Thread

1. dzink · 1791065932 · focus · HN ↗

   A huge chunk of humans are sedated with infinite supply of cortex-disabling short form video and games.

   Another huge chunk are too distracted by having to scrape by for a living and work multiple jobs or raise kids and survive financially until exhausted. That second group will keep increasing as the first flows into it.

   The rest are aging, disabled, or too young and pegging themselves majorly in the first category until they hit the second.

   The people aware enough to hold on to their brain and do something with it in their time available are trying to figure out AI and how to make money with it. The variable rewards of promoting AI are turning into an addiction with some of them, especially if grasping for straws with little inherent insights into the problems prompted.

   So if you are able to fly above the AI-generated addictions and have the privilege of time to do it, see what you can do.

   1. lukifer · 1791068181 · focus · HN ↗

      One of the dilemmas of trying to communicate the full spectrum of AI Risk, is trying not to insult the intelligence of the human animal in the process. And don't get me wrong: what human wetware can accomplish with 20 watts is the most miraculous thing in the known universe. And yet how many of us can have our cognitive sovereignty one-shotted by engagement algos, Skinner boxes, gameplay loops, propaganda, advertising, flattery, social conformity, bias, fantasy, charismatic demagoguery, or straight-up bullshit?

      If we grant that we are on track to make something smarter than humans (I think so): it's almost a face-saving white lie to spin yarns about a Skynet nuclear apocalypse, or a 7D chess move to mass-assemble a nanovirus with 100% lethality without anybody noticing. I do think those scenarios are worth taking seriously; but what's harder to communicate, is just how effectively a superhuman AI (or a diverse ecology of agent swarms) might be able to manipulate human behavior. It's something few of us are able or willing to truly process (not least because how many of us live in denial of how much our nervous systems are already hacked by technomodernity).

      The appropriate analogy for what's to come may look less like the anthill carelessly demolished to make room for a highway, than the domesticated worker ants from Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time".

      1. Lerc · 1791069186 · focus · HN ↗

         >trying not to insult the intelligence of the human animal in the process

         I don't think it is insulting the intelligence. It's damaging the pride.

         In Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan describes it as a repeating phenomenon in human history. A lot of people want humans to be the special ones, and will fight any suggestion that we are just a natural part of the universe.

         1. ACCount39 · 1791069850 · focus · HN ↗

            A lot of "AI denial" we see is rooted in the same impulse.

            If AI is not "actually intelligent", then humans can stay unique and special.

            And if it is? If all "intelligence" ever was could be captured by a construct of matrix math and executed by a server rack? Then what is it that humans still have left that would make them stand out?

            1. hardbass · 1791098613 · focus · HN ↗

               Many people even here seem very cagey about the fact that human beings and brains are physical systems following physical laws.

               1. threethirtytwo · 1791104306 · focus · HN ↗

                  Most of the world believes in crazy shit. Religion is mostly fantasy. Believing All powerful beings aka gods are crazy in every context and really mental institution level insanity except in the context of religion.

                  Humans are crazy. Thats just how it is.

                  1. BlipBlopBlap · 1791105787 · focus · HN ↗

                     The reason is the appalling amount of existential dread that follows from accepting that notion.

                     1. hardbass · 1791106187 · focus · HN ↗

                        Why would one feel existential dread? I am the same person as before?

                        1. BlipBlopBlap · 1791107678 · focus · HN ↗

                           Because the notion of one's non-existence is the very root of existential dread.

                           If you accept you are just meat. Just mundane matter shaped in a way where it has thoughts. Then you accept your own true non-existence is inevitable. With no get-outs like returning to god or some spirtual unity with the universe or reincarnation or whatever.

                     2. threethirtytwo · 1791125668 · focus · HN ↗

                        This isn’t true. Plenty of people aren’t religious. The explanation for why is more mundane.

                        It’s because of identity. Because people who are religious spent years and years and most of their lives not only studying and believing what they believe but also building community and centering their behavior around it. Abandoning that is the harder thing to give up.

                        If it were existential dread then we wouldn’t have entire countries like China being mostly atheist.

                     3. copperx · 1791126999 · focus · HN ↗

                        Nonsense.
                  2. antonvs · 1791112845 · focus · HN ↗

                     > really mental institution level insanity except in the context of religion.

                     The DSM even has to include an explicit exception to prevent the clinical definition of “delusion” from applying to religious belief. Without that ad hoc exception, religious belief would be classified as clinically delusional.

                     1. mdp2021 · 1791113140 · focus · HN ↗

                        Still children that have obtained some power and try to exert it over the rest. Scholarization has failed.

