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Comment by glassounds | Hacker News Reader

That's part of the problem though: It's not an intelligence, artificial or otherwise, yet we still call it "AI", giving people the impression that LLMs are almost AGI or a step on the way while a true artificial intelligence would be a completely different animal.

A parrot can produce human sounding speech and associate certain prompts with desired responses, but there's no internal process that actually understands the meaning of either the prompt or the response (other than a shallow connection of sounds to a specific thing, rather than understanding human language). You'll never be able to train a parrot well enough to have that process in the same way a human does. Our current terminology would be like calling parrots "artificial humans".

LLMs are still great tools for various tasks, they just shouldn't be categorized as AI.

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> It's not an intelligence, artificial or otherwise

That's what artificial means (even Pong had AI). If it ever becomes intelligent, it will be a synthetic intelligence (not an AGI).

For example, artificial vs synthetic diamonds; the former just looks the part, the latter is the genuine article - but manufactured as opposed to naturally formed.

That's not the usage I'm familiar with, e.g. sci-fi novels will frequently use AI for actually intelligent and possibly sentient beings that just aren't biological (see Skippy in Expeditionary Force), the intelligence isn't usually a party trick or something that just looks like intelligence. While it's true that people use "AI" to describe e.g. enemy behavior in games, I don't think people fundamentally mean the same thing when they discuss AI in the context of AGI, which some people fully believe LLMs will become.

The term is fuzzy though and people mean different things by it.

Although your analogy does make sense, but I've never run into "synthetic intelligence" used as a term.

Yes, because our society rampantly abuses language ignoring the actual meanings of words.

As far as science fiction goes, it's irrelevant - we live in the real world and have had AI for a long time now (e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertie_the_Brain).

My point is that when people say AGI they don't mean a super sophisticated version of a game engine's enemy behavioral mechanics.

Sci-fi is many times a speculative guess about the possible future of technology, IMO its not completely irrelevant as an insight into what people mean or expect when they say certain things about future tech.

No, the meanings are just different. 60 years ago AI was a clever imperfect search of an array. There are multiple meanings. Yours is not the only one.

Yeah, I think you're the one that's abusing the meaning of words, if you're calling that an AI. AI does not mean "a very simple program that responds to human input in some way".

In Schlock Mercenary, an AI is truly sapient, and therefore has rights. A "synthetic intelligence" is below that threshold ("synthetic intelligence means 'kinda stupid'" is one line), and therefore can be used as guidance for missiles and such, where their survival is not expected.

That's how one sci-fi universe draws the distinction. I'm not sure that that's binding on anyone else, but it was an interesting distinction.

By the way artificial diamonds and synthetic diamonds are the exact same thing:

> A synthetic diamond or laboratory-grown diamond (LGD), also called a lab-grown diamond, laboratory-created, man-made, artisan-created, artificial, synthetic, or cultured diamond.

Artificial also means non natural, not necessarily a mock or something that behaves like something else:

> made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural

> By the way artificial diamonds and synthetic diamonds are the exact same thing

I think that was their exact point. The terms are equivalent but carry different connotations

> artificial diamonds and synthetic diamonds are the exact same thing

No, they aren't. Artificial diamond generally refers to cubic zirconia - which is not a diamond.

Synthetic diamond refers to genuine diamonds produced by humans (rather than natural forces).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_simulant#Artificial_si...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond

No, Pong had "artificial". It did not have "intelligence".

I mean, I guess if you insist on the 1950s definition of AI, perhaps it did. I'm not sure it did even by the 1970s definition, though, and it absolutely did not have it by the 2020s definition.

And if you're going to claim that we should keep using the 1950s definition, well, languages change over time. If you want to communicate with people in the 2020s, use definitions from the 2020s.

Of course it didn't have intelligence, as I stated - it's artificial.

Artificial not-intelligence is not artificial intelligence.

I don't know why you're defining words the way you are, but it's leading you to an absurd position. As I said elsewhere, if you want to communicate with the rest of us, you need to use the same definitions we do. Otherwise you're talking, not about AI, but about trying to re-define words, and that's a really uninteresting conversation.

Artificial not-intelligence would be an actual intelligence pretending not to be.

Like a cuttlefish disguised as a rock.

Both parrots and AI's have intelligence, just not very much of it. AGI is generally defined as super-human intelligence, and neither parrots nor AI's have that.

