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Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

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Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#141

Post by CamperBob2 »

pegasus wrote: post #84
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…

Consider that you might have become polarized yourself. I often encounter good arguments against current AI systems emulating all essential aspects of human thinking. For example, the fact that they can't learn from few examples, that they can't perform simple mathematical operations without access to external help (via tool calling) or that they have to expend so much more energy to do their magic (and yes, to me th…

For example, the fact that they can't learn from few examples

For one thing, yes, they can, obviously [1] -- when's the last time you checked? -- and for another, there are plenty of humans who seemingly cannot.

The only real difference is that with an LLM, when the context is lost, so is the learning. That will obviously need to be addressed at some point.

that they can't perform simple mathematical operations without access to external help (via tool calling)

But yet you are fine with humans requiring a calculator to perform similar tasks? Many humans are worse at basic arithmetic than an unaided transformer network. And, tellingly, we make the same kinds of errors.

or that they have to expend so much more energy to do their magic (and yes, to me they are a bit magical), which makes some wonder if what these models do is a form of refined brute-force search, rather than ideating.

Well, of course, all they are doing is searching and curve-fitting. To me, the magical thing is that they have shown us, more or less undeniably (Penrose notwithstanding), that that is all we do. Questions that have been asked for thousands of years have now been answered: there's nothing special about the human brain, except for the ability to form, consolidate, consult, and revise long-term memories.

1: E.g., https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.14165 from 2020

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#142

Post by frozenlettuce »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #50
frozenlettuce wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!!!

Even worse, as we are part of the universe, we would need to simulate ourselves and the very simulation that we are creating. You would also need to replicate the simulation of the simulation, leading to an eternal loop that would demand infinite matter and time (and would still not be enough!). Probably, you can't simulate something while being part of it.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#143

Post by BobaFloutist »

_alternator_ wrote: post #123
BobaFloutist wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a definition of thinking that brains definitely provably can't do?

Computing the Kolmorgorov constant?

I don't know that I agree that computation is a variety of thinking. It's certainly influenced by thinking, but I think of thinking as more the thing you do before, after, and in-between the computation, not the actual computation itself.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#144

Post by smallerize »

causal wrote: post #2
dang wrote: post #190

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

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.

There's a huge amount of money going to convincing people that AI is magic or better than people. The reprogramming is necessary.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#145

Post by SiempreViernes »

IgorPartola wrote: post #134
dang wrote: post #190

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

I feel like these conversations really miss the mark: whether an LLM thinks or not is not a relevant question. It is a bit like asking “what color is an Xray?” or “what does the number 7 taste like?” The reason I say this is because an LLM is not a complete self-contained thing if you want to compare it to a human being. It is a building block. Your brain thinks. Your prefrontal cortex however is not a complete syste…

You should take your complaints to OpenAI, who constantly write like LLMs think in the exact same sense as humans; here a random example:

> Large language models (LLMs) can be dishonest when reporting on their actions and beliefs -- for example, they may overstate their confidence in factual claims or cover up evidence of covert actions

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#146

Post by frozenlettuce »

terminalshort wrote: post #56
palmotea wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can simulate a human brain on pen and paper too. That's an assumption, though. A plausible assumption, but still an assumption. We know you can execute an LLM on pen and paper, because people built them and they're understood well enough that we could list the calculations you'd need to do. We don't know enough about the human brain to create a similar list, so I don't think you can reasonably make a stronger s…

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.

There are some quantum effects in the brain (for some people, that's a possible source of consciousness). We can simulate quantum effects, but here comes the tricky part: even if our simulation matches the probability, say 70/30 of something happening, what guarantees that our simulation would take the same path as the object being simulated?

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#147

Post by CamperBob2 »

Terr_ wrote: post #112
gowld wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

You're asserting that tricking, amazing, or beating a human is a reliable sign of human-like intelligence.

I don't know who's asserting that (other than Alan Turing, I guess); certainly not me. Humans are, if anything, easier to fool than our current crude AI models are. Heck, ELIZA was enough to fool non-specialist humans.

In any case, nobody was "tricked" at the IMO. What happened there required legitimate reasoning abilities. The burden of proof falls decisively on those who assert otherwise.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#148

Post by tehjoker »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #145
IgorPartola wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like these conversations really miss the mark: whether an LLM thinks or not is not a relevant question. It is a bit like asking “what color is an Xray?” or “what does the number 7 taste like?” The reason I say this is because an LLM is not a complete self-contained thing if you want to compare it to a human being. It is a building block. Your brain thinks. Your prefrontal cortex however is not a complete syste…

You should take your complaints to OpenAI, who constantly write like LLMs think in the exact same sense as humans; here a random example: > Large language models (LLMs) can be dishonest when reporting on their actions and beliefs -- for example, they may overstate their confidence in factual claims or cover up evidence of covert actions

They have a product to sell based on the idea AGI is right around the corner. You can’t trust Sam Altman as far as you can throw him.

Still, the sales pitch has worked to unlock huge liquidity for him so there’s that.

Still making predictions is a big part of what brains do though not the only thing. Someone wise said that LLM intelligence is a new kind of intelligence, like how animal intelligence is different from ours but is still intelligence but needs to be characterized to understand differences.

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#149

Post by penteract »

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…

I believe that the important part of a brain is the computation it's carrying out. I would call this computation thinking and say it's responsible for consciousness. I think we agree that this computation would be identical if it were simulated on a computer or paper. If you pushed me on what exactly it means for a computation to physically happen and create consciousness, I would have to move to statements I'd call dubious conjectures rather than beliefs - your points in other threads about relying on interpretation have made me think more carefully about this.

Thanks for stating your views clearly. I have some questions to try and understand them better:

Would you say you're sure that you aren't in a simulation while acknowledging that a simulated version of you would say the same?

What do you think happens to someone whose neurons get replaced by small computers one by one (if you're happy to assume for the sake of argument that such a thing is possible without changing the person's behavior)?

Re: Using secondary school maths to demystify AI

#150

Post by nkrisc »

IgorPartola wrote: post #134
dang wrote: post #190

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

I feel like these conversations really miss the mark: whether an LLM thinks or not is not a relevant question. It is a bit like asking “what color is an Xray?” or “what does the number 7 taste like?” The reason I say this is because an LLM is not a complete self-contained thing if you want to compare it to a human being. It is a building block. Your brain thinks. Your prefrontal cortex however is not a complete syste…

> The reason I say this is because an LLM is not a complete self-contained thing if you want to compare it to a human being.

The AI companies themselves are the ones drawing the parallels to a human being. Look at how any of these LLM products are marketed and described.

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