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LLM Inevitabilism

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Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#601

Post by srveale »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #571
JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #556

The author seems to imply that the "framing" of an argument is done so in bad faith in order to win an argument but only provides one-line quotes where there is no contextual argument. This tactic by the author is a straw-man argument - he's framing the position of tech leaders and our acceptance of it as the reason AI exists, instead of being honest, which is that they were simply right in their predictions: AI was…

> AI was inevitable. This is post hoc ergo propter hoc. AI exists thus it must have been inevitable. You have no proof it was inevitable. (Also AI means something wildly different than it meant a few years ago - I remember when AI meant AGI, the salesmen have persuaded you the emperor has clothes because they solved a single compelling test).

I keep seeing the "AI of the gaps" argument, where AI is whatever computers currently can't do. I wonder when I'll stop seeing it.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#602

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

throwaway328 wrote: post #407
mg wrote: post #70

In the 90s a friend told me about the internet. And that he knows someone who is in a university and has access to it and can show us. An hour later, we were sitting in front of a computer in that university and watched his friend surfing the web. Clicking on links, receiving pages of text. Faster than one could read. In a nice layout. Even with images. And links to other pages. We were shocked. No printing, no shipp…

And here's a list of stuff I've seen or that the non-computer-experts tell me they're doing with it, since the last month or two when suddenly even people who were against it are accepting it, along with people who'd never heard of it suddenly using it: - getting the do-re-mi notes for "twinkle twinkle little star" for the piano, just written out with no rhythm or audio anything - writing a groom's wedding speech ("t…

The big unspoken deal is local, offline LLMs, especially if (when) easy plug-and-play finetuning becomes the norm.

Suddenly the pendulum swings back the personal computing and you can have your own offline, curated mini-google.

Imagine when a thousand purpose-trained open-weight LLMs appear, for everything imaginable. (E.g., if you want your own private Magic the Gathering robot you now can.)

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#603

Post by Buttons840 »

digianarchist wrote: post #554
Buttons840 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to put the LLMs inside systems that ensure they can only do correct things. Put an LLM on documentation or man pages. Tell the LLM to output a range of lines, and the system actually looks up those lines and quotes them. The overall effect is that the LLM can do some free-form output, but is expected to provide a citation to support its claims; and the citation can't be hallucinated, since the LLM doesn't gen…

Are models capable of generating citations? Every time I've asked for citations on ChatGPT they either don't exist or are incorrect.

They can't pull citations out of their own weights, but if you give them tools to look up man pages (possibly annotated with line numbers), they could cite the lines that support their claims.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#604

Post by yladiz »

andai wrote: post #551
evantbyrne wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty bearish on the idea that AGI is going to take off anytime soon, but I read a significant amount of theology growing up and I would not describe the popular essays from e.g., LessWrong as religious in nature. I also would not describe them as appearing poorly read. The whole "look they just have a new god!" is a common trope in religious apologetics that is usually just meant to distract from the author's o…

Maybe not a god, but we're intentionally designing artificial minds greater than ours, and we intend to give them control of the entire planet. While also expecting them to somehow remain subservient to us (or is that part just lip service)?

I’m sorry, but are you arguing that an LLM is anywhere near a human mind? Or are you arguing about some other AI?

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#605

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

The author seems to forget that no matter how he "frames" LLMs and AGI more generally, its really not up to him, or even any one nation (or block like the EU) to make this decision about what future they "want". If you can't build an international consensus to, for example, restrict AI, then whatever you say is pointless and someone else will build it and eventually overpower you.

The only way that doesn't happen is if AI doesn't produce huge productivity boosts or huge R&D boosts. Does anyone still think that's going to be the case ... that AI is going to be a no-op in the economy?

Seems like OP either thinks their wishes will be the world's command (somehow) or that AI won't matter to him if he (and his community) choose not to develop it for themselves.

He seems hopelessly naive to me.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#606

Post by qotgalaxy »

JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #556

The author seems to imply that the "framing" of an argument is done so in bad faith in order to win an argument but only provides one-line quotes where there is no contextual argument. This tactic by the author is a straw-man argument - he's framing the position of tech leaders and our acceptance of it as the reason AI exists, instead of being honest, which is that they were simply right in their predictions: AI was…

[dead]

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#607

Post by JimmaDaRustla »

lsy wrote: post #63

I think two things can be true simultaneously: 1. LLMs are a new technology and it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle with that. It's difficult to imagine a future where they don't continue to exist in some form, with all the timesaving benefits and social issues that come with them. 2. Almost three years in, companies investing in LLMs have not yet discovered a business model that justifies the massive expen…

Investments are mostly in model training. We have trained models now, we'll see a pullback in that regard as businesses will need to optimize to get the best model without spending billions in order to compete on price, but LLMs are here to stay.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#608

Post by belter »

jdiff wrote: post #568
JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #556

The author seems to imply that the "framing" of an argument is done so in bad faith in order to win an argument but only provides one-line quotes where there is no contextual argument. This tactic by the author is a straw-man argument - he's framing the position of tech leaders and our acceptance of it as the reason AI exists, instead of being honest, which is that they were simply right in their predictions: AI was…

The IT industry is also full of salesmen and con men, both enjoy unrealistic exaggeration. Your statements would not be out of place 20 years ago when the iPhone dropped. Your statements would not be out of place 3 years ago before every NFT went to 0. LLMs could hit an unsolvably hard wall next year and settle into a niche of utility. AI could solve a lengthy list of outstanding architectural and technical problems…

> If we're talking about changing the industry, we should see some clear evidence of that.

That’s a great point...and completely incompatible with my pitch deck. I’m trying to raise a $2B seed round on vibes, buzzwords, and a slightly fine-tuned GPT-3.5.. You are seriously jeopardizing my path to an absurdly oversized yacht :-))

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#609

Post by Arch-TK »

bsenftner wrote: post #576
jdiff wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IT industry is also full of salesmen and con men, both enjoy unrealistic exaggeration. Your statements would not be out of place 20 years ago when the iPhone dropped. Your statements would not be out of place 3 years ago before every NFT went to 0. LLMs could hit an unsolvably hard wall next year and settle into a niche of utility. AI could solve a lengthy list of outstanding architectural and technical problems…

> I can't find a single open source codebase, actively used in production, and primarily maintained and developed with AI. That's because using AI to write code is a poor application of LLM AIs. LLMs are better suited to summary, advice, and reflection than forced into a Rube Goldberg Machine. Use your favorite LLM as a Socratic advisor, but not as a coder, and certainly not as an unreliable worker.

It's absolutely hilarious reading all these "you're holding it wrong" arguments because every time I find one it contradicts the previous ones.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#610

Post by JimmaDaRustla »

belter wrote: post #595
JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #556

The author seems to imply that the "framing" of an argument is done so in bad faith in order to win an argument but only provides one-line quotes where there is no contextual argument. This tactic by the author is a straw-man argument - he's framing the position of tech leaders and our acceptance of it as the reason AI exists, instead of being honest, which is that they were simply right in their predictions: AI was…

> LLMs is changing our entire industry, - So far, the only ones making real money are the "shovel sellers": Nvidia, AWS, and the GPU resale hustlers. Everyone else is still trying to figure out how to turn the parrots into profit. - Probabilistic code generators are not the dawn of a new scientific era that will propel us to the Stars. Just autocomplete on steroids, impressive, but not what will launch humanity into…

> you haven't been paying attention.
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