Thread

1. mavsman · 1789923911 · focus · HN ↗

   To me, this quote just about sums it up:

   > The mechanism is standard adtech. What has no precedent is running it on an AI chat product.

   As someone who has been well aware of this mechanism for quite some time, I still feel icky anytime I re-read the details of it.

   What a time to be alive.

   1. jsrozner · 1789925147 · focus · HN ↗

      People think they're interacting with an "intelligence," when actually they're just getting a maximally optimized Weizenbaum feed. We're living through the sloppification of the human mind.

      See e.g., <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;article&#x2F;ai-chatbots-are-becoming-experts-changing-people-s-minds-what-s-their-secret" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;article&#x2F;ai-chatbots-are-beco...

      1. ben_w · 1789927543 · focus · HN ↗

         What&#x27;s the old quote from WW2?

           I couldn't help but notice how each successive headline reporting our glorious victories seemed to draw closer to Tokyo.
         

         Something like that.

         Well. I can&#x27;t help but notice how each successive headline reporting how this &quot;scam&quot;&#x2F;stochastic parrot&#x2F;&quot;scare quotes intelligence&quot; seems to be solving more and more things that were but a few years ago widely regarded as being indicators of high intelligence.

         Being highly convinving is one of the things on that list.

         1. moth11 · 1789930566 · focus · HN ↗

            Nobody is denying that it&#x27;s effective. They&#x27;re denying intelligence

            A programming contest has a problem where given N &lt; 10000, do something hard like come up with the number of primes less than N

            You can come up with all sorts of algorithms that do intelligent things. But the most effective solution is to use metaprogramming to make a massive switch statement that contains all the answers

            1. fasterik · 1789933091 · focus · HN ↗

               Are they denying intelligence, or are they redefining it in such a way that only humans can be intelligent? Can you come up with a definition of intelligence that would apply to crows and ant colonies, which are obviously intelligent to some degree, but not the current generation of AI systems?

               1. mitxela · 1789933517 · focus · HN ↗

                  Nobody knows what intelligence is. We&#x27;ve recently discovered a lot of things that it isn&#x27;t.

                  1. infinite_spin · 1789934112 · focus · HN ↗

                     Why would a set of dictionary definitions not suffice?

                     1. mitxela · 1789934230 · focus · HN ↗

                        Those are distillations of existing knowledge. They are necessarily behind the status quo. &quot;You can&#x27;t call this newfangled contraption a computer, because a computer is a person!&quot;

                        1. handoflixue · 1789938382 · focus · HN ↗

                           &gt; They are necessarily behind the status quo.

                           That seems like a really bizarre way to describe a tool that solved an open Millennium Prize Problem. They are, empirically and repeatedly, ahead of the status quo.

                           So if your argument depends on them being behind the status quo, reality has already disproven it multiple times over.

                           1. ben_w · 1789976290 · focus · HN ↗

                              I believe the argument you&#x27;re responding to is &quot;a set of dictionary definitions does not suffice to define intelligence&quot;?

                              I will admit the first time I read the thing you&#x27;re replying to, I had a similar thought as you; From the sibling reply from them, I think they think they were obvious, but that also means I wouldn&#x27;t expect their reply to help unless you had the same flash of inspiration I had.

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