Live data from Hacker News

The Lone Banana Problem in AI

digital-science.com

51–60 of 109 posts

Re: The Lone Banana Problem in AI

#51
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pictures did not immediately tell you? They told me what the problem was in about 2 seconds, and frankly, the title and the first sentence alone were. All right, I concede, a blind reader would not know, but most people are not blind.

I read almost the whole article thinking there might be something more in there. There was mention of TCAV but that was about it.

I am mystified.

The page is not long, the text is not complex. The message is obvious and it is contained in the title as shown here on HN.

The first pic and its caption make it plain.

The next group of 4 pics and their SINGLE SENTENCE caption spell it out clearly.

As for "almost the whole article" -- it is short! It took about 90sec to read the whole page, top to bottom.

"AI" chat bots can't count. This is well known. It is the stuff of memes.

https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/1770930?n=1

Re: The Lone Banana Problem in AI

#53
post #26

Humans are in the business of consuming bananas, whereas neural nets are in the business of peddling bananas. They don't get to actually use these bananas so they can't gain deeper insight into what's they for. This is the classic lamb vs. mutton issue. Wealthy land owners who use one set of idioms vs. servants who use a different one. Happens to neural nets on human chassis as well.

That touches on something I've pondered for a while: Maybe the popular sci-fi image of "artificial brains" with humanoid bodies actually turns out to be more accurate than the technical view that robotics and artificial intelligence are mostly separate fields! What if, instead of machine learning being a source of features we can maybe later build into robots, it's the other way round? What if direct interaction with…

[dead]

Re: The Lone Banana Problem in AI

#54

LLM doesn't know stuff, it has few models beyond an extremely deep association between (in this case) descriptions and pictures. Humans have shitty models for stuff, but we have them. We lack the massively deep numerical associations. It can't be that long before someone makes an AI that says knows a few common models like "stuff made of steel is rigid, stuff made of cloth is soft, etc". Along with "If someone keeps…

[deleted]

Re: The Lone Banana Problem in AI

#55

I wish this article was just 3 paragraphs. The verbose writing style was a little tiring, I found myself scrolling impatiently to find what the actual "Lone Banana Problem" was.

> I wish this article was just 3 paragraphs.

AI might have problems with single bananas, but it can do that very well:

> In an experiment with the AI program Midjourney, the author found a peculiar issue: the program rendered images of monkeys holding bananas, but it consistently depicted two or more bananas even when asked to render a single banana.

The author suggests that the AI’s predilection for rendering multiple bananas might be due to biases in its training data or the lack of precise labeling. He points out that AI systems like Midjourney don’t understand objects in the human sense but rather recognize common patterns. These systems are only as good as the data fed to them and can inadvertently contain biases or incorrect representations.

The article further delves into existential questions about the nature of human intelligence, creativity, and morality compared to AI’s pattern recognition. It questions whether human cognition and morality are just advanced pattern matching with a better understanding of the physical world. The author also touches on the distinction between programming and prompt engineering, highlighting that the latter requires a more nuanced understanding of language and how AI models interpret it.

Re: The Lone Banana Problem in AI

#56
post #50

LLM doesn't know stuff, it has few models beyond an extremely deep association between (in this case) descriptions and pictures. Humans have shitty models for stuff, but we have them. We lack the massively deep numerical associations. It can't be that long before someone makes an AI that says knows a few common models like "stuff made of steel is rigid, stuff made of cloth is soft, etc". Along with "If someone keeps…

Me: A designer has created two artpieces. The first one "The gattoya" is made of steel bars welded into a spiral shape. The second "Misiblur" is made of cloth and somewhat resembles a butterfly. Which is most comfortable to rest your head on and why? Chatgpt: Based on the description provided, it is likely that "Misiblur," the art piece made of cloth resembling a butterfly, would be more comfortable to rest your head…

Yes but that's text, and there's plenty of text that will tell you that steel is rigid, and rigid is uncomfortable. Also you gave it an A/B choice, random chance is 50%. Does it insist it's right if you prompt it the other way?

Does it make pictures of people who are comfortable in one but not the other?

Most of the time when I see something funny in LLMs it's in the images. People with 8 fingers, elbows bent backwards, that kind of thing. Spatial models.

Re: The Lone Banana Problem in AI

#57
post #30

> Then think of all the wealth disparity that has been introduced into our world. Think of the social anxiety of always being online. Think of the undermining of our democratic institutions. How is this at all whatsoever needed

Well, it's a 2023 piece about AI so of course a paragraph or two of sociological blabbing is required.

Re: The Lone Banana Problem in AI

#58

I wish this article was just 3 paragraphs. The verbose writing style was a little tiring, I found myself scrolling impatiently to find what the actual "Lone Banana Problem" was.

This is the biggest communication problem most people have. Say it plain and simple. No one wants to read your train of thought.

[dead]

Re: The Lone Banana Problem in AI

#59
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me: A designer has created two artpieces. The first one "The gattoya" is made of steel bars welded into a spiral shape. The second "Misiblur" is made of cloth and somewhat resembles a butterfly. Which is most comfortable to rest your head on and why? Chatgpt: Based on the description provided, it is likely that "Misiblur," the art piece made of cloth resembling a butterfly, would be more comfortable to rest your head…

Yes but that's text, and there's plenty of text that will tell you that steel is rigid, and rigid is uncomfortable. Also you gave it an A/B choice, random chance is 50%. Does it insist it's right if you prompt it the other way? Does it make pictures of people who are comfortable in one but not the other? Most of the time when I see something funny in LLMs it's in the images. People with 8 fingers, elbows bent backwar…

You are partly right, but I asked it to motivate its answer and it was able to do that in a coherent way. I quite intentionally didn't ask it which was rigid or soft, that's a connection it made itself.

(edited to remove incorrect info)

Post reply on HN