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Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

arxiv.org

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Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#51

Post by oldsecondhand »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #24
MrScruff wrote: post #13

Obviously AI academics are uniquely challenged by the 'scaling is (nearly) everything' reality, but I feel like a lot of the mixed emotions being expressed towards the latest results are also because we're actually seeing the mystery of self starting to unravel. Like any good mystery, the fun was in the build up and as we move towards a resolution there's a bitter sweet aspect to the slightly mundane reality of it 'm…

Nothing about current AI models profoundly challenges the unknowns of what makes consciousness work in any mystery-resolving way. People who confuse plainly programmed algorithmic systems like GPT 4 or Midjourney with the still unresolved issues of sentience as we know it so far are drinking far too much of the current batch of AI punch. Sadly, it's a sentiment I see all too often on HN, a site in which i'd assume mo…

Crypto has created no useful products yet, unlike AI. I don't know how can you even mention them on the same page.

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#52

Post by bo1024 »

As a theorist in AI, the premise is funny but also really sad. And yet it is a very pervasive premise in the field.

OpenAI is not doing science. They are building a big shiny thing, showing it off, keeping it closed, and making money off of it. That is not part of the scientific process.

It is as if, every time SpaceX launched a rocket a little bit higher, every aerospace department ooh'd and aah'd and threw up their hands: "we don't have the resources to build a bigger rocket; how can we do science?"

Unfortunately, the research field of AI is diseased: it places way too much value on showing off big shiny things above progress in scientific understanding. But there is a ton of progress available to be made by small teams on small budgets. There is so much we don't understand about neural networks alone, even small ones.

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#53

Post by leroy-is-here »

MrScruff wrote: post #13

Obviously AI academics are uniquely challenged by the 'scaling is (nearly) everything' reality, but I feel like a lot of the mixed emotions being expressed towards the latest results are also because we're actually seeing the mystery of self starting to unravel. Like any good mystery, the fun was in the build up and as we move towards a resolution there's a bitter sweet aspect to the slightly mundane reality of it 'm…

We are not our thoughts. We are not the thinking machines in our heads. We control our thoughts, so we are more than them.

These machines are merely thinking machines.

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#54

Post by gitfan86 »

bo1024 wrote: post #52

As a theorist in AI, the premise is funny but also really sad. And yet it is a very pervasive premise in the field. OpenAI is not doing science. They are building a big shiny thing, showing it off, keeping it closed, and making money off of it. That is not part of the scientific process. It is as if, every time SpaceX launched a rocket a little bit higher, every aerospace department ooh'd and aah'd and threw up their…

OpenAI wasn't created to "Do Science". It was created to give humanity a better chance at navigating the singularity.

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#55

Post by [deleted] »

gitfan86 wrote: post #54
bo1024 wrote: post #52

As a theorist in AI, the premise is funny but also really sad. And yet it is a very pervasive premise in the field. OpenAI is not doing science. They are building a big shiny thing, showing it off, keeping it closed, and making money off of it. That is not part of the scientific process. It is as if, every time SpaceX launched a rocket a little bit higher, every aerospace department ooh'd and aah'd and threw up their…

OpenAI wasn't created to "Do Science". It was created to give humanity a better chance at navigating the singularity.

[deleted]

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#56

Post by goodmunky »

leroy-is-here wrote: post #53
MrScruff wrote: post #13

Obviously AI academics are uniquely challenged by the 'scaling is (nearly) everything' reality, but I feel like a lot of the mixed emotions being expressed towards the latest results are also because we're actually seeing the mystery of self starting to unravel. Like any good mystery, the fun was in the build up and as we move towards a resolution there's a bitter sweet aspect to the slightly mundane reality of it 'm…

We are not our thoughts. We are not the thinking machines in our heads. We control our thoughts, so we are more than them. These machines are merely thinking machines.

More than thoughts certainly, but don’t be so sure we control our thoughts. There is a lot of subconscious thinking machinery doing the driving. See Master and his Emissary, https://channelmcgilchrist.com/master-and-his-emissary/#:~:t...

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#57

Post by fouc »

MrScruff wrote: post #46
bangkoksbest wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it reads so bizarrely to me... How are we confusing biological human (or other animal) sentience in some embodied creature with queries as a service to some model instance. I cannot see anything that remotely makes these two contexts architecturally, practically, or ethically similar, except in the narrow sense of query responses that might have been mistakenly thought of as defining sentience in earlier decade…

I think you're missing the point. It's not that GPT4 is sentient, not that successor LLMs will be. It may be we never create something that's sentient, by our definition. My argument is just that: - Sentience is variable. We might regard primitive organisms as biological machines. As some of these machines have slowly evolved to become more complex, sentience/consciousness has emerged, effectively by 'redesigning' an…

There's no need to move goal posts.

There's very clear definitions for sentience & sapience.

The only confusion is that laypeople tend to conflate sentience & sapience.

A sentient AI is not necessarily a sapient one, by definition.

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#58

Post by hyperbovine »

bo1024 wrote: post #52

As a theorist in AI, the premise is funny but also really sad. And yet it is a very pervasive premise in the field. OpenAI is not doing science. They are building a big shiny thing, showing it off, keeping it closed, and making money off of it. That is not part of the scientific process. It is as if, every time SpaceX launched a rocket a little bit higher, every aerospace department ooh'd and aah'd and threw up their…

Conversely: if you’re a depressed AI researcher: come on over to science, the water’s fine! We have centuries worth of open problems that are not going to be solved by ChatGPT, and need more smart technical people than we can hire.

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#59

Post by elif »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #24
MrScruff wrote: post #13

Obviously AI academics are uniquely challenged by the 'scaling is (nearly) everything' reality, but I feel like a lot of the mixed emotions being expressed towards the latest results are also because we're actually seeing the mystery of self starting to unravel. Like any good mystery, the fun was in the build up and as we move towards a resolution there's a bitter sweet aspect to the slightly mundane reality of it 'm…

Nothing about current AI models profoundly challenges the unknowns of what makes consciousness work in any mystery-resolving way. People who confuse plainly programmed algorithmic systems like GPT 4 or Midjourney with the still unresolved issues of sentience as we know it so far are drinking far too much of the current batch of AI punch. Sadly, it's a sentiment I see all too often on HN, a site in which i'd assume mo…

Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference; we should each be treated with appropriate respect.

Re: Choose Your Weapon: Survival Strategies for Depressed AI Academics

#60

Post by elif »

leroy-is-here wrote: post #53
MrScruff wrote: post #13

Obviously AI academics are uniquely challenged by the 'scaling is (nearly) everything' reality, but I feel like a lot of the mixed emotions being expressed towards the latest results are also because we're actually seeing the mystery of self starting to unravel. Like any good mystery, the fun was in the build up and as we move towards a resolution there's a bitter sweet aspect to the slightly mundane reality of it 'm…

We are not our thoughts. We are not the thinking machines in our heads. We control our thoughts, so we are more than them. These machines are merely thinking machines.

I believe my cat is merely a thinking machine by your definition.
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