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Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

garymarcus.substack.com

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Re: Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

#11

Post by aeronaut80 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #6
fhd2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even of the people invested in these tools, hype only benefits those attempting a pump and dump scheme, or those selling training, consulting or similar services around AI. People who try to make genuine progress, while there's more money in it now, might just have to deal with another AI winter soon at this rate.

> hype only benefits those attempting a pump and dump scheme I read some posts the other day saying Sam Altman sold off a ton of his OpenAI shares. Not sure if it's true and I can't find a good source, but if it is true then "pump and dump" does look close to the mark

You probably can’t find a good source because sources say he has a negligible stake in OpenAI. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/12/10/billionaire-sam-altman-d...

Re: Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

#12

Post by astrange »

jakewins wrote: post #9
hiddencost wrote: post #3

Why do we keep posting stuff from Gary? He's been wrong for decades but he keeps writing this stuff. As far as I can tell he's the person that people reach for when they want to justify their beliefs. But surely being this wrong for this wrong should eventually lead to losing ones status as an expert.

I thought this article seemed like well articulated criticism of the hype cycle - can you be more specific what you mean? Are the results in the Apple paper incorrect?

Gary Marcus always, always says AI doesn't actually work - it's his whole thing. If he's posted a correct argument it's a coincidence. I remember seeing him claim real long-time AI researchers like David Chapman (who's a critic himself) were wrong anytime they say anything positive.

(em-dash avoided to look less AI)

Of course, the main issue with the field is the critics /should/ be correct. Like, LLMs shouldn't work and nobody knows why they work. But they do anyway.

So you end up with critics complaining it's "just a parrot" and then patting themselves on the back, as if inventing a parrot isn't supposed to be impressive somehow.

Re: Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

#14

Post by foldr »

avsteele wrote: post #10

This doesn't rebut anything from the best critique of the Apple paper. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09250

It does rebut point (1) of the abstract. Perhaps not convincingly, in your view, but it does directly addresses this kind of response.

Re: Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

#16

Post by barrkel »

jakewins wrote: post #9
hiddencost wrote: post #3

Why do we keep posting stuff from Gary? He's been wrong for decades but he keeps writing this stuff. As far as I can tell he's the person that people reach for when they want to justify their beliefs. But surely being this wrong for this wrong should eventually lead to losing ones status as an expert.

I thought this article seemed like well articulated criticism of the hype cycle - can you be more specific what you mean? Are the results in the Apple paper incorrect?

You need to read everything that Gary writes with the particular axe to grind he has in mind: neurosymbolic AI. That's his specialism, and he essentially has a chip in his shoulder about the attention probabilistic approaches like LLMs are getting, and their relative success.

You can see this in this article too.

The real question you should be asking is if there is a practical limitation in LLMs and LRMs revealed by the Hanoi Towers problem or not, given that any SOTA model can write code to solve the problem and thereby solve it with tool use. Gary frames this as neurosymbolic, but I think it's a bit of a fudge.

Re: Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

#17

Post by mountainriver »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #2

I'm glad to read articles like this one, because I think it is important that we pour some water on the hype cycle If we want to get serious about using these new AI tools then we need to come out of the clouds and get real about their capabilities Are they impressive? Sure. Useful? Yes probably in a lot of cases But we cannot continue the hype this way, it doesn't serve anyone except the people who are financially i…

I’ll take critiques from someone who knows what a test train split is.

The idea that a guy so removed from machine learning has something relevant to say about its capabilities really speaks to the state of AI fear

Re: Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

#18

Post by foldr »

astrange wrote: post #12
jakewins wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this article seemed like well articulated criticism of the hype cycle - can you be more specific what you mean? Are the results in the Apple paper incorrect?

Gary Marcus always, always says AI doesn't actually work - it's his whole thing. If he's posted a correct argument it's a coincidence. I remember seeing him claim real long-time AI researchers like David Chapman (who's a critic himself) were wrong anytime they say anything positive. (em-dash avoided to look less AI) Of course, the main issue with the field is the critics /should/ be correct. Like, LLMs shouldn't work…

I don’t read GM as saying that LLMs “don’t work” in a practical sense. He acknowledges that they have useful applications. Indeed, if they didn’t work at all, why would he be advocating for regulating their use? He just doesn’t think they’re close to AGI.

Re: Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

#19

Post by mountainriver »

hiddencost wrote: post #3

Why do we keep posting stuff from Gary? He's been wrong for decades but he keeps writing this stuff. As far as I can tell he's the person that people reach for when they want to justify their beliefs. But surely being this wrong for this wrong should eventually lead to losing ones status as an expert.

It’s insane, he doesn’t know what a test train split is but he’s an AI expert? Is this where we are?

Re: Seven replies to the viral Apple reasoning paper and why they fall short

#20

Post by bluefirebrand »

aeronaut80 wrote: post #11
bluefirebrand wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hype only benefits those attempting a pump and dump scheme I read some posts the other day saying Sam Altman sold off a ton of his OpenAI shares. Not sure if it's true and I can't find a good source, but if it is true then "pump and dump" does look close to the mark

You probably can’t find a good source because sources say he has a negligible stake in OpenAI. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/12/10/billionaire-sam-altman-d...

Interesting

When I did a cursory search, this information didn't turn up either

Thanks for correcting me. I suppose the stuff I saw the other day was just BS then

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