wavewrangler

Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI is conscious. I know he's extremely accomplished and all, but as it pertains to AI as it exists now we're miles apart (not to say that he's not brilliant, but by difference of opinion). I also don't want to rehash the whole what-is-consciousness philosophical debate, and actually it's a separate question anyway, something doesn't have to be conscious to be dangerous. So I'll stick to the danger bit.

Do you use AI much? Not a trick question. What is your usage like? Reason I ask is recall OpenAI hyping GPT-2 with the same language as they are these new models. Doom and gloom. It sells. It gets attention. But use these systems enough and you start to become very familiar with their capabilities, and they are just so limited, and that's not even talking about how they lose the thread on long tasks. I understand that agency expands that a little, but not by much, really. When you use these systems a lot, it tends to be easier to see through the hype.

The real threat is, and will be for some time I think, people. Guard rails are not for AI. Guard rails are for people. All of this talk we are seeing in this space, this security chip being no exception, is treating a symptom, not a cause. People are what we should be focusing on, how, I have no idea, I couldn't even begin to guess how, but I can at least see that the actual issue is that the first thing some people want to do with it is cause harm and havoc. There is our sign. And we are trying to moderate the capabilities of the tool that can do harm in bad hands at a granular level when that means also moderating the same thing that can do good in that same tool. We aren't trying to moderate the hands that are handling the tool. And we need to be doing more of that. Any time we misapply constraints and focus on the shadow of the thing, and not the object casting the shadow, we are always going to be one step behind, whether it's AI or anything else. So I don't attribute the dangers of AI to AI itself, I attribute it to people.

Additionally, on AI building AI and AI just wiping us out; AI can do that for itself for rule-based things, up to god level I reckon. Things like Go, etc. And to be fair, AI research is partly like that, code either runs or it doesn't, so I get why that paper is worried. But where it needs data to actually succeed, it is limited by the amount of data that exists. And we, us, people, are who creates that data. AI and humans have more of a symbiotic relationship than people seem to realize. There are several papers that go into detail on this:

Models trained on their own output degrade: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07566-y They need fresh real data every generation or they go downhill: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.01850 Reusing the same data loses value after a few passes: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.16264 And the stock of human-written text is finite: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.04325

So it's not that I think it's 0%. I just think the explosion story underrates how much it still needs us, and that the damage in the near term is going to come from people, not the AI deciding on its own.

Did they try just properly sandboxing them first? Or are they still learning how to configure a firewall over there?

The problem isn't even the AI, the problem is the people in charge of the AI. This is a fabricated crisis

"I don't want the details"

Never be sure about what, exactly?

Ahh. Okay...So, this is kind of like the 2D entities trying to make sense of their 3D counterparts, and the 3D counterparts getting the sensation of someone watching them, but its the 2D beings discussing the existence of the 3D entities instead of vice versa? I know this is quite a basic comparison but it helps me grasp it a bit better. Also, is there any particular reason that it's 3D and 2D? That is, is there any other dimension number that could accommodate the correspondence? Or does the math say it's only 3D to 2D and vice versa where this works? And do we know why or why not if so? Thanks

Lets imagine that we are the are the flat landers for a second. We're doing something, the laundry, and we feel an eerie feeling come over us as if we're being watched. No one else in the room, so you shrug it off. Come to find out, our 3D counterparts were actually observing us, unbeknownst to us (aside from that eerie feeling we got). Stay with me! So, while we are on the persons screen or a piece of paper in front of them (this of course assumes 2D existence is possible, just for the example) and they are viewing us, is this at all similar to what this article is talking about? In this scenario, can we label one Ads and one CFT? Another question kind of, but maybe not separate to that, asks if Ads/CFT is a mathematical description of how things project into seemingly completely separate things depending on your perspective? But they're indeed the same. An example of what I mean, so in our 2D existence we notice a pulsing circle, and then in our 3D existence we realize that pulsing circle is actually someone playing with a ball on a string and the pulsing is the ball getting closer to us in more dimensions than can be expressed properly in the 2D view. That's kind of what I mean...so is Ads/CFT description of the same kind of idea as my... admittedly weak example? Lastly, I would like to say that Quanta is fantastic. I don't understand a lot of what is written in their pages sometimes but that's not due to the writing by any stretch. But it makes me think, which is why I still read it anyway! If I'm not mistaken this is the 2nd time in as many days it was featured on the front page, and rightfully so, I think. Anywho, thanks for reading/taking time to respond if you do.