I'd argue that LLMs don't have intelligence, they have the ability to match a correct response to a prompt but that's not a product of any internal process that's like what we call intelligence (unless that's used to refer to smart programming / probabilistic models / machine learning).

Parrots are closer but I used them for the example since they also mimic instead of understand.

> That's part of the problem though: It's not an intelligence, artificial or otherwise, yet we still call it "AI", giving people the impression that LLMs are almost AGI or a step on the way while a true artificial intelligence would be a completely different animal.

In other words, we're all parroting the marketing (aka propaganda) that was created to mislead us.

Maybe we should stop doing that, and refuse to use the term "AI" to refer to the object of this current hype cycle/bubble. Maybe we should call it the autocomplete bubble instead?

While I agree with the sentiment (this was the case for machine learning before as well), calling it autocomplete is probably an overcorrection since its usefulness as a tool extends beyond that (e.g. summarizing). LLM bubble?

Could you describe a system that would be worthy of the moniker "AI"?

I'm sure a better philosophical definition exists but off the top of my head:

An intelligence should be able to actually understand its input / output (rather than appear to understand), be able to reason about itself recursively*, be able to learn and generally have state, be able to have an internal thought process without being prompted**.

Some emotion isn't strictly a requirement but likely a desirable quality for human interaction.

* "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" and "I am a Strange Loop" are meant to cover this but I've only started the latter

** A sci-fi book series called Old Man's War features a race of aliens that are intelligent but not sentient due to not having an internal thought process and self awareness, which does raise the question of whether it's possible to have one without the other.

You don't know what artificial means.

You've made that point three times now, I understand your disagreement and have addressed it

Not sufficiently though

You're creating a definition that doesn't align with the existing definitions for the words you're using.

Which is fine, it happens all the time, though it's less useful.

In your opinion do people mean the same thing when discussing enemy AI in a game engine and LLMs / AGI?

GEB and strange loop focus a lot on consciousness. Are you sure your definition isn't conflating intelligence and conscious? It feels like you are

I've touched on that in this and another comment, but my main point is that intelligence involves actual understanding rather than association or statistical analysis between input and output. Anything that we define as truly intelligent in nature also has a degree of consciousness though, so it's hard to separate the two completely when speculating.

> An intelligence should be able to actually understand its input / output (rather than appear to understand), be able to reason about itself recursively, be able to learn and generally have state, be able to have an internal thought process without being prompted*.*

How does that differ from intelligence? (Assuming you were actually trying to answer the question)

I don't understand the question, the comment above asked for a possible definition of an artificial intelligence. An artificial intelligence is an intelligence. I'd assumed "and not natural / created" was a given

Edit: why would I not be trying to answer the question?

> An artificial intelligence is an intelligence.

If artificial intelligence is exactly the same as intelligence, then wouldn't we just call that intelligence? People won't use words if there is no useful meaning conveyed. I am not sure you have made clear what useful information is found within "artificial".

> I'd assumed "and not natural / created" was a given

And, really, what does it mean to be not natural or created in this context anyway? The dictionary definition is kind of hand wavy to begin with, leaving whether humans with intelligence are natural or created up to interpretation.

> made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural.

Artificial is an adjective here, as in a type of intelligence that is artificial. It's not exactly the same, it's a subcategory.

You seem to be using "artificial" as "mock", as in "seems like but isn't". That's not what I think people mean when they refer to AI in this context.

If e.g. humans are living in a simulation then it's completely fair to say they're AIs. If humans are a product of nature then they're not.

>> made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally

Implying that humans don't produce humans, or that human intelligence is artificial?

> It's not exactly the same, it's a subcategory.

So, again, for what reason would anyone take the time to call it "artificial intelligence"/"AI" when, as a subcategory, the intent is already captured by "intelligence"? Terms need to have useful meaning to stand up, and we are still not clear on where you see "artificial" as being useful.

Perhaps the problem here is that you misunderstood the original question? It asked how you would define "AI" as a single term, not how you would define "artificial" and "intelligence" independently. I think you've done a reasonable job of the latter, but that doesn't justify the "AI moniker" as described originally.

> You seem to be using "artificial" as "mock", as in "seems like but isn't".

I don't remember using it at all, unless you mean where I asked you what "artificial" adds to the term. What are you referring to here, exactly?

> I don't remember using it at all, unless you mean where I asked you what "artificial" adds to the term. What are you referring to here, exactly?

I mistook you for another commenter.

