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It's Time to Investigate the AI Labs

629 points · 277 comments · ibobev

  1. jimmyjazz14 · · focus · HN ↗
    > We must move past vague discussions of “AI” and instead isolate the specific types of systems that are creating problems.

    This is absolutely correct and its surprising how rarely you see commenters in the media push to go into the specifics on this. AI is just matrix math and its what you connect that math to that matters, we should talk a little more about what we are willing to connect AI to and little less about how scary or capable the models appear.

    1. yodsanklai · · focus · HN ↗
      A point that Yann LeCun has been making for a while is that it's meaningless to regulate AI, but we want to regulate applications. For instance, you don't want autonomous vehicles to hit people, whether they use AI or not. In practice, most applications of AI are already regulated.
      1. thaumasiotes · · focus · HN ↗
        > For instance, you don't want autonomous vehicles to hit people, whether they use AI or not.

        What would it mean for a vehicle to be "autonomous", but to "not use AI"?

        1. ehe78qhe · · focus · HN ↗
          Trains are often highly automated without AI, for example. Aircraft are often automated for most of their flight without AI.
          1. throwawayffffas · · focus · HN ↗
            Autopilots perceive the environment, reason, plan and execute actions. Autopilots are AI.
            1. gizajob · · focus · HN ↗
              You can’t say to an autopilot “create an excel spreadsheet of the current vectors and conditions and upload it to google docs”.
              1. throwawayffffas · · focus · HN ↗
                You can't say that to an mri machine that detects and highlights tumors. You can't say it to jev either, nor googles spam filters. But all these are built in the same way as any LLM. The term AI is not restricted to chat based LLMs.
                1. gizajob · · focus · HN ↗
                  None of that applies to autopilots though and it’s disingenuous for anyone to say that an autopilot is an AI rather than an automated system designed for a very specific task.

                  An autopilot is cybernetic without being intelligent.

                  1. throwawayffffas · · focus · HN ↗
                    Read wongsarus comment above.
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