I don’t know, seems like it’s smaller to me if they’re going to limit themselves like that? I guess today is semantics day, lol

Pacing the frontier. They might as well have said they are stifling innovation. That depends on your interpretation, of course…but interpretation depends on their intent, which I feel is disingenuous.

So, I think this article is circling something a lot more foundational when it comes to people’s disdain for AI. If you put more thought, more effort, and more originality into your work, you get something that starts to feel like an actual artistic expression. If you just type in a basic prompt and accept whatever comes back, that shows too. And I think that is a large part of why people feel insulted by this stuff in the first place.

It’s hard to respect a piece of work or take it seriously when it feels like the person who made it didn’t think it was worth giving much consideration. You’re asking someone to stop, look, and care about your poster and whatever it represents, but you haven’t given them much reason to believe you cared about it yourself. If you can’t take it seriously, how should we? It isn’t really about whether it took five minutes. It’s about whether there was any thought behind those five minutes.

So, I read this article as if it had the following title: “If you insist on using an LLM to generate visuals, you still have to put some thought into them.” But then, that starts to defeat the point for anyone who was using an LLM to avoid that effort in the first place, doesn’t it? You can make the process easier, but you can’t just assume that having produced something means you’ve made something worth sharing.

At the end of the day, I think there are valid uses for LLMs and there are uses that don’t add much of anything. As a consumer of content, the ones I respond to tend to be the ones where the LLM’s involvement isn’t the most obvious thing about the work. I want to see the person’s idea come through. A very light touch, not a deluge. This can absolutely apply to creating visuals, but it requires judgment, revision, and a willingness to do more than accept the first thing you’re given.

And it seems like a lot of people aren’t willing to put in that effort. That’s fine. Their work will continue to be distinguished by that lack of care, while people who are willing to put more into it will stand out. The initial novelty only carries something so far. Once you start picking up on the familiar patterns, that sense of something being slightly off becomes hard to ignore.

So, moving forward, I’m not so sure human creativity and input are things that can simply be outdone and made irrelevant. Maybe they’re an additional layer that keeps giving us somewhere further to go. An LLM can imitate what people have already brought to the table, but given access to that same LLM, we can bring our own experiences, ideas, and judgment into the mix. The tool gives us a starting point. I don’t see why we should assume it also determines how far we can take it.

Sorry, but he did tell people about it, no? He showed his receipts. Reddit, arXiv- What I am seeing here is "it's just better marketing". When it comes to prior art, is better marketing sufficient? On one side we can say it's better marketing, but on another side, the side that should actually matter, coming from the direction of him being first, can't we say, it is just better research? Being that he was first and all, and Jev hasn't even published anything according other than what I read. What I am really trying to ask is, is marketing even relevant at this point? So if you have good marketing, you can just steal someone else's work, intentional or not?

I must be out of the loop. Not defending google when I ask this but....how is google flailing, exactly? I figured they were in the best position of all the other companies combined. They have their own hardware for inference, they have a solid grasp on enterprise, and they have a good road map. I mean, Google is incredibly strong, is it not? And remember how quickly google answered Bard? For a while, gemini was even the preferred model, if we are strictly speaking AI models. Again, I'm not defending google, I just want to see how this comment makes sense is all, without letting fantasy overtake reality in the process...

Give it a whirl. You’ll have your answer pretty quickly, or not so quickly

Or is it or practically astrology, and technically numerology?

What do you mean? I don’t recall ever asking manufacturers if I could trade my privacy for a discount. I don’t remember that at all…people will pay whatever the price is, if inflation hasn’t taught that to you, then I’m not sure what to tell you. The other thing inflation showed us, is that manufacturers will absolutely put a price on what they feel is “decent profit.” Cmon dude. Do you not remember how much we paid for eggs?! Which, i think it was found later to be that the manufacturers “manufactured,” “scam-bled eggs.”

You know, I’ve been thinking, I don’t think im being paid enough! Im giving myself a raise. We can do that, right?!

Why not just add extra verification for Gmail addresses?

You’re replacing the issue with a different one. This is not about whether agencies should be able to use lawful subpoenas efficiently. It is about DHS using 19 U.S.C. §1509—customs-import summons authority to demand records concerning journalists, nonprofits, and unions without prior judicial approval, while requesting secrecy. DHS has also reportedly withdrawn demands after they were challenged but before courts could rule on their legality. If you support that specific use of administrative power, say as much. Calling it “efficient subpoenas” does not address how rotten it is with near enough precision, and is intentionally routing around what the actual issue is. Thats exactly the kind of corrupt attitude that government has embraced and why this is even a story.