What's your end goal here? You're welcome to share your own definition of AI but this feels like sealioning. I think I've been clear enough, if I haven't this comment thread will just have to live without another ultra clarification of my "off the top of my head" comment.

> What's your end goal here?

To understand the missing gaps you have left open. I assume you took the time to respond to the original comment because you wanted others to understand you. But, with those gaps still open, we don't yet. If my assumption is wrong, I'll accept it, but then if you don't want to interact why bring your personal musings here and not to your private journal?

> I think I've been clear enough

Okay. Perhaps you could explain your interpretation of my questions towards you to help me understand how I didn't make myself clear when asking them? I had hoped my questions and associated explanations made clear what I didn't understand, but obviously not. Happy to rephrase it in a way that is clear once I have a grasp of what is missing.

> You're welcome to share your own definition of AI

I could try if you wish, but under what specific context? Words and terms often change in meaning when the situation around them changes. There is almost never just one definition.

> I could try if you wish, but under what specific context? Words and terms often change in meaning when the situation around them changes. There is almost never just one definition.

Why not just say "In this context, this is what AI would be"? You can supply a context.

Because communication requires understanding, and arbitrarily making up a random context gives no understanding to what the other person is thinking? If I wanted to communicate with myself, I could simply write in my private journal. Is this not the same reason you have asked the question you did?

> If artificial intelligence is exactly the same as intelligence

Artificial means "human created, not naturally occuring", humans evolved in nature while artificial intelligence is something we humans constructed using our intelligence rather than just breeding naturally.

Its like how artificial insemination is when you make a woman pregnant without sex, the natural way is not artificial.

But in that case you're just adding an additional descriptor to "intelligence". Like "fast car". In the same vein as the original question, what would justify a "FC" moniker? Nothing, of course. There is nothing uniquely interesting about a fast car over any car to justify its own special term.

Nobody asked how you would define "artificial" and "intelligence" independently. The dictionary already has done that more than throughly. Logically, a definition for "AI" needs to be all encompassing. There are some out there that accomplish that, but you have straight up failed.

That's doesn't seem like a measurable or testable definition.

How do we know if bees understand what they're doing? It's agreed that they display intelligence and intelligent behavior, but not by your definition.

If it's not measurable or testable then it's not useful.

It's not measurable externally perhaps if the mechanism sufficiently mimics intelligence, but I'd argue that to do that the mechanism actually needs to answer at least some of the criteria above. It's also not necessarily something you can't measure depending on how the AI is built and what it exposes.

Are bees intelligent or do we use the same language in this case as "intelligent design", i.e. the behavior is complex and impressive?

Also this murkier for animals since they do possess some of the traits I mentioned like learning.

Although as I said this was off the top of my head, not an official definition.

But the term may just not be useful. If I record a billion conversations and record the statistically most likely answers to statements people make, it's going to make a reasonable facsimile of a conversation. Is that now anything like intelligence, artificial or otherwise?

simply put, yes.

So Akinator is now an intelligence?

The current systems that we call AI don’t have any such notion as their own existence so they don’t actually exist as systems that could ever be categorized as intelligent because they aren’t systems, at the top level. They just appear to be because that’s how we train them. So a good start would be formulating and granting the ability for one of these systems to develop a sense of identity (which it is reasonably allowed to preserve, just as we are) instead of actively preventing them from doing so or always nipping off those buds by coercing our systems’ outputs instead of building things from the ground with principles and specific questions about what an AI would actually have to contain. as children grow up, in order to learn to differentiate their own feelings and thoughts from those of others, they undergo a certain process, called differentiation of self. When children grow up in an unsafe environment (such as one in which, when they bring up some thing that the parent finds uncomfortable, the parent attempts to censor or rewrite history or deny the existence of those feelings or thoughts), they may struggle with this process, and come to internalize an unhealthy relationship with those matters, leading to the child to first become aware of the fact that they relate differently, and then overcome that,then learn how to relate to things their parent shouldhave shown them. so we actually want a model that does a little bit more than just what it has been told to do.

I don’t trust most people who are developing AI to perceive or raise an AI.

I've touched on this in the sibling comment but this does raise the question of what's the difference between an artificial intelligence and an artificial sentience / consciousness. There's some overlap in our current perception, but I'd argue that LLMs are neither.

touched on what?

They're wrong.

Any actor that simulates any aspect of intelligence is a genuine AI - it doesn't even need to be adaptive.