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Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

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Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#101

Post by lvca »

sorobahn wrote: post #76
pjsousa79 wrote: post #64

One thing that seems to be missing in most discussions about "context" is infrastructure. The dream system for AI agents is probably something like a curated data hub: a place where datasets are continuously ingested, cleaned, structured and documented, so agents can query it to obtain reliable context. Right now most agents spend a lot of effort stitching context together from random APIs, web scraping, PDFs, etc. T…

Am working on making this layer currently. It’s a more interesting problem even when you remove AI agents from the picture, I feel a context layer can be equally as useful for humans and deterministic programs. I view it as a data structure sitting on top of your entire domain and this data structure’s query interface plus some basic tools should be enough to bootstrap non trivial agents imo. I think the data structu…

This resonates strongly. We've been working on exactly this problem with ArcadeDB — a multi-model database that natively supports graphs, documents, key-value, time-series, and vector search in a single engine. (https://arcadedb.com)

The insight about relationships growing faster than nodes is spot on, and it's why we think the graph model is the natural fit for context layers. But in practice, you also need documents, vectors, and sometimes time-series data alongside the graph. Forcing everything into a single model (or stitching together multiple databases) creates friction that kills agent workflows.

On the GQL/Cypher vs SQL point — agreed on token efficiency. We support both SQL (extended with graph capabilities) and Cypher-style syntax, and the difference in prompt size for traversal queries is dramatic. An N-hop relationship query that takes 5+ lines of SQL JOINs is a single readable line in a graph query language. For LLM-generated queries, that's not just an aesthetic win — it directly reduces error rates and token costs.

Re: GraphRAG — we've seen the same convergence. Vector similarity to find the right neighborhood, then graph traversal for structured context. Having both in one engine (ArcadeDB supports vector indexing natively) means you avoid the API orchestration overhead you mention. One query, one database, full context.

The training gap for graph query languages is real but closing fast. As more agent frameworks adopt graph-based context, the flywheel will kick in.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#102

Post by energy123 »

jononor wrote: post #96
energy123 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have post scarcity due to AI, everything becomes so uncertain. Why would we still have violent and crazy people? Surely the ASI could figure it out and fix whatever is going on in their brains. It's so fuzzy after that event horizon I have no confidence in any predictions.

There are easy fixes to get rid of violent and crazy people. Why would a powerful ASI bother with fixing them? A rabid dog just gets put down by humans. Why would we expect anything better of our overlords?

This is also a plausible sounding outcome. That's why it's so uncertain.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#104

Post by i_think_so »

keiferski wrote: post #99
i_think_so wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that because this book is obscure and no human has yet written a description that could be scraped?

No it was just an anthology of papers by a reasonably well-known academic. The problem is more that instead of reasoning and realizing it didn’t actually know about the book, it just looked up a description of the author and then invented what this book was supposedly about based on the title. A more intelligent reply would have been something like, “the author appears to be an academic in international relations, bu…

Is that problem even fixable with what one might call normal means?

I presume it can't be with mere prompting, otherwise every single model would already include "Don't lie and don't make things up. If you don't know an answer, just say so."

It seems to me that the underlying algorithms would be inclined to confabulate simply because that's what LLMs do. But that's a bit beyond my math and programming understanding to say for certain.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#105

Post by stratos123 »

hirvi74 wrote: post #40
keiferski wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, 30 seconds ago, I asked ChatGPT to tell me about a book I found that was written in the 60s. It made up the entire description. When I pointed this out, it apologized and then made up another description. The idea that this is going to lead to superintelligence in a few years is absolutely nonsense.

The other day I asked Claude Opus 4.6 one of my favorite trivia pieces: What plural English word for an animal shares no letters with its singular form? Collective nouns (flock, herd, school, etc.) don't count. Claude responded with: "The answer is geese -- the plural of cow." Though, to be fair, in the next paragraph of the response, Claude stated the correct answer. So, it went off the rails a bit, but self-correct…

I can replicate a vaguely similar result (gpt-5.2 produces the correct answer immeditely, Opus 4.6 "thinks aloud" in the output for two lines and then produces the correct answer), but I worry that 5.2 might be thinking under the hood here.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#106

Post by keiferski »

i_think_so wrote: post #104
keiferski wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it was just an anthology of papers by a reasonably well-known academic. The problem is more that instead of reasoning and realizing it didn’t actually know about the book, it just looked up a description of the author and then invented what this book was supposedly about based on the title. A more intelligent reply would have been something like, “the author appears to be an academic in international relations, bu…

Is that problem even fixable with what one might call normal means? I presume it can't be with mere prompting, otherwise every single model would already include "Don't lie and don't make things up. If you don't know an answer, just say so." It seems to me that the underlying algorithms would be inclined to confabulate simply because that's what LLMs do . But that's a bit beyond my math and programming understanding…

