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AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

nature.com

51–60 of 212 posts

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#51

This seems extremely interesting, but I don't have the time right now to read this in depth (given I would also need to teach myself a bunch of technical concepts too). Anyone willing to weigh in with a theoretical intuition ? The one in the paper is just a little inaccessible to me right now.

[deleted]

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#52

This seems extremely interesting, but I don't have the time right now to read this in depth (given I would also need to teach myself a bunch of technical concepts too). Anyone willing to weigh in with a theoretical intuition ? The one in the paper is just a little inaccessible to me right now.

[deleted]

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#53
post #4

Back when I was getting my econ degree, we were taught about the Ultimatum game, which goes like this: You get two participants who don't know each other and will (ostensibly) never see each other again. You give one of them $100, and they make an offer of some portion of it to the other. If the other accepts, both parties keep their portion - so, if A offers B $20, and B accepts, A keeps $80 and B keeps $20, if B re…

This reminds me of Lord of the Flies. The real version of the events turned out very differently.

https://www.newsweek.com/real-lord-flies-true-story-boys-isl...

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#54
post #22
post #15

Meanwhile OpenAI, Anthropics, trains on AI generated data to improve their models, and it works. https://openai.com/index/prover-verifier-games-improve-legib... https://www.anthropic.com/research/claude-character

I'm long on synthetic data. If you think about evolution and hill climbing, of course it works. You have a pool of information and you accumulate new rearrangements of that information. Fitness selects for the best features within the new pool of data (For primates, opposable thumbs. For AI art, hands that aren't deformed.) It will naturally drift to better optima. RLHF, synthetic data, and enrichment are all we need…

> If you think about evolution and hill climbing, of course it works.

You don't even need to go that far. How do most children learn? By reading textbooks and listening to lesson plans assembled by their teachers from all the relevant content the teachers have experienced.

Our education systems are built on synthetic data that is created for optimized learning, so that every child doesn't have to prove the universe from scratch to learn some basic maths.

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#55
post #4

Back when I was getting my econ degree, we were taught about the Ultimatum game, which goes like this: You get two participants who don't know each other and will (ostensibly) never see each other again. You give one of them $100, and they make an offer of some portion of it to the other. If the other accepts, both parties keep their portion - so, if A offers B $20, and B accepts, A keeps $80 and B keeps $20, if B re…

Game theory only applies to sociopaths and economists, but I repeat myself.

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#56
post #24
post #15

Meanwhile OpenAI, Anthropics, trains on AI generated data to improve their models, and it works. https://openai.com/index/prover-verifier-games-improve-legib... https://www.anthropic.com/research/claude-character

Cheese and Chalk. It is very different to generate synthetic datasets to assist in targeted training , vs ingesting LLM output from web scraping.

I think this is it.

Generated data is ok if you're curating it to make sure nothing bad, wrong or insensible comes in.

Basically still needs a human in the loop.

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#57
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm long on synthetic data. If you think about evolution and hill climbing, of course it works. You have a pool of information and you accumulate new rearrangements of that information. Fitness selects for the best features within the new pool of data (For primates, opposable thumbs. For AI art, hands that aren't deformed.) It will naturally drift to better optima. RLHF, synthetic data, and enrichment are all we need…

> If you think about evolution and hill climbing, of course it works. You don't even need to go that far. How do most children learn? By reading textbooks and listening to lesson plans assembled by their teachers from all the relevant content the teachers have experienced. Our education systems are built on synthetic data that is created for optimized learning, so that every child doesn't have to prove the universe f…

That isn't synthetic data in any reasonable or meaningful sense of the term.

You could describe a textbook as a synthesis, sure, in a sense which absolutely does not track with the 'synthetic' in 'synthetic data'.

Unless the textbook is AI-generated, and I expect that in 2024, the number of AI-generated textbooks is not zero.

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#58
post #26
post #4

Back when I was getting my econ degree, we were taught about the Ultimatum game, which goes like this: You get two participants who don't know each other and will (ostensibly) never see each other again. You give one of them $100, and they make an offer of some portion of it to the other. If the other accepts, both parties keep their portion - so, if A offers B $20, and B accepts, A keeps $80 and B keeps $20, if B re…

It's crazy how most political or economic systems would very obviously collapse in the real world almost instantly without some kind of voluntary moral contract (explicit or implied), yet we've got huge clumps of people demonizing one system or another based on the context of what happens when you implement it in a morally dead societal context. Like there are a ton of people who smirk at your last paragraph and go "…

A hundred percent. I've said this elsewhere, but a primary problem for at least American society at this point is we don't have a commonly-agreed upon moral system other than the market - things like Martin Shkreli buying drugs people need to live and jacking the price up are Bad, but we don't have a common language for describing why it's immoral, whereas our only real common shared language, the market, is basically fine with it as long as it's legal. A lot of the market logic works fine for society within constraints - optimize your costs, but not at the expense of your workers; increase your prices if you can, but don't be a ghoul about it; lobby for your position, but don't just buy a supreme court judge.

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#59
post #22
post #15

Meanwhile OpenAI, Anthropics, trains on AI generated data to improve their models, and it works. https://openai.com/index/prover-verifier-games-improve-legib... https://www.anthropic.com/research/claude-character

I'm long on synthetic data. If you think about evolution and hill climbing, of course it works. You have a pool of information and you accumulate new rearrangements of that information. Fitness selects for the best features within the new pool of data (For primates, opposable thumbs. For AI art, hands that aren't deformed.) It will naturally drift to better optima. RLHF, synthetic data, and enrichment are all we need…

Synthetic data has to work if we hope to have ML models that can improve themselves in a similar fashion as humans when it comes to advancing knowledge.

Re: AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data

#60
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheese and Chalk. It is very different to generate synthetic datasets to assist in targeted training , vs ingesting LLM output from web scraping.

I think this is it. Generated data is ok if you're curating it to make sure nothing bad, wrong or insensible comes in. Basically still needs a human in the loop.

Then why not remove this crap (LLMs) from the loop altogether? How did we get from "AI will replace you" to "your new job will be an AIs janitor" in the space of about 12 months?
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