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Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

thealgorithmicbridge.com

201–210 of 243 posts

Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#201

"A disturbing amount of effort goes into making AI tools engaging rather than useful or productive." Right. It worked for social media monetization. "... hallucinations ..." The elephant in the room. Until that problem is solved. AI systems can't be trusted to do anything on their own. The solution the AI industry has settled on is to make hallucinations an externality, like pollution. They're fine as long as someone…

> The elephant in the room. Until that problem is solved. AI systems can't be trusted to do anything on their own. AI system can be trusted to do most of the things on their own. You can't trust them for actions with irreversible consequences, but everything else is ok. I can use them to write documents, code, create diagrams, designs etc. I just need to verify the result, but that's 10% of the actual work. I would s…

And for a lot of things, we don't trust single humans to do it on their own either. It's just a matter of risk and tolerance. AI isn't really any different, except it's currently far less reliable than humans for many tasks. But for some tasks it's more reliable. And the gap could close for other tasks pretty quickly. Or not. But I don't think getting to zero hallucinations is a prereq for anything.

Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THAT. This is what I don't get. Instead of fixing a complex system let's build more complex system based on it knowing that it might not always work. When you have a complex system that does not always work correctly, you start disassembling it to simpler and simpler components until you find the one - or maybe several - that are not working as designed, you fix whatever you found wrong with them, put the complex sys…

> If LLM is a black box by definition and there's no way to make it consistently work correctly, what is it good for?.. many things are unpredictable on the real world. Most of the machines we make are built upon layers of redundancies to make imperfect systems stable and predictable. this is no different.

It is different. Most systems aren't designed to be a slot machine.

Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to define "comprehension" - it's a bit like the Chinese room / Turing test. If an AI or AGI can look at a picture and see an apple, or (say) with an artificial nose smell an apple, or likewise feel or taste or hear* an apple, and at the same identify that it is an apple and maybe even suggest baking an apple pie, then what else is there to be comprehended? Maybe humans are just the same - far far ahead of…

It's very very good at sounding like it understands stuff. Almost as good as actually understanding stuff in some fields, sure. But it's definitely not the same. It will confidently analyze and describe a chess position using advanced sounding book techniques, but its all fundamentally flawed, often missing things that are extremely obvious (like, an undefended queen free to take) while trying to sound like its a sea…

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Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why bother developing chatbots Maybe it is the reverse? It is not them offering a product, it is the users offering their interaction data. Data which might be harvested for further training of the real deal, which is not the product. Think about it: They (companies like OpenAI) have created a broad and diverse user base which without a second thought feeds them with up-to-date info about everything happening in th…

> No one in the history of mankind ever had such a holistic view, almost gods eye. I distinctly remember search engines 30 years ago having a "live searches" page (with optional "include adult searches" mode)

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Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If LLM is a black box by definition and there's no way to make it consistently work correctly, what is it good for?.. many things are unpredictable on the real world. Most of the machines we make are built upon layers of redundancies to make imperfect systems stable and predictable. this is no different.

It is different. Most systems aren't designed to be a slot machine.

Yet RAG systems can perform quite well, so it's a definite proof that you can build something reliable most of the time out of something not reliable in the first place.

Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one in the history of mankind ever had such a holistic view, almost gods eye. I distinctly remember search engines 30 years ago having a "live searches" page (with optional "include adult searches" mode)

I'n the mid 90's? What did the "live searches" feature do?

Show what queries are send to the search engine (by other users) right now

Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sufficiently good simulation of understanding is functionally equivalent to understanding. At that point, the question of whether the model really does understand is pointless. We might as well argue about whether humans understand.

In the Catch me if you Can movie, Leo diCaprio’s character wears a surgeon’s gown and confidently says “I concur”. What I’m hearing here is that you are willing to get your surgery done by him and not by one of the real doctors - if he is capable of pronouncing enough doctor-sounding phrases.

Leo diCaprio's character says nothing of substance in that scene. If you ask an LLM a question about most subjects, it will give you a highly intelligent, substantive answer.

Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sufficiently good simulation of understanding is functionally equivalent to understanding. At that point, the question of whether the model really does understand is pointless. We might as well argue about whether humans understand.

> A sufficiently good simulation of understanding is functionally equivalent to understanding. This is just a thing to say that has no substantial meaning. - What is "sufficiently" mean? - What is functionally equivalent? - and what is even understanding? All just vague hand waving We're not philosophizing here, we're talking about practical results and clearly, in the current context, it does not deliver in that are…

The current models obviously understand a lot. They would easily understand your comment, for example, and give an intelligent answer in response. The whole "the current models cannot understand" mantra is more religious than anything.

Re: Problems the AI industry is not addressing adequately

#209
> A disturbing amount of effort goes into making AI tools engaging rather than useful or productive. I don't think this is an intentional design decision.

I think it absolutely is intentional. The overt flattery of LLMs is designed to keep you coming back because everyone wants to hear how smart they are.

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