Thread

1. 1659447091 · 1789609891 · focus · HN ↗

   > The San Francisco company revealed what it said was the “unexpected or concerning” behavior of its A.I. models as part of a new framework for reporting “misalignment,” which is when the goals or actions of A.I. systems diverge from human intentions and values.

   Misalignment: "when the goals or actions of [...] systems diverge from human intentions"

   How about we stop trying to nudge the language towards implying sentience or consciousness and keep the same word that has been used for that definition for longer than I have written software, a bug.

   We should be talking about why the tools/environment keep getting overlooked. The software built around the text generator, forget the researchers and mathematicians discovering the math properties of language patterns -- why are we not talking about the software engineers building the LLM-pluggable tools that actually allow/cause real action to happen?

   1. marshray · 1789611137 · focus · HN ↗

      Computers are used to evaluate LLMs, but LLMs are not "software" or "algorithms" in the traditional sense. They are not built out of conditional branches or loops.

      So trying to squeeze the observed behavior of this new thing under existing terms like "software bug" is at least as much of a force-fit, and what you're doing here is just as much language engineering as choosing to use a term like '[mis]alignment'. Which is fine, this is just one way that humans choose language.

      1. 1659447091 · 1789613132 · focus · HN ↗

         > Computers are used to evaluate LLMs

         LLMs run on computers and are thus constrained by the capacity of that which runs it. If the system running the LLM has no network and no software or software-tooling, how does the LLM's generated text take action on a system(computer) that requires software to do anything?

         Also, I absolutely agree LLMs are not software, and thats my point. LLMs without supporting software tooling surrounding it cannot do anything but print text. And even the printing of that text happens through software

         1. marshray · 1789614986 · focus · HN ↗

            The answer is: It's irrelevant, because no one runs LLMs on systems without networks or missiles or some other way to "take action" because that would be pointless.

            1. 1659447091 · 1789630911 · focus · HN ↗

               So you agree, its the computer components that actually do the thing that is important, thus we should be talking about those components (software-tooling) which do the things
         2. [deleted] · 1789615036 · focus · HN ↗

            [deleted]

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