Yeah I don’t know enough about LLMs to answer; it seems simple enough to make it check if X exists before pontificating about it. But maybe it isn’t, and there is a reason why.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#107

Post by jfalcon »

WarmWash wrote: post #21
jfalcon wrote: post #7

>someone raised the question of “what would be the role of humans in an AI-first society”. Norbert Wiener, considered to be the father of Cybernetics, wrote a book back in the 1950's entitled "The Human Use of Human Beings" that brings up these questions in the early days of digital electronics and control systems. In it, he brings up things like: - 'Robots enslaving humans for doing jobs better suited by robots due…

>- 'Automation will lead to immediate devaluation of human labor that is routine. Society needs to decouple a person's "worth" from their "utility as a tool".' I have this vision that in absence of the ability for people to form social hierarchies on the back of their economic value to society, there will be this AI fueled class hierarchy of people's general social ability. So rather than money determining your neigh…

Alvin Toffler's book "Future Shock" describes what's going on within this thread.

Toffler predicted that as change accelerated, we'd face the paradox of too many options (like a Cheesecake Factory menu) or, conversely, feeling like we have no options due to the framerate of change. He argued that we would enter a state of transience where our relationships, jobs and values would become "temporary". And thus when the rate of change turns everything "temporary", all the old institutions - religion, family, nation, profession - can no longer provide a frame of reference.

In short, the "simulation" of our existence may be starting to drop keyframes - causing pixelization in our society which we obviously see as glitches.

The machine is just going to do whatever we tell it - it is a horse with blinders on or a steam engine going round and round. It doesn't know it needs to work within the human framework. Physics and society only intersect where it's needed for safety - this seems like one of those cases where we need to make sure we define the conditions how both the dog and tail can wag each other.

There was a court ruling earlier that I think starts to set this up: "AI generated images cannot be copyrighted". The same could be said about the rest of the 3 M's. Then expand upon that. AI generated content not being eligible for copyright would go a long way to put value back into people's work efforts.

Let machines deal with improving the framerate of life. Let humans decide what life should be. Hopefully it will finally have more than 50% humanity in it instead of amoral capitalism.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#108

Post by i_think_so »

ileonichwiesz wrote: post #91
hirvi74 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other day I asked Claude Opus 4.6 one of my favorite trivia pieces: What plural English word for an animal shares no letters with its singular form? Collective nouns (flock, herd, school, etc.) don't count. Claude responded with: "The answer is geese -- the plural of cow." Though, to be fair, in the next paragraph of the response, Claude stated the correct answer. So, it went off the rails a bit, but self-correct…

Of course it’s important to remember that the ability of an LLM to answer an obscure riddle like that has nothing to do with its reasoning abilities, but rather depends on whether the answer was included in its training dataset.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! As recently as yesterday I was forced to abandon a conversation with a normie because I couldn't convince her of this fundamental limitation. ChatGPT was "damn near magical" in her opinion. Sigh.

Is it time to update the laws? [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#109

Post by i_think_so »

keiferski wrote: post #106
i_think_so wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that problem even fixable with what one might call normal means? I presume it can't be with mere prompting, otherwise every single model would already include "Don't lie and don't make things up. If you don't know an answer, just say so." It seems to me that the underlying algorithms would be inclined to confabulate simply because that's what LLMs do . But that's a bit beyond my math and programming understanding…

Yeah I don’t know enough about LLMs to answer; it seems simple enough to make it check if X exists before pontificating about it. But maybe it isn’t, and there is a reason why.

The problem seems to be that if the LLM doesn't know if X exists it is unable to distinguish that from simply needing to create an answer about X.

That's the typical logic flow, innit?

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#110

Post by i_think_so »

hirvi74 wrote: post #98
ileonichwiesz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it’s important to remember that the ability of an LLM to answer an obscure riddle like that has nothing to do with its reasoning abilities, but rather depends on whether the answer was included in its training dataset.

The word is in most online dictionaries for what it is worth. It's also used in Biblical texts, albeit only a handful of times. I do agree it's not a true assessment of an LLM's overall reasoning. No person I have ever asked that riddle to has gotten it correct. Then again, that is probably partly the point of the riddle. I would like to reiterate that both Claude and GPT answered correctly. It was just bizarre how C…

I think the point here is that an LLM might not get the correct answer because it hasn't found it yet by scraping Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. Artificially limit the training set and it will never, ever get it right.

Whereas, a human of average intelligence, in possession of a dictionary or perhaps just a list of animals, could reason their way through getting the correct answer in finite time. They could probably get it without the list if they really wanted to.

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