I find bezier curbs sexy, well-rounded, smart, and attractive. They are awesome and this is, by extension, all of those things, too! We need more bezier curbs in this world.

I can get on board with this...so you are suggesting the usage isn't new, but the frequency changed can be attributed to the scope change, so the frequency is associated with all of the new cases that the new scope encompasses, which in hind sight I'm surprised that didn't occur to me already, it's pretty obvious. I'm probably a bit hampered by the preexisting dislike for the aforementioned association though. Is there a reliable way to determine the difference in frequency versus the difference in usage, or is the frequency multiplier already based on usage? Or maybe I am trying to ask if there is any way to get a sense of what the 17x is in relation to, ie. what is it 17x more than...if someone said the word "example" was used 17x more than it was six weeks ago, I would know that baseline by experience, but for something like "shipped" it's not as straight forward.

To be clear, I am referring to software and shipping as a developer who has finished, more or less, their app. Not that I am against its use, I just never really heard that word being used before, and now I hear it all the time. Thus, what the real issue I have with it is, is because my brain has associated its use with a torrent of crap, ie. AI slop. I hear the word used, and I already have bad feeling about it. And dialed in even further, my issue is not with AI just because, it's simply the association I have of this technology taking something that many of us spent real blood, sweat, and tears earning the right to represent, to it now being automated, and represented (badly) by novices with no respect for the spirit of it all. But, this is not a new or unique sentiment nor are my grievances with it. All hope is not lost, though. I know I need to adapt, and I know that like the world, I need to change too. But no one ever said I have to like it :-)

Context aside, I still gotta stand by the 17x indicator or see something that deflates that finding, and if I do see that, I guess all of the results are in question then? Based on the specific use case mentioned at the beginning there, coupled with personal experience (I totally could just be more sheltered than I give myself credit for), and the 17x, I gotta disagree with you guys and say that the finding of the link above is accurate in my experience being the *

From recalled beef, to contaminated greens, to the cancer that is twitter, you will forever remember this period of your life as the dreaded... "age of shitter"

Was talking about the use of shipped recently, and I was mocked for asking such a crazy question, by freshly self-minted engineers, no less. No wonder they thought it was ridiculous...it had been a part of their vocabulary their entire career. All few weeks of it. I wonder what those guys are doing now. This was about a month ago. Do you think what they shipped ever...landed?

he probably canceled his subscription and they offered him a free month as a result

I thought the point of publishing was a matter of dissemination, to make available for people to then try to understand it? This is like saying, I don’t like music, so I’m going to tear down the venue. Then, all music genres suffer as a result, and all of society does, too. This idea is no good.

Somebody, eventually, somewhere would understand it, or at least aspire to understand it. And even if he doesn’t, what have they learned in the process? About themselves, about their environment? About failure? I would bet a lot. How useful then, can we say that it is, not because we can understand it, but because we can try? That is useful. This is about the journey. Sometimes the journey is the point.

This is like if math was fascist, this is what would happen. When you start controlling the flow of knowledge like this, it will be bad news all around. And who is to say whether or not something can be understood?Aside from the math nazis.

If we are going to dictate what gets published like this, why bother publishing anything? This feels like a gatekeeping…that’s exactly what it is. Ya’ll getting nervous?

Anthropic, do ye come load-bearing gifts?!

It's also like a real 8 or 9 bucks.

Maximum Overdrive. Even the electric turkey carver gets revenge.

I thought that it was. I thought journals were starting to implement full bans upwards of a year+ for those who don't honestly disclose AI usage in their work? If I'm not mistaken, arXiv is doing this as well? granted, disclosure is different from overuse, but it seems like a small jump to just go ahead and just ban not checking ones work! ...disclosed or not disclosed. my own personal view on it, is if you can't be bothered to spot hallucinations and other such errors, its not ai that is the issue, it is incompetence and laziness

What do you mean miss? You don’t have the budget to keep something you truly miss for $20? What am in missing here / I don’t mean to criticize I am just curious is all. I would reword but I have to go

Yeah, general propaganda and psyops are actually more effective around 12% - 15%, we find it is more accurate to the user base, thus is questioned less for standing out more /s

You probably know this and are looking for consistency but, a little trick I use is to feed the original data of what I need as a diagram and to re-imagine, it as an image “ready for print” - not native, but still a time saver and just studying with unstructured data or handles this surprisingly well. Again not native…naive, yes. Native, not yet. Be sure to double check triple check as always. give it the ol’ OCD treatment.