Hacker News Reader

Comment by regenschutz | Hacker News Reader

>LLMs aren't even AI, […]

I am very curious to know what you classify as AI then. Do you mean that LLMs aren't artificial? Or aren't intelligent?

Are those important questions that need to be answered? Rather, you should be asking whether you could use backprop and NNs to create something other than text predictors. What have LLMs changed about your conception of intelligence?

As far as I can see, none of the hard problems of intelligence that we had a decade ago got touched. What LLMs ultimately changed is the way I see language. I've underestimated its power, and I will admit, the companies making these models went far further than I could have imagined with them.

But intelligence and AI have a high hurdle to clear, and it won't be done with LLMs.

Revealing the secrets of intelligence will involve new concepts and understanding that that we don't have now. LLMs will be helpful with the plumbing and as replacement for natural evolution, but not so much natural intelligence.

Just another person who thinks AI===AGI.

It's 4G all over again

Consider that maybe AI should mean AGI. That was what its original meaning was supposed to be, and calling generative models AI is watering down the original term and accepting the frame of the LLM makers.

What's really disappointing about current LLM models isn't that they aren't useful, but that they really tell us much about intelligence at all. The techniques used to make LLMs aren't generalizable at all, and I cannot use them to solve problems of interest in the real world.

That wouldn't be the case with real AI. I want better methods and algorithms that could live up to the expectations, and I am sure we'll get them at some point even if we don't have them now.

The history of AI is people deciding that it really means AGI but then getting enamored with some method of the time and calling it AI, before going back to the original meaning. We're just living through the latest iteration of this where LLMs mean AI, and we're forced to invent the term AGI for what used to be AI.

I'll admit that to the people who don't know how LLMs work, which includes most investors, the lie seems very plausible so of course the CEOs running the companies are going to frame it as such.

AI has included everything from neural nets to video game NPCs for as long as I'm aware of. What else is the broad umbrella term? We have to have one. And for anything else, you need to be specific about its properties anyway. In particular, usage of "real AI" is nonsense without a more precise definition.

It isn't nonsense. If AI was such a broad umbrella term, why would companies be tripping over themselves to use it? If it meant video game NPC level of intelligence, nobody would be in a hurry to adopt it. It's very clear that when Nvidia or OpenAI use the term AI, they really want you to think these LLMs are actual human level intelligence. That is why they are doing it.

When I use nonsense like "real AI" I think you very well know what I mean, and don't find it in any way confusing or ambiguous.

Everyone thinks they know what "real AI" means, but they usually mean some mishmash of "general intelligence", "human-like intelligence", and "deserves moral rights", none of which firmly imply each other but which they'll often freely equivocate between. If you mean something more specific than this semantic disaster zone, say that instead.

AI company marketing usage only indicates they're trying to take advantage of this confusion. They're bullshit artists who are trying to make sales, not communicate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com