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Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

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Re: Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

#41

Post by dimal »

It seems like the models are getting more reliable at the things they always could do, but they’re not showing any ability to move past that goalpost. Whereas in the past, they could occasionally write some very solid code, but often return nonsense, the nonsense is now getting adequately filtered by so-called “reasoning”, but I see no indication that they could do software design.

> how the hell is it going to develop metrics for assessing the impact of AIs when they're doing things like managing companies or developing public policy?

Why on earth do people want AI to do either of these things? As if our society isn’t fucked enough, having an untouchable oligarchy already managing companies and developing public policies, we want to have the oligarchy’s AI do this, so policy can get even more out of touch with the needs of common people? This should never come to pass. It’s like people read a pile of 90s cyberpunk dystopian novels and decided, “Yeah, let’s do that.” I think it’ll fail, but I don’t understand how anyone with less than 10 billion in assets would want this.

Re: Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

#42

Post by lfkdev »

aerhardt wrote: post #34

My mom told me yesterday that Paul Newman had massive problems with alcohol. I was somewhat skeptical, so this morning I asked ChatGPT a very simple question: "Is Paul Newman known for having had problems with alcohol?" All of the models up to o3-mini-high told me he had no known problems. Here's o3-mini-high's response: "Paul Newman is not widely known for having had problems with alcohol. While he portrayed charact…

Thats not really 'simple' for an LLM. This is a niche information about a specifc person, LLM's train on massive amount of data, the more a topic is being present in the data, the better will the answers be.

Also, you can/should use the "research" mode for questions like this.

Re: Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

#43

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

The disconnect between improved benchmark results and lack of improvement on real world tasks doesn't have to imply cheating - it's just a reflection of the nature of LLMs, which at the end of the day are just prediction systems - these are language models, not cognitive architectures built for generality.

Of course, if you train an LLM heavily on narrow benchmark domains then its prediction performance will improve on those domains, but why would you expect that to improve performance in unrelated areas?

If you trained yourself extensively on advanced math, would you expect that to improve your programming ability? If not, they why would you expect it to improve programming ability of a far less sophisticated "intelligence" (prediction engine) such as a language model?! If you trained yourself on LeetCode programming, would you expect that to help hardening corporate production systems?!

Re: Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

#44

Post by permo-w »

aerhardt wrote: post #34

My mom told me yesterday that Paul Newman had massive problems with alcohol. I was somewhat skeptical, so this morning I asked ChatGPT a very simple question: "Is Paul Newman known for having had problems with alcohol?" All of the models up to o3-mini-high told me he had no known problems. Here's o3-mini-high's response: "Paul Newman is not widely known for having had problems with alcohol. While he portrayed charact…

this seems less like an issue with accuracy and more like an issue with model providers making sure they don't get sued for libel

Re: Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

#45

Post by lukev »

photochemsyn wrote: post #13

Will LLMs end up like compilers? Compilers are also fundamentally important to modern industrial civilization - but they're not profit centers, they're mostly free and open-source outside a few niche areas. Knowing how to use a compiler effectively to write secure and performative software is still a valuable skill - and LLMs are a valuable tool that can help with that process, especially if the programmer is on the…

This seems like a probable end state, but we're going to have to stop calling LLMs "artificial intelligence" in order to get there.

Re: Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

#48

Post by john2x »

drooby wrote: post #38
aerhardt wrote: post #34

My mom told me yesterday that Paul Newman had massive problems with alcohol. I was somewhat skeptical, so this morning I asked ChatGPT a very simple question: "Is Paul Newman known for having had problems with alcohol?" All of the models up to o3-mini-high told me he had no known problems. Here's o3-mini-high's response: "Paul Newman is not widely known for having had problems with alcohol. While he portrayed charact…

I asked GPT-4.5 and it searched the web and immediately gave me a "yes" with paragraphs of sources cited.

Truth is a probability game. Just keep trying until you arrive.

Re: Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

#49

Post by aerhardt »

permo-w wrote: post #44
aerhardt wrote: post #34

My mom told me yesterday that Paul Newman had massive problems with alcohol. I was somewhat skeptical, so this morning I asked ChatGPT a very simple question: "Is Paul Newman known for having had problems with alcohol?" All of the models up to o3-mini-high told me he had no known problems. Here's o3-mini-high's response: "Paul Newman is not widely known for having had problems with alcohol. While he portrayed charact…

this seems less like an issue with accuracy and more like an issue with model providers making sure they don't get sued for libel

I thought about that too.
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