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I'm becoming AI-blind

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Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#331

Post by digikar99 »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #219
TalkingCodeMonk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "something deeply wrong" part about AI, that even most technology enthusiasts evidently do not seem to grasp, is that it is still fundamentally a statistical model — an algorithmic construct — and does not possess any real intelligence or critical thought whatsoever. No matter how much investors and tech companies want you to believe that they are on the verge of super intelligence, nothing I've seen to date can…

> ... including the "novel" math solutions, all of which appear to just be "a composition of solutions humans have developed and documented elsewhere" upon deeper inspection. But that is precisely what human mathematicians do, prove new theorems by combining ones proven earlier. I don't see any fundamental difference in functionality between human intellectual contributions vs performant ML ones (LLM or otherwise). W…

Probability is just one way to model uncertainty. While I understand the brain encodes uncertainty, I don't think probability is a good enough model of what it's doing.

Secondly, if you think verifying a proof in mathematics, reasoning within (and not about) a formal system, or following the chain of a computer program that is already written is just doing token-based probabilistic predictions, I don't know what to say.

Thirdly, machines don't have a notion of value or stake. There's no way for them to verify whether what they have produced aligns with your unstated values and preferences. We regularly do this with other humans. I don't give you (or even my parents or partners) the benefit of doubt regarding whether you know me better than I do. Sure, you might know some things about me, but it's ultimately up to me to verify if what they say is applicable to my current situation. It's really uncanny to see people develop this codependency with their chatbots. And corporates encouraging them to do so.

I'm with you that intelligence is not something to be proud of. But I also think it is instrumental to understand the world. I'm still waiting for the time when an unconstrained-AI machine can live without reprogramming for an entire decade. We are still far from there.

Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#332

Post by willmarch »

mythrwy wrote: post #318
mythrwy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While being very capable, AI is missing something required for true intelligence and I struggle to explain exactly what it is I see missing. It's not really "creativity" because much of that always was derivative in my opinion. And LLMs are (for some definition of the word) fairly creative as far as taking known elements and re-arranging them. I think what is missing is sort of a world model building capability. As h…

I'll restate because both objections (which apparently skim instead of read) are missing the important point. Yes LLMs can run "what ifs" scenarios and build models. However LLMs deal entirely in symbols. 100%. Humans can "world build" aside from this and in fact are often at their best doing so. Did the first humans to use fire and some form of a wheel even have the capability to talk about it? Think about that.

Isn't thinking in images (visualizing non-verbally) also dealing entirely in symbols?

Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#333

Post by Majromax »

demibabs wrote: post #253
ds_opseeker wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love your "on average" qualification. Like the cartoon where the water temperature is fine on average, with one bucket boiling and the other ice. The interesting question is how to define 'average'. Over what probability distribution? Hey, anyone remember this from earlier in the week? https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/anthropics_watermark_text...

The qualifier is there because it changes the outputs, so it’s necessarily true that some outputs will be worse. But it’s just as likely to make an output better. Take the example from the article. He complains that watermarking might sometimes, for example, choose to say “bananas” over “pineapples” because only the former is on the green list, potentially making an output less precise. But 1. It could do that regard…

> But it’s just as likely to make an output better.

No, for any particular output token the model's true logits are definitionally the 'best' that the model can achieve.

This is inherently probabilistic. The model's top-1 guess is not guaranteed to be optimal, but it should be so a proportionate fraction of the time. Same with the top-2, top-3, etc.

Watermarking necessarily alters the output distribution away from the model-set distribution, and that alteration is inherently 'worse' in expectation.

You can liken this to a weather forecast. If there's a 25% chance of rain, the forecast should say so (or a 'sampled' deterministic forecast should predict rain 25% of the time). If the forecast is 'watermarked' and predicts rain 27% of the time under identical circumstances, it's a worse forecast.

