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Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

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Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auto-complete on steroids, is still my favorite analogy for AI. I don't mean that in a negative way either. Autocomplete is very good, but that never stopped me from learning English grammar and spelling.

The way I think of it has evolved a lot over the last 5 years. At this point I think human brains probably do something analogous to next token prediction when we think. For all the hype, I think LLMs are actually more , not less, intelligent than that average person realizes. I think it’s legit, actual intelligence, not just “artificial” intelligence. That may be a hot take but it’s just my perception.

We have spatial / quantitative and social / emotional aspects in our intelligence that are not at all like next token prediction.

If LLMs had shame, they'd surely not repeat mistakes (in the same context window) as much as they do.

Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#142

It’s sad that we ended up here. I can’t fathom that young people aren’t excited about technology anymore. I was young once and naive, and I read a bunch of sci-fi. I could never have imagined having these LLMs or coding agents during my lifetime. Never. It was unthinkable to me that something like this could even happen. And yet, here we are. Even if you think it’s just a statistical trick, you should still be blown…

Hopefully people are understanding that technology, no matter how cool, does not exist in a vacuum. Technology is defined by who controls it, how it’s used, and what power it enables them to wield. Those concerns are far more important to society than how neat the tech is.

An obvious example is nuclear weapons. Amazing science, incredible engineering, awe-inspiring power. But I doubt you would make the same critiques of people who were anxious about the world they create. A world in which MAD exists is fundamentally different than one where it doesn’t.

Regarding your grandfather, it’s a pretty well-supported hypothesis that younger generations are less happy and more depressed because of technology from the very industry pushing AI onto them! Why should you expect them to be excited about a new world-changing tool from the same set of companies that brought them an infinite doom-scrolling feed of self-doubt, the increased polarization of politics, the viral spread of conspiracy theories, and a higher rate of youth and teen suicide than ever before?

Technology isn’t fundamentally good or bad, but it can have very negative impacts on society. It seems like people are catching on to that fact.

Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#143
post #121
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They (we) have to believe human brains still have value and find a way out; for otherwise there'd be no point to try anymore. Our value isn't predicated on our utility. The simple fact that we are sentient beings, capable of joy and suffering, gives us value. This is why we continue to support and care for the elderly and the disabled - we value them regardless of any practical utility we may derive from them. If y…

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde Or one I prefer, though unattributed: "If the only lens through which you can view life is value in currency, that which is priceless becomes worthless."

> A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

So the opposite of a Lisp programmer then!

Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#144
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe there will ever be any artificial intelligence, not with Markov chains (next token prediction), not otherwise. Especially not now when the current ML hype is already winding down. And yes this is a matter of belief since I don't think any science precludes agi from existing nor is there any reason to be sure it could someday materialize. I honestly would rather believe societal collapse hits us before…

>I don't believe there will ever be any artificial intelligence, ... Sounds like you're talking about AGI, not AI. AI is here today.

A thing that people have chosen to call AI is here today.

Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#145
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe there will ever be any artificial intelligence, not with Markov chains (next token prediction), not otherwise. Especially not now when the current ML hype is already winding down. And yes this is a matter of belief since I don't think any science precludes agi from existing nor is there any reason to be sure it could someday materialize. I honestly would rather believe societal collapse hits us before…

>I don't believe there will ever be any artificial intelligence, ... Sounds like you're talking about AGI, not AI. AI is here today.

"AI" is a marketing buzzword. Real AI doesn't exist.

Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#146
post #107
post #33

Unsurprising he'd be cheered for saying what they wanted to hear. But perhaps whether or not his stance is correct, the students needed to hear this. They (we) have to believe human brains still have value and find a way out; for otherwise there'd be no point to try anymore.

> They (we) have to believe human brains still have value and find a way out; for otherwise there'd be no point to try anymore. Our value isn't predicated on our utility. The simple fact that we are sentient beings, capable of joy and suffering, gives us value. This is why we continue to support and care for the elderly and the disabled - we value them regardless of any practical utility we may derive from them. If y…

A view that is not shared always by LLM cheerleaders. Part of Sam Altman's defence of the environmental impact of AI is that it is less than that of a human life.