                        1. threethirtytwo · 1791125847 · focus · HN ↗

                           People who believe in religion should by logic mostly agree with psychiatrists that religion is mostly bullshit.

                           Because religion describes all kinds of religions from Greek mythology to Buddhism. If you are religious then almost all of these religions are utter bullshit except for the one religion you believe.

                           So from your perspective those psychiatrists are mostly right. They just forgot to make the one exception for your own personal religion.

                  3. mdp2021 · 1791113016 · focus · HN ↗

                     Many are ignorant and believe childish things, many are similarly ignorant and live in the same childish framework only to condemn it. Then there are the adults, and they have an idea of what they are talking about.

                     1. threethirtytwo · 1791125511 · focus · HN ↗

                        You’re angry but every single word I said is truth.
                  4. nphard85 · 1791128271 · focus · HN ↗

                     The alternative is to believe that the mind, conditioned and optimized by millions of years of evolution for the survival of the organism under constant threat of hostile natural forces, can capably perceive reality as it is.

                     1. threethirtytwo · 1791155358 · focus · HN ↗

                        You do not need to understand reality to survive. Does your pet turtle understand your true nature and the true nature of reality? No. Yet it survives.

                        Understanding reality is orthogonal to survival. In fact given that MORE people in this world are religious than not, one can argue that delusion. contributes MORE to survival than being a realist.

                        1. nphard85 · 1791164284 · focus · HN ↗

                           [dead]

               2. TheOtherHobbes · 1791119533 · focus · HN ↗

                  Possibly, but our knowledge of physical laws is subjective and imperfect. By the time you get to Frauchiger-Renner naive realism starts to look quite threadbare, so I'd be a little more tentative about assuming we have much of a clue about what's going on.

                  It's just as likely - far more likely IMO - that we're physically incapable of understanding physical laws and physical systems on their own terms.

                  1. hardbass · 1791120972 · focus · HN ↗

                     Understanding and accidentally creating are different things. If we already understood consciousness and weren't worried about having accidentally created one already, we won't be having this discussion. If we don't know what consciousness is, in my view its more reason to exercise some caution regarding a system that appears to exhibit intelligent thinking, talking, etc.
                  2. pixl97 · 1791131662 · focus · HN ↗

                     Evolved systems need no high order understanding of how they work. You have evolution take care of that hard work for you, hence why these models take exaflops of compute and gigawatts of power to train.
            2. bananaflag · 1791101779 · focus · HN ↗

               To me humans can stay unique and special because they weren't created by anyone.

               AI, no matter how better than humans it becomes, will be less special because it was created by other intelligent beings.

               The only way we would become less unique and special is if we discover alien beings.

               1. DonHopkins · 1791104184 · focus · HN ↗

                  [delayed]
               2. optimalsolver · 1791108769 · focus · HN ↗

                  >humans can stay unique and special because they weren't created by anyone

                  Neither were rats. It's hardly an exclusive club.

                  1. bananaflag · 1791117469 · focus · HN ↗

                     Rats aren't as intelligent as humans ;)

                     1. optimalsolver · 1791128186 · focus · HN ↗

                        What intelligence level certifies a being as unique and special?

                        Are there humans who don't make the cut?

               3. lukifer · 1791132124 · focus · HN ↗

                  There's a sense in which humans were created... by other humans. :) Until you go far back enough in the evolutionary chain, when the creators were our primate ancestors.

                  Douglas Adams had a yarn about evolution, about a puddle that wakes up, and declares that the hole in which it sits must have been perfectly designed for it by its Creator. But of course for a puddle to exist, it must perfectly mirror its environment. It makes no sense for a puddle to not fit its hole. Emergent complexity has the same characteristic: it's inseparable from the environmental pressures which led to it. Two sides of one coin.

                  It's a deep rabbit hole, but there is also a sense in which we co-evolved with memeplexes, biological and informational life forms, each shaping and adapting to the other. To the extent our nervous systems act as a substrate for memetic evolution, perhaps LLMs offer memetic "life" a new evolutionary environment.

            3. latexr · 1791108052 · focus · HN ↗

               Here’s another perspective for you, which is shared by a significantly larger number of people than you seem to realise:

               Humans aren’t special. Other animals are intelligent and interesting too. A machine could be intelligent. LLMs aren’t.

