I wonder when we’ll start seeing computer viruses that communicate with a remote LLM in order to get help circumventing barriers.
Alternatively, maybe anti-virus software can phone home to get on-the-fly advice.
AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
31–40 of 129 posts
Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#32> Yes, large language models (LLMs) are not actually AI in that they are not actually intelligent, but we’re going to use the common nomenclature here. I'm sorry for the off-topic comment, but why do I keep seeing this? What am I missing here – is it that some people define intelligence as >= human, or that LLM are not intelligence because they're *just* statistical models?
Very clever people have located true intelligence in the gaps between what an machine can do and what a human can. Therefore, to show that you aren’t a starry-eyed rube you put a disclaimer that you aren’t really talking about intelligence, but something that just looks and acts like it. True intelligence is, of course, definitionally the ability to do things like art or… err, wait, sorry, I haven’t checked recently,…
I’m hesitant to even call this moving the goal posts. Intelligence has never been solidly defined even within humans (see: IQ debate; book smart vs street smart; idiot savants).
It’s unsurprising that creating machines that seem to do some stuff very intelligently and some other things not very intelligently at all is causing some discontent with regard to our language.
I see a whole lot more gnashing of teeth about goalposts moving than I do about people proposing actual solid goalposts.
So what’s your definition?
Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#33> Yes, large language models (LLMs) are not actually AI in that they are not actually intelligent, but we’re going to use the common nomenclature here. I'm sorry for the off-topic comment, but why do I keep seeing this? What am I missing here – is it that some people define intelligence as >= human, or that LLM are not intelligence because they're *just* statistical models?
AI's a very soft term, and there's long been a technical vs "casual" split in what it means. Five or ten years ago you'd say your photo was retouched with AI dust removal, say, and we'd all know what that means. And that there was a big gulf between that and the sci-fi "AI" of Blade Runner or Her or Star Wars, etc.
The user interface to Chat GPT and similar tools, though, has made a lot of people think that gap is gone, and that instead of thinking they are using an AI tool in the technical sense, they now think they're talking to a full-fledged other being in the sci-fi sense; that that idea has now come true.
So a lot of people are careful to distinguish the one from the other in their writing.
Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#34> Yes, large language models (LLMs) are not actually AI in that they are not actually intelligent, but we’re going to use the common nomenclature here. I'm sorry for the off-topic comment, but why do I keep seeing this? What am I missing here – is it that some people define intelligence as >= human, or that LLM are not intelligence because they're *just* statistical models?
Because we don't have a real handle on what "intelligence" actually is, any use of the word without defining it is essentially just noise.
Yeah this is exactly it. It’s interesting seeing a precision-oriented discipline (engineering) running into the inherently very, very muddy world of semantics.
“What do you mean it’s not intelligent?! It passed Test X!”
“Yes and now that tells us Test X was not a good test for whatever it is we refer to as ‘intelligence’”
Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#35> Yes, large language models (LLMs) are not actually AI in that they are not actually intelligent, but we’re going to use the common nomenclature here. I'm sorry for the off-topic comment, but why do I keep seeing this? What am I missing here – is it that some people define intelligence as >= human, or that LLM are not intelligence because they're *just* statistical models?
It's a way for the author to distinguish himself as one who is neither a purveyor of, nor fooled by, the magic, grift, and cringy sci-fi fantasizing that currently comprises the majority of AI discussion.
Currently, most mentions of AI, outside of a proper technical discussion, are coming from crypto-tier grifters and starry-eyed suckers. Even further, a lot of discussions from otherwise technical people are sci-fi-tier fearmongering about some ostensible Skynet, or something, it's not quite clear, but it's clearly quite cringe. The latter is one of the many calibers of ammunition being used by AI incumbents to dig regulatory moats for themselves.
Anyway, I understand why the author is distinguishing himself with his LLM...AI disclaimer, given the above.
Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#36Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#37> Yes, large language models (LLMs) are not actually AI in that they are not actually intelligent, but we’re going to use the common nomenclature here. I'm sorry for the off-topic comment, but why do I keep seeing this? What am I missing here – is it that some people define intelligence as >= human, or that LLM are not intelligence because they're *just* statistical models?
> is it that some people define intelligence as >= human I just want to say that this seems to be how many, if not most people define intelligence internally. If an LLM gets something wrong or doesn't know something, then it must be completely unintelligent. (as if humans never get anything wrong!)
Like with humans, there are intelligent ways to be wrong and unintelligent ways to be wrong.
LLMs do a whole lot of “wrong in a way that indicates it is not ‘thinking’ the way an intelligent human would.”
Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#38But what is the "AI" ran entirely locally? https://pagevau.lt/
The "Download for Chrome" link on that page is broken. "404. That’s an error. The requested URL was not found on this server. That’s all we know."
Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if your brain is mostly a statistical model of the world, with action probabilities based on what parts of it happen to be excited at the moment?
How do we know that the brain is a statistical model of the world? It sounds like explaining an unknown phenomenon using the technology du jour - just 10/20 years ago, the brain was a computer.
This touches on a dichotomy that has fascinated me for decades, from the very beginning of my interest in AI.
One side of the dichotomy asserts that "if it walks like a duck..." that is, if a computer appears to be intelligent to us, then it must be intelligent. This is basically the Turing Test crowd (even though Turing himself didn't approve of the Turing Test as an actual test of AI).
On the other side, you have people who assert that the human mind is really just a super-complicated version of "X", where "X" is whatever the cool new tech of the day is.
I have no conclusions to draw from this sort of thing, aside from highlighting that we don't know what intelligence or consciousness actually are. I'm just fascinated by it.
Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very clever people have located true intelligence in the gaps between what an machine can do and what a human can. Therefore, to show that you aren’t a starry-eyed rube you put a disclaimer that you aren’t really talking about intelligence, but something that just looks and acts like it. True intelligence is, of course, definitionally the ability to do things like art or… err, wait, sorry, I haven’t checked recently,…
I’m hesitant to even call this moving the goal posts. Intelligence has never been solidly defined even within humans (see: IQ debate; book smart vs street smart; idiot savants). It’s unsurprising that creating machines that seem to do some stuff very intelligently and some other things not very intelligently at all is causing some discontent with regard to our language. I see a whole lot more gnashing of teeth about…
> I’m hesitant to even call this moving the goal posts. Intelligence has never been solidly defined even within humans (see: IQ debate; book smart vs street smart; idiot savants).
> It’s unsurprising that creating machines that seem to do some stuff very intelligently and some other things not very intelligently at all is causing some discontent with regard to our language.
I think I agree about the language.
I don’t have a definition of intelligence. I don’t work in one of those fields that would need to define it, so my first attempt probably wouldn’t be very good, but I’d say intelligence isn’t a single thing, but a label we’ve arbitrarily applied to a bunch of behaviors that are loosely related at best. So, trying to say this thing is intelligent, this thing is not, is basically hopeless, especially when things that we don’t believe are intelligent are being made to exhibit those behaviors, one behavior at a time.
> I see a whole lot more gnashing of teeth about goalposts moving than I do about people proposing actual solid goalposts.
I might not see a ton of explicit “here are the goalpost” type statements. But, every time someone says “I’m using the term AI, but actually of course this isn’t intelligence,” the seem to me at least to be referencing some implicit goalposts. If there isn’t a way of classifying what is or isn’t intelligent, how can they say something isn’t it? I think the people making the distinction have the responsibility to tell us where they’ve made the cutoff.
Maybe I’m just quibbling. Now that I’ve written all that out, I’m beginning to wonder if I just don’t like the wording of the disclaimer. I’d probably be satisfied if instead of “this isn’t intelligence, but I’m going to call it AI,” people would say “Intelligence is too hard to define, so I’m going to call this AI, because why not?”