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Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

economist.com

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Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#161

Post by adrianN »

Legend2440 wrote: post #122
anikan_vader wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of evidence for non-determinism in matter, which the brain is notably made out of.

Not necessarily. Everything is deterministic above the quantum level, and it's possible that quantum non-determinism is the result of deterministic processes we can't see. Lots of deterministic processes (like PRNGs) look random from the outside - that's what chaos theory is about. I think it's likely that everything in the universe is deterministic.

In most systems, if you simulate them for sufficiently long, macroscopic behavior depends on quantum effects. For example, if you simulate simple newtonian gravity on three bodies, your numeric precision quickly grows such that you need to know the position of the objects more accurately than Heisenberg allows.

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#162

Post by Legend2440 »

goatlover wrote: post #140
Legend2440 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Everything is deterministic above the quantum level, and it's possible that quantum non-determinism is the result of deterministic processes we can't see. Lots of deterministic processes (like PRNGs) look random from the outside - that's what chaos theory is about. I think it's likely that everything in the universe is deterministic.

Or the Many Worlds Interpretation is the correct understanding of quantum mechanics. The MWI people will say that indeterminism comes from the Copenhagen idea of there being a random collapse. But since measuring devices and human brains are also quantum systems, there's no reason to propose a collapse. Decoherence would be the reason we only see one result.

Maybe, but there's no data to support one interpretation over another.

I believe that all quantum interpretations are incomplete and therefore wrong. Quantum mechanics is an abstraction over a deeper level of physics we can't measure yet.

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#163

Post by zappchance »

kedean wrote: post #133
Legend2440 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Everything is deterministic above the quantum level, and it's possible that quantum non-determinism is the result of deterministic processes we can't see. Lots of deterministic processes (like PRNGs) look random from the outside - that's what chaos theory is about. I think it's likely that everything in the universe is deterministic.

If it's not actually possible to simulate a system within the confines of physics, does it being deterministic actually matter outside of thought experiments? I feel like a random system and a deterministic system which cannot be simulated are effectively the same thing.

It only matters in matters of free will and ethics. One actual scenario where it's relavant would be the discussion around the criminal justice system. If the universe is deterministic, how can punitive justice be justified?

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#164

Post by richardw »

RossBencina wrote: post #82
michaelteter wrote: post #63

Isn't the fundamental problem that LLM's don't actually understand anything (as greater concepts), but rather operate as complex probability machines? My 2 month active experience with ChatGPT-4 gave me the following takeaways: - when it's right, it's amazing; and when you, the operator, can recognize the niche use case where it performs really well, it can be a game-changer (although you could have programmed a tool…

I like your takeaways and reflection, especially the "changes the game" idea. There is an analogy with pocket calculators and mental arithmetic. Personally I'm more comfortable reaching for the pocket calculator than offloading all thinking to an LLM. On the other hand, it's not so long ago that manual calculation was a specialized occupation. I could maybe see software coding becoming automated just as calculation w…

> I don't quite get where you're coming from with "LLM's don't actually understand anything

Well, Wikipedia doesn’t understand anything, despite having a lot of knowledge encoded in it. This is similar in that it approximates the output of someone who can generate the world’s written word, but there’s a big gap between the monkeys that wrote the original text and the machine that now regurgitates it. What we know is that our written word has enough encoded in it that we can generate new combinations. But one day into a truly novel problem, LLM’s would have no idea.

I kept trying to get ChatGPT 4 to generate code with an AWS API that was released in ~2020. Couldn’t do it. Kept predicting the earlier text because that was the bulk of what it saw. A year of text (to the 2021 cutoff) and it was still unable to let go of the old, now wrong, “knowledge”. Zero understanding, just parroting. No coder with a year of training on a new API would be that wrong. It would say things like “you’re right I must not do X” and then do X again, in the same output.

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#165

Post by letitgo12345 »

ChatGTP wrote: post #77
letitgo12345 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next iteration will be trained on your own data where "when it's a little wrong, you (the expert) can fix the issue and move on without friction" so that case will become "when it's right" and some amount of "when it's any amount of wrong" cases will become "when it's a little wrong". A few more cycles of this and we could be looking at GPT-10 which is a complete replacement for most tasks.

