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AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

tomwphillips.co.uk

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Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#381

Post by simonw »

thewebguyd wrote: post #317
simonw wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to be arguing against using technology to boost human efficiency on a forum full of software engineers who've dedicated their careers to building software that makes humans more efficient. If we aren't doing that then why are we building software?

Because the stated goal of generative AI is not to make an individual more efficient, it's to replace that individual all together and completely eliminate the bottom rungs of the professional career ladder. Historically software that made humans more efficient resulted in empowerment for the individual, and also created a need for new skilled roles. Efficiency gains were reinvested into the labor market. More people…

Thanks, that's a well argued comment.

I'm not a fan of of the "replace workers with AI" thing myself - I'm much more excited about AI as augmentation for existing workers so they can take on more challenging tasks.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#382

Post by naasking »

RaftPeople wrote: post #291
naasking wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To simplify it greatly, an LLM neuron is a single input single output function. A human brain neuron takes in thousands of inputs and produces thousands of outputs This is simply a scaling problem, eg. thousands of single I/O functions can reproduce the behaviour of a function that takes thousands of inputs and produces thousands of outputs. Edit: As for the rest of your argument, it's not so clear cut. An LLM can…

> This is simply a scaling problem, eg. thousands of single I/O functions can reproduce the behaviour of a function that takes thousands of inputs and produces thousands of outputs. I think it's more than just scaling, you need to understand the functional details to reproduce those functions (assuming those functions are valuable for the end result as opposed to just the way it had to be done given the medium). An i…

Yes, there may be interesting math, but I didn't mean "scaling LLMs", necessarily. I was making a more general point that a single-I/O function can pretty trivially replicate a multi-I/O function, so the OP's point that "LLM neurons" are single-I/O and bio neurons are multi-I/O doesn't mean much. Estimates of brain complexity have already factored this in, which is why we know we're still a few orders of magnitude away from the number of parameters needed for a human brain in a raw compute sense.

However, the human brain has extra parameters that a pure/distilled general intelligence may not actually need, eg. emotions, some types of perception, balance, and modulation of various biological processes. It's not clear how many of the parameters of the human brain these take up, so maybe we're not as far as we think.

And there are alternative models such as spiking neural networks which more closely mimic biology, but it's not clear whether these are really that critical. I think general intelligence will likely have multiple models which achieve similar results, just like there are multiple ways to sort a set of numbers.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#383

Post by tim333 »

>AGI fantasy...

>I think it’s remarkable that what was until recently sci-fi fantasy has become a mainstream view in Silicon Valley.

Human like thinking by machines, which I think is what most people think of as AGI was not until recently a sci-fi fantasy.

It was dealt with by Turning of Turing test fame and the main founder of computer science, around 1950 and the idea of singularity in the tech sense came from John von Neumann who was fundamental to the John von Neumann architecture used as the basis of much computing. If you assume the brain is a biological computer and electronic computers get better in a Moore's law like way then a crossover is kind of inevitable.

Dismissing it as sci-fi fantasy seems a bit like dismissing a round as opposed to flat earth ideas in a similar way.

Which doesn't mean that LLMs are the answer and we should stick all the money into them. That's a different thing.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#384

Post by ben_w »

gishh wrote: post #213
roywiggins wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The water intensity of American food production would be substantially less if we gave up on frivolous things like beef, which requires water vastly out of proportion to its utility. If the water numbers for datacenters seem scary then the water use numbers for the average American's beef consumption is apocalyptic.

I appreciate that you feel this way, it’ll never happen. The US will never give up on eating meat. Full stop. For every vegan/vegetarian in the US there are probably 25 people that feed beef products to their pets on a daily basis.

Beef is not the only meat. Chicken is much less water intensive.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#385

Post by BeFlatXIII »

danaris wrote: post #121
jtr1 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point here is that objecting to AI data center water use and not to say, alfalfa farming in Arizona, reads as reactive rather than principled. But more importantly, there are vast, imminent social harms from AI that get crowded out by water use discourse. IMO, the environmental attack on AI is more a hangover from crypto than a thoughtful attempt to evaluate the costs and benefits of this new technology.

But if I say "I object to AI because and its water use", why would you assume that I don't also object to alfalfa farming in Arizona? Similarly, if I say "I object to the genocide in Gaza", would you assume that I don't also object to the Uyghur genocide? This is nothing but whataboutism. People are allowed to talk about the bad things AI does without adding a 3-page disclaimer explaining that they understand all the…

Adding a weak argument is a red flag for BS detectors. It's what prosecutors do to hoodwink a jury into stacking charges over a singular underlying crime.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#386

Post by jjk166 »

Etherlord87 wrote: post #116
jstanley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison it's about 10 olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water, doesn't seem very significant to me. Unless you're going to tell people they're not allowed swimming pools any more because swimming doesn't produce enough utility? And at any rate, water doesn't get used up! It evaporates and returns to the sky to rain down again somewhere else, it's the most renewable resource in the entire world.

If only millions of people suffering from lack of water knew this.

If you redistributed this water to a million people suffering from lack of water, they'ed get about 2 shot glasses worth per day.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#387

Post by BeFlatXIII »

jtr1 wrote: post #33
paulryanrogers wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because there are worse abuses elsewhere doesn't mean datacenters should get a pass. Golf and datacenters should have to pay for their externalities. And if that means both are uneconomical in arid parts of the country then that's better than bankrupting the public and the environment.

I think the point here is that objecting to AI data center water use and not to say, alfalfa farming in Arizona, reads as reactive rather than principled. But more importantly, there are vast, imminent social harms from AI that get crowded out by water use discourse. IMO, the environmental attack on AI is more a hangover from crypto than a thoughtful attempt to evaluate the costs and benefits of this new technology.

> the environmental attack on AI is more a hangover from crypto than a thoughtful attempt to evaluate the costs and benefits of this new technology

Especially since so many anti-crypto people immediately pivoted to anti-AI. That sudden shift in priorities makes it hard to take them seriously.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#388

Post by wmf »

HardCodedBias wrote: post #122
the__alchemist wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will go meta into what you posted here: That people are classifying themselves as "AI skeptics". Many people are treating this in terms of tribal conflict and identity politics. On HN, we can do better! IMO the move is drop the politics, and discuss things on their technical merits. If we do talk about it as a debate, we can do it when with open minds, and intellectual honesty. I think much of this may be a reactio…

It seems like there is a very strong correlation between identity politics and "AI skepticism." I have no idea why. I don't think that the correlation is 1, but it seems weirdly high.

AI hating is part of the omnicause because it overlaps with art ho socialism, degrowth environmentalism, and general tech skepticism/ludditism.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#389

Post by camdenreslink »

nasmorn wrote: post #326
Capricorn2481 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but a lot of people are calling environmental and content theft arguments "political" in an attempt to make it sound frivolous. It's fine if you think every non-technical criticism against AI is overblown. I use LLMs, but it's perfectly fine to start from a place of whether it's ethical, or even a net good, to use these in the first place. People saying "ignoring all of those arguments, let's just look at the t…

The environmental argument is frivolous as long as people fly to Vegas for the weekend or drive a F150 to the office. Why is this as special domain?

I think that form of argument is called "whataboutism". Whether flights waste energy or are environmentally unfriendly is really a separate issue. Both things can be bad.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#390

Post by BeFlatXIII »

simonw wrote: post #80
fmbb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what the datacenters are used for. AI has no utility. Almonds make marzipan.

"AI has no utility" is a pretty wild claim to make in the tail end of 2025.

It's like the smooth brains who still post "lol 6 fingers"
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