"He said it was unreasonable to focus on "how much energy it takes to train an AI model, relative to how much it costs a human to do one inference query."

"It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart," he said. "And not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you."

https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/02/23/altman-you-t...

Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#147
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence " Could be interpreted as Steve himself cheered. Or it could be interpreted as the passive which is meant here but I would argue it should then say "Steve Wozniak cheered at after telling..." but I am not a native speaker. The original title "Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak got cheers, not boos, after telling students they 'all have AI — a…

While it's technically ambiguous, most native speakers would immediately understand that Steve was not the person cheering. Firstly, Steve cheering makes no sense. Secondly, it's a very common construction for newspaper/article headlines. For example, BBC News right now says "Jury discharged in Ian Watkins pirson murder trial", "Carrick confirmed as Man Utd permanent boss", "Ex-soldier jailed after woman..." Okay, in…

I'm a native speaker, and read it the "Wozniak gave a little cheer after" way at first, though the more likely meaning did occur to me immediately after. As for it making no sense, I differ. There are scenarios I can conjure in which that exact sequence could happen, either because he was cheering the students after telling them they're great, or because he forgot what he was doing -- dementia wouldn't even be "early onset" at his age. Further, if something is utterly mundane and expected, there are no headlines about it, as in the old saying about the difference between "Dog bites man" and "Man bites dog".

Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#149
post #10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both-sides nonsense. We’re decades past assuming good faith from people who equate criticizing Israel with racism.

There's so much documented evidence of people attacking jewish people who they call zionists without cause that I find this line of reasoning stupid. In recent memory there was Ethan Klein, who is Jewish and has visited Israel but is openly critical of Israeli actions and supports Palestine; yet people harassed him and his wife constantly about him being Jewish. I'd totally buy your argument, criticising Hamas isn't…

> There's so much documented evidence of people attacking jewish people who they call zionists without cause that I find this line of reasoning stupid.

Attacking people for any reason is unacceptable. Including for being Jewish of course.

Assuming that they were truly attacked and not just disagreed with or something.

> In recent memory there was Ethan Klein, who is Jewish

Being Jewish or not (or any ethnicity) is irrelevant.

> and has visited Israel

Has lived in Israel.

> but is openly critical of Israeli actions and supports Palestine; yet people harassed him and his wife constantly about him being Jewish.

I can’t know what all people who criticize a celebrity has done. But the people I’ve seen has criticized him solely for his politics. Not for his ethnicity.

Yes, exactly for being a Zionist. Because that’s what he expresses. Not a light or milquetoast kind either. He might say that he wishes that Palestinians have a good life, blah blah. That’s irrelevant when he defends Israel’s actions and argues against the fact that Palestinians are second-class citizens in Israel.

His wife served in the IDF and voluntarily, at her own request, moved from an office job in “Israel proper” to a more operative role in the West Bank because she was bored. And got to experience the excitement of being a ride-along on an armed raid in the West Bank.

And as opposed to his critics, I have seen antisemitic remarks from Ethan Klein from his time in Israel.

Re: Steve Wozniak cheered after telling students they have AI – actual intelligence

#150
post #34

Actual intelligence is useless when decision makers send new weekly AI rules to be better employees. It’s race to the bottom. Race to an endless technical debt. Some companies will implode when codebases stop being manageable. The small minority will thrive. But majority not. I see it used in hardware world. Clever dudes without prior experience with software craft working Python scripts, automate tests, control hard…

I work in infrastructure (backups, networking etc) and no longer in software. I just don't see llms being that useful right now. If I have a problem and ask an LLM the answer is either fabricated or useless, rarely does it know what it's talking about. And yes I know how to describe the problem so that it has a chance to give an useful answer. Also even with agents, you can't just try and error your way out of some (…

Well Coding agents are being tackled. Infrastructure agents that would read your host event logs, device configuration, ilo, etc, etc - that is probably the missing piece.

Having a chat with chatgpt may give you clues or ideas when you have gone throught your own checklist of what could have went wrong, but can go only as far.

Agent on the other side will decompile .dll to find out issues if needed to go deep enought.

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