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Position: LLMs Can't Jump

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Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#161

Post by gabbagool »

throwaway0123_5 wrote: post #154
Dylan16807 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I could get very close via video. But that depends on a lot of my non-canyon experience moving around the world, and LLMs are very flawed in their ability to input video, so I think they would not get nearly as close.

I've been to a few natural wonders (including the Grand Canyon) that I saw in advance on video. At least for me it isn't close at all. Even if audiovisual elements could be near-perfectly reproduced by video (imo not even close with modern tech, no screen is capturing the brilliance of sunlight), you aren't capturing the temperature, the feel of wind or rain, the smell of the plants around you, etc.

Well, I've never been to the Grand Canyon myself, but what you said perfectly aligns with my intuition.

Also, you touched on how even modern tech still falls short of the true experience. Just look at the history of motion picture since the early 1900s. We have added sound, color, bigger screens, faster refresh rates, more pixels, 3D (sort of), surround sound, spatial audio, IMAX, etc. Almost seems like video leaves a lot to be desired.

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#162

Post by jimbokun »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #150
gabbagool wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, ask yourself the following question: If you read every single book there is about The Grand Canyon, and watched every single video and/or documentary about The Grand Canyon, do you believe that you have fully experienced The Grand Canyon? Or do you just have to be there to fully experience it. I dunno. Substitute in whatever you want for "The Grand Canyon". Maybe climbing Mount Everest or walking on the Moon. The…

I think I could get very close via video. But that depends on a lot of my non-canyon experience moving around the world, and LLMs are very flawed in their ability to input video, so I think they would not get nearly as close.

The experience of every famous place I've visited after watching extensive video before hand, has been very different from what I imagined from the video.

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#163

Post by air7 »

gabbagool wrote: post #145
gabbagool wrote: post #143

Probably too late for this, but I have argued before that language is a fundamentally lossy encoding of the human experience. We do our best to describe what we're seeing and experiencing using language, which is fantastically expressive, but it has its limits. I think we see glimpses of this when we find ourselves saying things such as, "it's impossible to put it into words" or we overload certain words when we mean…

Or, ask yourself the following question: If you read every single book there is about The Grand Canyon, and watched every single video and/or documentary about The Grand Canyon, do you believe that you have fully experienced The Grand Canyon? Or do you just have to be there to fully experience it. I dunno. Substitute in whatever you want for "The Grand Canyon". Maybe climbing Mount Everest or walking on the Moon. The…

In this context that isn't the right question.

Rather one should ask "Would you be able to answer any question and fulfill any request about the Grand Canyon given to you by others in a way that will be indistinguishable from someone who has been to the Grand Canyon"

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#164

Post by bryanrasmussen »

teleforce wrote: post #79
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the ethical requirement to discuss and acknowledge predecessors work as developed in Newton's time as in our own? I would naturally expect not because it would seem to me to be the kind of thing that develops over time, but I could be wrong as I am not a historian of science.

It's a not a requirement, it's just a natural to do as a research scientist and a student of knowledge to acknowledge prior contributions if you knew it. The same is true when you are at the time of Aristotle.

while I said I was not a scientific historian I am well enough read that I can say no, the tradition of citing all sources is a relatively modern invention. Definitely not widespread in Aristotle's time, and not extensively practiced by Aristotle himself who very seldom names any source and their work, but I was not sure if in Newton's time it was already beginning to be established as I have not actually read many scientific papers from that time (some philosophical, but not science)

Furthermore I can't help but feel some logic would lead us to conclude it is not natural to cite, why? Because in our time if you do not cite your sources in a lot of occupations dealing with knowledge you will be punished for it. It would be absurd to construct punishments for failing to do what people will naturally do, and to have those punishments so often called on.

Even if we give a very lenient interpretation of not citing sources we would probably have around 10% of papers with errors, and that is with the fear of punishment.

Citing when one should and accurately is not normal, it requires discipline to do it, or there would not be such a high failure rate at doing it.

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#165

Post by throwaway0123_5 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #160
throwaway0123_5 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to a few natural wonders (including the Grand Canyon) that I saw in advance on video. At least for me it isn't close at all. Even if audiovisual elements could be near-perfectly reproduced by video (imo not even close with modern tech, no screen is capturing the brilliance of sunlight), you aren't capturing the temperature, the feel of wind or rain, the smell of the plants around you, etc.

But you already know those feelings from being outside elsewhere. You get a unique combination there, but that's only worth so much.

> only worth so much.

Worth... quite a lot imo.

