The challenge here is in trying to decide whether LLMs are intelligent or have a mind. Famously, the criteria for intelligence seem to slip with each advancement in technology. But going back to Turing, his test was actually more carefully phrased than we remember: he said that when machines could pass the test, the question of whether they are intelligent would become moot. That seems to be what we're actually seeing: if people can't tell the difference, it kind of won't matter whether they're "truly intelligent" or not.
The Turing test was also never meant to be taken so seriously. It's not a rigorous statement of anything.
Situations like this are precisely why academics tend to avoid the spotlight. You say one slightly off thing and your perceived authority echoes forever with the intellectually lazy.
Yes, the Turing test has been misunderstood for a long time. Turing published it, though - it wasn't some offhand comment he made and it wasn't intellectually lazy.
Fair - yes, it is ironic that his point was closer to "we can't possibly know/define whether a machine is intelligent" but somehow it got turned into "Turing's test will tell us when machines are intelligent".
Turing's whole point was to show that it's an uninteresting question of definitions whether a machine can "think", like whether submarines can "swim" and airplanes can "fly". The only important part are observed outcomes and capabilities.
Yes, but just because language fails to make a distinction doesn't mean there isn't one.
> The only important part are observed outcomes and capabilities.
That's wishful thinking. Not even an engineer would say that. The stability of a state is just as important as achieving it. This is trivially and more intuitively demonstrated with other more down-to-earth identity statements such as "I'm a billionaire" and "the building is standing".
I think we can confidently say LLMs probabilistically achieve a perceived state that is remarkably similar to intelligence, but crumbles upon inspection and seeing it "in motion" so to speak. The same happens to AI-generated images.
I'm not sure why this sparks so much debate every time. If we're looking for a fountain of "realism", you're not going to beat reality and nature itself. All else will eventually have tells that they are not real.
It may be of interest to philosophers, but it has little impact on economic job replacement and how people will earn their living and all the downstream upheaval from that. At some point maybe philosophers will find AI-generated philosophical musings about the nature of AI to be better than what comes from their peers (if blinded).
It also has little impact on the dangerous use cases.
I think it matters a great deal that LLMs and other "AI" technology are stable within a tolerance that's acceptable.
You're jumping the gun talking about "job replacement". We have not thought about it enough from that engineering angle. It's still very early days. That engineering is going to require people. :-)
sethev · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
Situations like this are precisely why academics tend to avoid the spotlight. You say one slightly off thing and your perceived authority echoes forever with the intellectually lazy.
sethev · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
sethev · · focus · HN ↗
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
> The only important part are observed outcomes and capabilities.
That's wishful thinking. Not even an engineer would say that. The stability of a state is just as important as achieving it. This is trivially and more intuitively demonstrated with other more down-to-earth identity statements such as "I'm a billionaire" and "the building is standing".
I think we can confidently say LLMs probabilistically achieve a perceived state that is remarkably similar to intelligence, but crumbles upon inspection and seeing it "in motion" so to speak. The same happens to AI-generated images.
I'm not sure why this sparks so much debate every time. If we're looking for a fountain of "realism", you're not going to beat reality and nature itself. All else will eventually have tells that they are not real.
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
It also has little impact on the dangerous use cases.
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
You're jumping the gun talking about "job replacement". We have not thought about it enough from that engineering angle. It's still very early days. That engineering is going to require people. :-)
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