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Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

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Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#41

Post by phantasmish »

thrance wrote: post #34
phantasmish wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our brains actually do something , may be the difference. They're a thing happening, not a description of a thing happening. Whatever that something that it actually does in the real, physical world is produces the cogito in cogito, ergo sum and I doubt you can get it just by describing what all the subatomic particles are doing, any more than a computer or pen-and-paper simulated hurricane can knock your house down,…

You're arguing for the existence of a soul , for dualism . Nothing wrong with that, except we have never been able to measure it, and have never had to use it to explain any phenomenon of the brain's working. The brain follows the rules of physics, like any other objects of the material world. A pen and paper simulation of a brain would also be "a thing happening" as you put it. You have to explain what is the magica…

> You're arguing for the existence of a soul, for dualism.

I'm not. You might want me to be, but I'm very, very much not.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#42

Post by Terr_ »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #40
Terr_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone asserts, almost religiously, that LLMs do and/or can "think." When asked how to falsify their assertion, perhaps by explaining what exactly is "thinking" in the human brain that can and/or will be possible to emulate...

When asked how to falsify their assertion, perhaps by explaining what exactly is "thinking" in the human brain that can and/or will be possible to emulate... ... someone else points out that the same models that can't "think" are somehow turning in gold-level performance at international math and programming competitions, making Fields Medalists sit up and take notice, winning art competitions, composing music indist…

A couple decades of chess programs nods knowingly: "First time?"

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#43

Post by ablob »

d-lisp wrote: post #25
jvanderbot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking is undefined so all statements about it are unverifiable.

Do you think that thinking is undefinable ? If thinking is definable, then all statements about it aren't unverifiable.

Caveat: if thinking is definable, then not all statements about it are unverifiable.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#44

Post by hnfong »

snickerbockers wrote: post #23
causal wrote: post #2

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the idea of educating students on the math behind AI to demystify them. But I think it's a little weird to assert "AI is not magic and AI systems do not think. It’s just maths." Equivalent statements could be made about how human brains are not magic, just biology - yet I think we still think.

>Equivalent statements could be made about how human brains are not magic, just biology - yet I think we still think. They're not equivalent at all because the AI is by no means biological. "It's just maths" could maybe be applied to humans but this is backed entirely by supposition and would ultimately just be an assumption of its own conclusion - that human brains work on the same underlying principles as AI becaus…

Well, a better retort would be "Human brains are not magic, just physics. Protons, neutrons and electrons don't think".

But I think most people get what GP means.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#45

Post by School-Cotton »

Terr_ wrote: post #36
CamperBob2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where these threads always end up. Someone asserts, almost violently, that AI does not and/or cannot "think." When asked how to falsify their assertion, perhaps by explaining what exactly is unique about the human brain that cannot and/or will not be possible to emulate, that's the last anyone ever hears from them. At least until the next "AI can't think" story gets posted. The same arguments that appeared in…

Someone asserts, almost religiously, that LLMs do and/or can "think." When asked how to falsify their assertion, perhaps by explaining what exactly is "thinking" in the human brain that can and/or will be possible to emulate...

Err, no, that’s not what’s happening. Nobody, at least in this thread (and most others like it I’ve seen), is confidently claiming LLMs can think.

There are people confidently claiming they can’t and then other people expressing skepticism at their confidence and/or trying to get them to nail down what they mean.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#46

Post by terminalshort »

phantasmish wrote: post #15
space_fountain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that open. We can simulate smaller system of neurons just fine, we can simulate chemistry. There might be something beyond that in our brains for some reason, but it sees doubtful right now

Our brains actually do something , may be the difference. They're a thing happening, not a description of a thing happening. Whatever that something that it actually does in the real, physical world is produces the cogito in cogito, ergo sum and I doubt you can get it just by describing what all the subatomic particles are doing, any more than a computer or pen-and-paper simulated hurricane can knock your house down,…

Why are the electric currents moving in a GPU any less of a "thing happening" than the firing of the neurons in your brain? What you are describing here is a claim that the brain is fundamentally supernatural.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#47

Post by TallGuyShort »

It's unfortunate that there's so little (none in the article, just 1 comment here as of this writing) mention of the Turing Test. The whole premise of the paper that introduced that was that "do machines think" is such a hard question to define that you have to frame the question differently. And it's ironic that we seem to talk about the Turing Test less than ever now that systems almost everyone can access can arguably pass it now.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#48

Post by gfdvgfffv »

Terr_ wrote: post #36
CamperBob2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where these threads always end up. Someone asserts, almost violently, that AI does not and/or cannot "think." When asked how to falsify their assertion, perhaps by explaining what exactly is unique about the human brain that cannot and/or will not be possible to emulate, that's the last anyone ever hears from them. At least until the next "AI can't think" story gets posted. The same arguments that appeared in…

Someone asserts, almost religiously, that LLMs do and/or can "think." When asked how to falsify their assertion, perhaps by explaining what exactly is "thinking" in the human brain that can and/or will be possible to emulate...

One mostly sees people aggressively claiming they can’t, ever. On the other side people seem to simply allow that they might, or might eventually.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#49

Post by mcswell »

snickerbockers wrote: post #23
causal wrote: post #2

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the idea of educating students on the math behind AI to demystify them. But I think it's a little weird to assert "AI is not magic and AI systems do not think. It’s just maths." Equivalent statements could be made about how human brains are not magic, just biology - yet I think we still think.

>Equivalent statements could be made about how human brains are not magic, just biology - yet I think we still think. They're not equivalent at all because the AI is by no means biological. "It's just maths" could maybe be applied to humans but this is backed entirely by supposition and would ultimately just be an assumption of its own conclusion - that human brains work on the same underlying principles as AI becaus…

Straw man. The person who you're responding to talked about "equivalent statements" (emphasis added), whereas you appear to be talking about equivalent objects (AIs vs. brains), and pointing out the obvious flaw in this argument, that AIs aren't biology. The obvious flaw in the wrong argument, that is.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#50

Post by Wowfunhappy »

frozenlettuce wrote: post #6
dang wrote: post #190

[stub for offtopicness] (in this case, thinkiness)

You can replicate all calculations done by LLMs with pen and paper. It would take ages to calculate anything, but it's possible. I don't think that pen and paper will ever "think", regardless of how complex the calculations involved are.

https://xkcd.com/505/

You can replicate the entire universe with pen and paper (or a bunch of rocks). It would take an unimaginably long time, and we haven't discovered all the calculations you'd need to do yet, but presumably they exist and this could be done.

Does that actually make a universe? I don't know!

The comic is meant to be a joke, I think, but I find myself thinking about it all the time!!!

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