First, in the slightly objective sense of "What is this place like in real life, under X conditions." But, more subjectively, watching a video of a glacier and imagining the wind/rain/cold doesn't even approach 5% of the intensity and awe of climbing up a mountain yourself to see a seemingly endless expanse of ice, struggling to stand steady because of the wind, shivering because of the cold and rain. And finally, in the financial sense, a lot of people routinely spend many thousands of dollars and days-weeks of their time to experience natural wonders in real life.

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#166

Post by dinfinity »

pmontra wrote: post #156
gabbagool wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, ask yourself the following question: If you read every single book there is about The Grand Canyon, and watched every single video and/or documentary about The Grand Canyon, do you believe that you have fully experienced The Grand Canyon? Or do you just have to be there to fully experience it. I dunno. Substitute in whatever you want for "The Grand Canyon". Maybe climbing Mount Everest or walking on the Moon. The…

No way. You get to the rim and only then you realize how huge it is. And then you still have to go down into the canyon.

The experience of vastness is mostly due to (high-res) stereoscopic vision. When you experience 6DOF VR in a fairly high-res world it definitely comes much, much closer to the awe one feels with the real experience.

It's similar in dismissing artificial audio based on listening to some pop song on a basic mobile speaker versus listening to well-designed binaural audio on good headphones. The latter can sound 'freakily' 'real'.

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#167

Post by killerstorm »

emp17344 wrote: post #138
killerstorm wrote: post #124

This is literally an opinion of one dude which is not backed by any kind of quantitative evidence. It's actually possible to answer this question rigorously: 1. Define a scientific result which qualifies as a "jump". They should be frequent enough that they happen every year - otherwise one might say humans can't jump either. 2. Identify all such "jumps" in articles published in 2026, and use LLM with 2025 knowledge…

LLMs most definitely are limited. What’s your position, that LLMs have no limits? That’s obviously wrong, and the fact you hold such an unreasonable position may be why you react so strongly to pieces like this one.

What's the obvious limitation?

To Yann LeCun it was "obvious" that you can't build a world model from a text, so he predicted that even "GPT 5000" can't predict that an object sitting on the table would move together with the table. But GPT-4 could solve this task and provided correct explanation. GPT-5 can solve much more complex tasks, code physics simulation, etc.

Now people talk about invention of General Relativity as something LLMs can't do... something almost no human was able to do either.

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#168

Post by Dylan16807 »

throwaway0123_5 wrote: post #165
Dylan16807 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you already know those feelings from being outside elsewhere. You get a unique combination there, but that's only worth so much.

> only worth so much. Worth... quite a lot imo. First, in the slightly objective sense of "What is this place like in real life, under X conditions." But, more subjectively, watching a video of a glacier and imagining the wind/rain/cold doesn't even approach 5% of the intensity and awe of climbing up a mountain yourself to see a seemingly endless expanse of ice, struggling to stand steady because of the wind, shiveri…

There's so much natural wonder in the world in and around your home.

It's not that the value of the grand canyon is low in an absolute sense, it's that in a relative sense the gap between "empty numb void" and "hiking at home (plus grand canyon videos)" is far far greater than the gap between "hiking at home (plus grand canyon videos)" and "actual grand canyon".

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#169

Post by schubidubiduba »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #164
teleforce wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a not a requirement, it's just a natural to do as a research scientist and a student of knowledge to acknowledge prior contributions if you knew it. The same is true when you are at the time of Aristotle.

while I said I was not a scientific historian I am well enough read that I can say no, the tradition of citing all sources is a relatively modern invention. Definitely not widespread in Aristotle's time, and not extensively practiced by Aristotle himself who very seldom names any source and their work, but I was not sure if in Newton's time it was already beginning to be established as I have not actually read many s…

You need to differentiate between citing everything, and citing a select few prior works which are integral to your own. For the latter, it is very natural to mention and cite them, unless you have motive not to do so.

Re: Position: LLMs Can't Jump

#170

Post by goodmythical »

air7 wrote: post #163
gabbagool wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, ask yourself the following question: If you read every single book there is about The Grand Canyon, and watched every single video and/or documentary about The Grand Canyon, do you believe that you have fully experienced The Grand Canyon? Or do you just have to be there to fully experience it. I dunno. Substitute in whatever you want for "The Grand Canyon". Maybe climbing Mount Everest or walking on the Moon. The…

In this context that isn't the right question. Rather one should ask "Would you be able to answer any question and fulfill any request about the Grand Canyon given to you by others in a way that will be indistinguishable from someone who has been to the Grand Canyon"

What is the current ratio of opened to unopened cans of soda in the canyon, and how has that ratio developed over the last thirty days?

I'd be fantastically surprised if you could provide a precise answer to any such question without extensive security footage that doesn't exist.

An estimate, perhaps, but you probably couldn't even answer a simpler "how many people are currently in the canyon" without resorting to estimation given the lack of information currently available via the mentioned sources.

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