That being said, this is a case of hiding a message in a noisy channel. Watermarking only needs to communicate one bit ('yes watermark'), so the effects can be arbitrarily small provided one is willing to tolerate an increase to the text size needed for reliable detection.

Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#334

Post by wseqyrku »

If you ever meet someone you knew from an online community it's a blast. Now reverse that: you know somebody IRL and find their twitter account, and it's a fucking nightmare. Like you are looking inside their brain's content and it just collapses the image you had in mind of their personality.

AI is surfacing layers you never had a chance to see, makes you rethink your career path and who you are willing to work with very fast.

Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#335

Post by stevenhuang »

duped wrote: post #141
pyridines wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just can't accept that it possesses no intelligence. It is not equivalent to human intelligence, obviously, but how can a system without some semblance of rational thinking solve open math problems? Even composing earlier human work into something novel requires intelligence and understanding on some level.

I don't think statistically driven prediction implies reasoning or intelligence.

First you need to prove that human cognitive function is also not fundamentally driven by statistical processes.

It's possible that "statistically driven prediction" is all we are.

Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#336

Post by squigz »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #219
TalkingCodeMonk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "something deeply wrong" part about AI, that even most technology enthusiasts evidently do not seem to grasp, is that it is still fundamentally a statistical model — an algorithmic construct — and does not possess any real intelligence or critical thought whatsoever. No matter how much investors and tech companies want you to believe that they are on the verge of super intelligence, nothing I've seen to date can…

> ... including the "novel" math solutions, all of which appear to just be "a composition of solutions humans have developed and documented elsewhere" upon deeper inspection. But that is precisely what human mathematicians do, prove new theorems by combining ones proven earlier. I don't see any fundamental difference in functionality between human intellectual contributions vs performant ML ones (LLM or otherwise). W…

> Just like LLM's we sometimes correctly predict the next token or word, and sometimes incorrectly.

There is no "correct" next word when it comes to communicating with an actual human.

Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#337

Post by alchemism »

ddj231 wrote: post #301
DoctorOetker wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... including the "novel" math solutions, all of which appear to just be "a composition of solutions humans have developed and documented elsewhere" upon deeper inspection. But that is precisely what human mathematicians do, prove new theorems by combining ones proven earlier. I don't see any fundamental difference in functionality between human intellectual contributions vs performant ML ones (LLM or otherwise). W…

I see this line of reasoning quite a bit and it’s a strange one to me. The arguer reduces the sheer complexity of human intelligence and language by saying “we are just running statistical models in our brains” and by doing so makes the leap that Llms are intelligent. It’s an incredible simplification of the human person, who has a deep inner life, a soul, desires, and a will. I don’t think the aversion to llms as in…

I tend to think of it in reverse: not that LLMs are intelligent, but that humans are more empty than we…think we are.

Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#339

Post by red75prime »

recursive wrote: post #250
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, if the riddle asked "what do calves drink", then "milk" would definitely have been the correct answer.

Obviously. My point is that it's already not all that unreasonable, which you notably didn't address.

I think it has very little to do with reasoning and much more with psychological inertia or pattern matching.

Re: I'm becoming AI-blind

#340

Post by teekert »

fluoridation wrote: post #194
teekert wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they mean that intelligence is being able to hold models (compressed versions of reality) internally and use them to make predictions with a probability better than chance. That last part is the definition of information.

I find that highly questionable as a general description of what intelligence does. That's more like a description of a general knowledge base. When I think of someone intelligent, I think of someone who's able to draw unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated facts. In the broadest possible terms, I'd call it the ability to make abstractions and analogies. This is not just compression, but the ability to me…

Unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated "models" :)

Is a fact stored on your brain like digits on a harddrive? No, it's a pathway that lights up and branches when information enters it. It is dynamic, a compressed form you could say, right? The model holds information, but not all information, but enough to be useful (in decision making).

Arguably it's the same, but the model is probably a "compressed" version of the whole fact that took place in reality.

And you can entertain the models internally and sharpen them. Alone or with others.

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