wanted attention and I was busy she would pretend to poop and pretend to be in pain, manipulating me into dropping my work and checking on her

It goes both ways, I've developed ways of communicating with them over the years:

- the lady is skittish but loves laying in bed with me, so I sing "gotta get up, little pup" in a particular way; she will then get up and give me space to leave the bed, without me scaring her with a sudden movement

- I don't lose my patience with them often, but they understand my anxious/exasperated tone of voice and don't push their luck too much (note that some of this is probably shared mammalian instinct)

- the boy sometimes bullies the lady, and I'll raise my voice at him; despite being otherwise skittish and scared of loud noises, the lady seems to understand that I am mad at the boy because of his actions and there's nothing to be alarmed by

Sometimes I think the focus on "context-free" (or at least context-lite) symbolic language, essentially unique to humans, makes us lose focus on the fact that communication is far older than the dinosaurs, and that maybe further progress on language AI should focus on communication itself, rather than symbol processing with communication as a side effect.

Or write code. Or write songs. Or create paintings. Or write essays.

The whole comparison is stupid, and inexplicable at LeCun's level of play. AI is not a model of a human brain, or a cat brain, or a parrot brain, or any other kind of brain. It's something else, something that did not exist in any form just a few years ago.

What is increasingly making sense to me is the description of current AI as an alien intelligence—something potentially powerful but fundamentally different from ours. Viewed that way, LeCun's use of humans—or cats—as the baseline seems misguided. Yes, there are things biological intelligence can do that artificial intelligence cannot, but there are also things AI can do better than us. And the danger might be that, because of their speed, replicability, networkability, and other capabilities that exceed those of biology, AI systems can be intelligent in ways that we have trouble imagining.

Valid point there, for sure. People are so busy arguing over when and whether we'll build something with human-level intelligence, they aren't stopping to ask if something even better is possible.

The flip side is that AI systems can also be stupid in ways we have trouble imagining. Which we are seeing play out with LLMs - while able to make plausible and persuasive sentences - they also confidently make many mistakes that humans are very unlikely to do.

We must at the very least resist trying to compare human with artificial intelligence on general, dimensional measures. It does not make any sense, because the nature of the two are more different than alike.

Animals fly by flapping their wings, hence an airplane is not really flying. It can't even land safely in a tree!

Exactly. It's pointless to argue over whether an aircraft is really capable of flight, when small drones are already capable of outmaneuvering most birds on the birds' own turf.

Maybe AI can translate

HEH... reminds me of an argument Searle once made: with the right "translation" you can make a wall intelligent.

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