I don't care if it's "intelligent", I don't care if it "has a mind". I don't care if it is "really reasoning", I don't care if it "understands". I don't care if it is "sentient" or "conscious".
None of this matters for the practical outcome.
You'd think that this has been understood over the last 4 years, but apparently it keeps circling back to this.
[Edit: I see that it was written back in 2023. Then (2023) should be added in the submission title]
If it generates functional output that works, then it works. And it works. It's not a psychic's con when it outputs Lean-verified proofs. It isn't a con when it can find and exploit zero-days.
The OP is still in the "denial" phase. Most I see are already in "anger" (a blurry fury against everything AI-shaped, from vague reasons piling on all "bad stuff" political reasons they already hated before) or "bargaining" (mathematicians scrambling to come up with a new definition of their job and retcon that it was always the main part anyway). A few are already in "depression" and feel like spectators on the Titanic, and the tiniest sliver is at "acceptance" with some kind of well-informed plan for their future.
> The OP is still in the "denial" phase.
This was written in July 2023. ChatGPT was released November 2022. No matter your views on AI, surely you can't blame the OP for writing this after a few months ChatGPT was released.
I’m not seeing anything like a falsifiable prediction that LLMs will write math proofs in that article.
I see a thought experiment about giving GPT-2 “near-infinite training data and [compute]” but that’s not falsifiable. That’s also not how we got to modern GPT models.
The context shows he was simply whining about AGI skeptics back in 2018, and many of the “predictions” he makes in that paragraph (including the one you quoted) are trivially wrong because he phrased them so hyperbolically and categorically.
Anyway, there were plenty of normies who thought images generated by e.g. stable diffusion (c. 2022) was “real art” and equivalent to human artwork.
I don’t think it’s useful to glaze Scott (or any of the LW crowd for that matter) as if he was (or they were) some kind of prophet(s). They got a couple points right, sure, but most of it was them flinging armchair philosophy spaghetti against the wall and seeing who would fund MIRI to let them fling the next batch.
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
None of this matters for the practical outcome.
You'd think that this has been understood over the last 4 years, but apparently it keeps circling back to this.
[Edit: I see that it was written back in 2023. Then (2023) should be added in the submission title]
If it generates functional output that works, then it works. And it works. It's not a psychic's con when it outputs Lean-verified proofs. It isn't a con when it can find and exploit zero-days.
The OP is still in the "denial" phase. Most I see are already in "anger" (a blurry fury against everything AI-shaped, from vague reasons piling on all "bad stuff" political reasons they already hated before) or "bargaining" (mathematicians scrambling to come up with a new definition of their job and retcon that it was always the main part anyway). A few are already in "depression" and feel like spectators on the Titanic, and the tiniest sliver is at "acceptance" with some kind of well-informed plan for their future.
zkry · · focus · HN ↗
This was written in July 2023. ChatGPT was released November 2022. No matter your views on AI, surely you can't blame the OP for writing this after a few months ChatGPT was released.
bananaflag · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/19/gpt-2-as-step-toward-general-intelligence/" rel="nofollow">https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/19/gpt-2-as-step-toward-g...
Of course people were skeptical:
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/aslze7/gpt2_as_step_toward_general_intelligence/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/aslze7/gpt2...
sheafification · · focus · HN ↗
I see a thought experiment about giving GPT-2 “near-infinite training data and [compute]” but that’s not falsifiable. That’s also not how we got to modern GPT models.
bananaflag · · focus · HN ↗
"If AI can generate images and even stories to a prompt, everyone will agree this is totally different from real art or storytelling."
<a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/02/15/five-more-years/" rel="nofollow">https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/02/15/five-more-years/
sheafification · · focus · HN ↗
Anyway, there were plenty of normies who thought images generated by e.g. stable diffusion (c. 2022) was “real art” and equivalent to human artwork.
I don’t think it’s useful to glaze Scott (or any of the LW crowd for that matter) as if he was (or they were) some kind of prophet(s). They got a couple points right, sure, but most of it was them flinging armchair philosophy spaghetti against the wall and seeing who would fund MIRI to let them fling the next batch.
bananaflag · · focus · HN ↗