               In other words, believing in human exceptionalism is not a prerequisite to understand the current crop of AI is not the end all be all of its hype. It is supremely common that AI proponents do not understand that, however. Like hardcore cryptocurrency fans who believe anyone who doesn’t like them is “just jealous they didn’t make bank”, too many hardcore AI proponents believe anyone who doesn’t think LLMs are intelligent is jealous of humans no longer being unique, or afraid for their jobs, or whatever. In both cases it’s obvious that what those proponents lack is empathy, the ability to understand not everyone has the same selfish thoughts they do.

               1. arw0n · 1791113215 · focus · HN ↗

                  The interesting question then becomes what is missing from LLMs that we and supposedly other possible machines have? I've yet to come across a reasonable definition of intelligence that the current crop of LLMs is clearly incapable of.

                  1. latexr · 1791114254 · focus · HN ↗

                     > The interesting question then becomes what is missing from LLMs that we and supposedly other possible machines have?

                     I think we need to start by asking a better question and not try to simplify too much. We also need to accept that some answers are complex and not everything can be reduced to a soundbite to be used to end internet discussions.

                     Let’s take a different question, like “what’s missing from a worm for it to be able to fly”. We might be drawn to the simple answer of “wings” but that isn’t quite right—ostriches and penguins have wings and they don’t fly, so obviously there are other variables at play.

                     How about “what’s missing from a spec of dust for it to be intelligent”. Well, there isn’t one thing missing and there’s no simple thing we can just add to make a spec of dust intelligent and sentient, its very nature needs to be radically different.

                     1. lukifer · 1791140062 · focus · HN ↗

                        Flight is a testable characteristic (at least within certain bounds: a chicken can only fly a little, but it certainly flies more than a worm or a penguin).

                        What test would you propose where an LLM (or an RL agent containing an LLM) would reliably fail, but where an average human would reliably succeed?

                  2. wartywhoa23 · 1791114474 · focus · HN ↗

                     Seems like some presumably intelligent collections of atoms are eager to make way to other presumably thinking collections of atoms that allow for much more electrons and money flowing through, which is of course in the interest of some other collections of atoms whose intelligence is less presumable and more factual, which doesn't hold true about their morale.

                     1. cindyllm · 1791124743 · focus · HN ↗

                        [dead]

               2. pixl97 · 1791132186 · focus · HN ↗

                  >A machine could be intelligent. LLMs aren’t.

                  You are completely incorrect. You're falling in the same trap that most humans fall into. That is you're completely incapable of seeing intelligence at different scales.

                  Cells have intelligence. Organs have intelligence. Bodies outside the brain have intelligence. Hell, many scientists accept that things like proteins likely have intelligence as they can adapt in their environment, and many more are making claims that algorithms have intelligence.

                  You, as of so far have given no explanatory evidence of where intelligence emerges from, only "I'll know it when I see it". The actual definition of intelligence doesn't work this way. Any, and I mean any neural network is capable of narrow intelligence. Going lower into algorithmic intelligence, the applications and CPU on your computer are intelligent in some measures.

                  Go outside of your extremely narrow definition of whatever you think intelligence is and learn more about it. You could start studying now and it will take the rest of your life learning more to grasp how far the scales of, the simplicity, and the complexity of intelligence actually go.

            4. sedan_baklazhan · 1791111466 · focus · HN ↗

               AI is not intelligent and will never be.

               Creating an artificial intelligent being is something to be accomplished in the future - but not now and not with this approach.

               1. mdp2021 · 1791116483 · focus · HN ↗

                  > AI [will never exist, but maybe one day it will]

                  Please, please fix your language. (Then, you may want to present the info and insight.)

                  1. sedan_baklazhan · 1791132025 · focus · HN ↗

                     AI is what is currently known as AI.

                     Artificial Intelligent Being is something far beyond and completely different.

                     There’s no contradiction.

                     1. mdp2021 · 1791183736 · focus · HN ↗

                        > currently known as

                        "Currently known" by whom? The contract is that the "man in the street" does not ask to adhere to its twisted dictionary, and I let it live. When something esoteric in Academia reaches the mainstream news, "Alarm!" and extra care.

                        ["Classical deterministic"] AI is "simulation of intelligence". That it "is" or not is not a problem: the validity of the output counts.

                        The Discipline of AI is about the relation between computing and intelligence.

                        A statement about AI [systems] being intelligent or not, or being capable of becoming intelligent or not, requires support.

                        An «Artificially Intelligent [Entity]» is still an "AI system".

               2. lukifer · 1791131259 · focus · HN ↗

                  I've yet to encounter a robust definition of intelligence which would rule in every human, while ruling out every form of existing AI (noting that we're talking about agents and "reasoning models", where the LLM itself is a component in a larger system). If you can offer such a definition, I'd be eager to hear it.

