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Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

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Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#111

Post by downboots »

mcswell wrote: post #65
ares623 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know if it came to the right answer?

It's not always the case, but often verifying an answer is far easier than coming up with the answer in the first place. That's precisely the principle behind the RSA algorithm for cryptography.

Sure, it's easy to check ((sqrt(x-3)+1)/(x/8)) is less than 4. Now do it without calculus.

Very much like this effect https://www.reddit.com/r/opticalillusions/comments/1cedtcp/s... . Shouldn't hide complexity under a truth value.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#112

Post by Terr_ »

gowld wrote: post #101
CamperBob2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple decades of chess programs nods knowingly: "First time?" Uh huh. Good luck getting Stockfish to do your math homework while Leela works on your next waifu. LLMs play chess poorly. Chess engines do nothing else at all. That's kind of a big difference, wouldn't you say?

Terr_ was agreeing with you and highlighting how old the debate is.

Highlighting, yes, agreeing, no.

For my original earlier reply, the main subtext would be: "Your complaint is ridiculously biased."

For the later reply about chess, perhaps: "You're asserting that tricking, amazing, or beating a human is a reliable sign of human-like intelligence. We already know that is untrue from decades of past experience."

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#113

Post by bigfishrunning »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #59
gus_massa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official name is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room The opinions are exactly the same than about LLM.

And the counter argument is also exactly the same. Imagine you take one neuron from a brain and replace it with an artificial piece of electronics (e.g. some transistors) that only generates specific outputs based on inputs, exactly like the neuron does. Now replace another neuron. And another. Eventually, you will have the entire brain replaced with a huge set of fundamentally super simple transistors. I.e. a comput…

> component in our brains that can not be measured.

"Can not be measured", probably not. "We don't know how to measure", almost certainly.

I am capable of belief, and I've seen no evidence that the computer is. It's also possible that I'm the only person that is conscious. It's even possible that you are!

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#114

Post by whoknowsidont »

isoprophlex wrote: post #97
gowld wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Concepts like > finite context windows like a human has > or the fact that the model is "frozen" and stateless, much like a human adult. Models get updated at a slower frequency than humans. AI systems have access to fetch new information and store it for context. > or the idea that you can transfer conversations between models are trivial because computers are better-organized than humanity.

> much like a human adult. I do hope you're able to remember what you had for lunch without incessantly repeating it to keep it in your context window

A lot of people genuinely can't remember what they did an hour ago, but to be very clear you're implying that an LLM can't "remember" something from an hour, or three hours ago, when it's the opposite.

I can restart a conversation with an LLM 15 days later and the state is exactly as it was.

Can't do that with a human.

The idea that humans have a longer, more stable context window than LLM's, CAN or is even LIKELY to be true given certain activities but please let's be honest about this.

If you talk to someone for an hour about a technical conversation I would guesstimate that 90% of humans would immediately start to lose track of details in about 10 minutes. So they write things down, or they mentally repeat things to themselves they know or have recognized they keep forgetting.

I know this because it's happened continually in tech companies decade after decade.

LLM's have already passed the Turing test. They continue to pass it. They fool and outsmart people day after day.

I'm no fan of the hype AI is receiving, especially around overstating its impact in technical domains, but pretending that LLM's can't or don't consistently perform better than most human adults on a variety of different activities is complete non-sense.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#115

Post by bigfishrunning »

brador wrote: post #37
dang wrote: post #190

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

Do we think? By every scientific measure we have the answer is no. It’s just electrical current taking the path of least resistance through connected neurons mixed with cell death. The fact a human brain peaks at IQ around 200 is fascinating. Can the scale even go higher? It would seem no since nothing has achieved a higher score it must not exist.

The IQ scale is constantly adjusted to keep the peak of the curve at 100 and the standard deviation around 15. To say it peaks around 200 is a pretty gross misunderstanding of what IQ means.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#116

Post by BobbyJo »

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.

If you put a droplet of water in a warm bowl every 12 hours, the bowl will remain empty as the water will evaporate. That does not mean that if you put a trillion droplets in every twelve hours it will still remain empty.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#117

Post by bondarchuk »

kipchak wrote: post #83
terminalshort wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can make a claim much stronger than "you could probably" The counterclaim here is that the brain may not obey physical laws that can be described by mathematics. This is a "5G causes covid" level claim. The overwhelming burden of proof is on you.

Consider for example Orch OR theory. If it or something like it were to be accurate, the brain would not "obey physical laws that can be described by mathematics".

>Consider for example Orch OR theory

Yes, or what about leprechauns?

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#118

Post by cibyr »

phantasmish wrote: post #12
School-Cotton wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can simulate a human brain on pen and paper too.

The simulation isn't an operating brain. It's a description of one. What it "means" is imposed by us, what it actually is, is a shitload of graphite marks on paper or relays flipping around or rocks on sand or (pick your medium). An arbitrarily-perfect simulation of a burning candle will never, ever melt wax. An LLM is always a description. An LLM operating on a computer is identical to a description of it operating…

It seems to me that the distinction becomes irrelevant as soon as you connect inputs and outputs to the real world. You wouldn't say that a 737 autopilot can never, ever fly a real jet and yet it behaves exactly the same whether it's up in the sky or hooked up to recorded/simulated signals on a test bench.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#119

Post by mewpmewp2 »

isoprophlex wrote: post #97
gowld wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Concepts like > finite context windows like a human has > or the fact that the model is "frozen" and stateless, much like a human adult. Models get updated at a slower frequency than humans. AI systems have access to fetch new information and store it for context. > or the idea that you can transfer conversations between models are trivial because computers are better-organized than humanity.

> much like a human adult. I do hope you're able to remember what you had for lunch without incessantly repeating it to keep it in your context window

Wouldn't context be comparable to human short term memory, which could be neurons firing in a certain pattern repeatedly to keep it there?

How would you say human short term memory works if not by repeated firing (similar to repeatedly putting same tokens in over and over)?

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#120

Post by lisbbb »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #102
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.

Yeah. This whole AI situation has really exposed how bad most people are at considering the ontological and semantic content of the words they use.

A large number of adults I encounter are functionally illiterate, including business people in very high up positions. They are also almost 100% MATHEMATICALLY illiterate, not only unable to solve basic algebra and geometry problems, but completely unable to reason about statistical and probabilistic situations encountered in every day life. This is why gambling is so popular and why people are constantly fooled by politicians. It's bad enough to be without words in the modern world, but being without numbers makes you vulnerable to all manner of manipulations.
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