It is possible that one day a model of a human mind could be created that would be sophisticated enough that it would be sapient in the same way a human mind is, but it won't look anything like an LLM. TL;DR: We know enough about both brains and LLMs to be sure LLMs are not intelligent
I’m hearing a lot of very confident assertions of what LLMs are or are not. That’s what bothers me; I for one don’t think I have a deep enough understanding of what’s going on to confidently assert much of anything. And crucially I don’t think anyone else does either - not even their designers.
They have more or less empirically arrived at recipes to make them. That’s not the same thing at all. I know how to *make* a baby. That does *not* mean I have the first clue about what’s actually going on. I have yet to see much evidence that our understanding of these LLMs has gone very far past
that point. Frankly though, our understanding of human brains is pretty limited, too. Hell, can someone explain why exactly human brains need sleep, and what is going on at the informational level when we do?
So my point is that I think this debate would benefit from fewer assertions of certainty and a bit more humility. LLMclearly do exhibit emergent behaviors ranging from an ability to at least sound like they’re reasoning (often imperfectly, but I challenge you to find a human who doesn’t make similar
mistakes), to weird tics. One thing that bothers me though is the immediate, strong, and frankly unthinking rejection bordering on hatred that I see in many people surrounding the topic of AI. (I equally abhor the bullshit hype cycle of the tech bros, to be clear)
That kind of violent rejection is of course deeply human - we feel threatened by something a) we don’t understand and b) that might well take our jobs. Xenophobia and status challenge in one package - I shouldn’t be surprised there haven’t been torch mobs already.
I think the rejection is correct as will be the torch mobs. Want to ponder why, look at the tech bros so far - attitudes to most topics? Why would they be like that? Because outside of possibly coding (although yet to be convinced on that even ) they are uneducated scum, Musk is a perfect example.
Most people are scum (look around you for evidence). And I think we should eat the billionaires, no question. I’m also more than a little bit threatened by “PhD level” AI, .
when I’m not too busy laughing at it trying to count cs in raccoon. But I don’t think we should reject AI as a research effort. It is teaching us much that we did not no about cognition
I wouldn't be bothered by AI if it wasn't in the hands of literal morons! Even when I was an undergrad many decades ago! There was a pioneer neural networking group and a german exchange undergrad was their goffer. He raved about it with the evangelical zeal of a nuclear fusion researcher!!!
It's not just the billionaires the "drop out" enablers are an equal problem. AI is just like religion it won't help with energy or food or politics it will be used for greed, power, control and nefarious purposes far more than anything positive.
But the "PhD level" tagline itself comes from the mouths of those same biliionaires!
"And crucially I don't think anyone else does either - not even their designers." LOL you are completely wrong on this point. I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong. Their designers do understand what LLMs are. And I'm sufficiently familiar with computer science to get the basics.
I didn’t say “what they are”, I said “what is going on”. Do you understand the difference? To coin a phrase: do you grasp my meaning?