                  I personally prefer a practical, behaviorist definition: a feedback loop capable of prediction, modeling, and steering, towards arbitrary goal states. That makes it clear that we're merely talking about degrees of sophistication and capability, rather than a magical leap where mindless mechanism stops, and "real intelligence" begins.

                  1. sedan_baklazhan · 1791131988 · focus · HN ↗

                     A software cannot be intelligent.

                     This is very easily proven by a mind experiment where you replace all the transistors by billions of humans calculating the same software output.

                     They will not create a new intelligence by doing so.

                     1. lukifer · 1791133163 · focus · HN ↗

                        Run the same thought experiment the other direction: at a low level, the human brain is just physics and chemical mechanisms, which in principle could be perfectly imitated by transistors calculating the same output. (Yes, such a thing isn't realistic, but neither is billions of humans doing perfect matrix math by hand.)

                        I still haven't seen a robust definition of "intelligence" that would allow me to tell the difference. (Bear in mind, this is a definitional struggle even in biology: if we were walk back the evolutionary chain from a human, to a protozoan, it's not clear that you could pick a single point where a non-intelligent creature gave birth to an intelligent one. It's a Paradox of the Heap.)

                        1. sedan_baklazhan · 1791134800 · focus · HN ↗

                           No. There is serious scientific evidence already that our brain functions on the level of quantum mechanics. Human brain is not just an automata.

                           1. lukifer · 1791137950 · focus · HN ↗

                              I haven't dug into these claims in detail; I take seriously a possible relationship between quantum mechanics and the brain. But "free will" is hardly a settled question either (I'm closer to the "compatibilist" position, but Sapolsky's "Determined" makes a robust case).

                              And even if quantum physics are essential to human brains, it's not clear that introducing dice transcends determinism into free will, as opposed to simply adding unpredictability. ("The physics made me do it" -> "the dice made me do it") Let's not forget, there's a significant amount of randomness in AIs as well ("temperature"). And sure, it's simulated algorithmic randomness; but does that imply, if we somehow wired every `rand()` call into radioactive atom decay, that means the AI "wakes up"?

                              And all that is besides the point: I don't see any reason to assume "intelligence" requires "free will". I'm entirely capable of conceiving, in the abstract, a being which is both intelligent, and deterministic. You still haven't given me a definition (or better yet, a test), to distinguish a "real intelligence" from unintelligent mechanism.

                           2. twobitshifter · 1791138742 · focus · HN ↗

                              And quantum mechanics are what other than random probabilities?
                           3. hardbass · 1791193741 · focus · HN ↗

                              Everything functions on quantum mechanics. Electronics esp current gpus and cpus needs a lot of qm. Free will is not a proven concept.
            5. mejutoco · 1791122079 · focus · HN ↗

               A body
            6. habinero · 1791129879 · focus · HN ↗

               Nah, it's not about the brain being special, it's that AI dorks have zero sense of scale.

               The brain's a wet jello of 100 billion neurons and a quadrillion synapses plus chemical pathways and feedback loops. It is ridiculously complex, way way way way way more complicated than any LLM. It's all physical processes, sure, but an LLM is not the brain like a pebble is not the sun.

               I can point at a laptop and say it's alive because it can see you and hear you and it can _remember_. It has a brain and a heartbeat, even. Oh my god, it can even speak! That's what I hear when people go on about LLMs being alive.

               Guys. We mashed together glass and rocks with quantum mechanics. That's cool as shit. You don't gotta pretend it's fucking magic, too.

            7. slopinthebag · 1791141836 · focus · HN ↗

               how misanthropic to believe humankind's only valuable trait is intelligence.
            8. customguy · 1791147292 · focus · HN ↗

               Who's even supposed to be the audience to admire us for being so intelligent? "Stand out" to whom? Ourselves? Win what competition? The whole premise seems alien and kinda petty to me. If we are "the best there is", that would mean anything cool that will ever happen, we have to make. No, I like there being others, just like I love how much we still have to discover about and can learn from other life on Earth. All of it "stands out".

               What do I care that a bird can fly? I'm happy for bird being able to fly, it makes the world I live in more interesting. If they had to walk just so I don't get jealous, I still wouldn't be able to fly, and I couldn't befriend birds who can fly. Likewise, if there was actual artificial intelligence, it would be a new type of mind I could communicate with. That'd be exciting, and for me preferable to anything controlled by the humans who are currently vying to run the show.

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