Hmm, wouldn’t this only be useful if you were solving the same problems over and over again, which does happen but say in the case of programming, I’d put the reusable pieces into a library, not a language model? Like you’d train the model to give you the most accurate response based on your current problem space, but when they changes, you’d have to retrain on what you’re working on but by that stage it’s already ou…

the idea is it wld learn how to do reasoning better based on this

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#166

Post by brutusborn »

zappchance wrote: post #163
kedean wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not actually possible to simulate a system within the confines of physics, does it being deterministic actually matter outside of thought experiments? I feel like a random system and a deterministic system which cannot be simulated are effectively the same thing.

It only matters in matters of free will and ethics. One actual scenario where it's relavant would be the discussion around the criminal justice system. If the universe is deterministic, how can punitive justice be justified?

It can be justified in a deterministic universe because it makes criminals less likely to commit crime in future.

As a recipient of punitive justice myself, being punished had a tangible effect on how I thought about crime and thus how I behaved post-punishment. Whether you believe that was deterministic or due to my own free will doesn’t change the outcome.

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#167

Post by p-e-w »

goldenshale wrote: post #158
p-e-w wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> paranoid AI risk cultists There is broad consensus among experts that a hypothetical strong AI would be a threat, and potentially an existential threat, to humanity. While not everyone agrees on details like timeline and alignment issues, the idea that AI is dangerous is not a cult, it's the mainstream view. Climate scientists cannot "predict the future" with certainty either. That doesn't mean their warnings are h…

What nonsense. I've spent over a decade 100% focused on AI, and the broad consensus among everyone I've worked with is not to be that concerned at all. The only consensus is that a small group of self proclaimed experts who make a lot of noise is that they get lots of press coverage if they scream and shout making predictions based on zero scientific evidence. We can understand the physics of greenhouse gases and tak…

> Show me any evidence for AI risk today beyond people's theories and beliefs?

Deduction. Empirical evidence isn't the only source of insight. You don't have to conduct experiments in order to reasonably conclude that an entity that

1. outperforms humans at mental tasks

2. shares no evolutionary commonality with humans

3. does not necessarily have any goals that align with those of humans

is a potential threat to humans. This follows from very basic deductive analysis.

> There are no AGI experts or AI risk experts, because we don't have any of these systems to study and analyze.

Indeed. Which increases the risk. Unless you are claiming that AGI is actually impossible, the fact that its properties and behavior cannot be studied should make people even more worried.

Uncertainty and lack of knowledge are what risk is. How little we know about potential AGI is exactly why AGI represents such a big risk. If we completely understood it and were able to make reliable predictions, there would be zero risk by definition.

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#168

Post by d-cc »

zappchance wrote: post #163
kedean wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not actually possible to simulate a system within the confines of physics, does it being deterministic actually matter outside of thought experiments? I feel like a random system and a deterministic system which cannot be simulated are effectively the same thing.

It only matters in matters of free will and ethics. One actual scenario where it's relavant would be the discussion around the criminal justice system. If the universe is deterministic, how can punitive justice be justified?

The free will "debate", as most consider it, is an utter joke. A tumor or large amount of kinetic energy to the right parts of your, or anybody else's, brain can turn them into an unredeemable monster.

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#169

Post by phreeza »

llaolleh wrote: post #148
phreeza wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that any hidden variable resolving quantum indeterminacy would have to be non -local, i.e. able to propagate itself faster than light, which would also violate our understanding of the world quite a bit.

It won't be the first time our understanding is flipped upside down if such a framework of thought arises.

Yea I don't disagree, just wanted to point out that the hidden variable would not mean that matter actually behaves like a classical mechanics machine.

Re: Many in the AI field think the bigger-is-better approach is running out of road

#170

Post by Legend2440 »

zappchance wrote: post #163
kedean wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not actually possible to simulate a system within the confines of physics, does it being deterministic actually matter outside of thought experiments? I feel like a random system and a deterministic system which cannot be simulated are effectively the same thing.

It only matters in matters of free will and ethics. One actual scenario where it's relavant would be the discussion around the criminal justice system. If the universe is deterministic, how can punitive justice be justified?

The point of punishment is to discourage you (and other people) from doing that action in the future. You don't need free will for that.
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