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Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

latentintent.substack.com

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Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#31

Post by beering »

mrlongroots wrote: post #23

I very much disagree. To attempt a proof by contradiction: Let us assume that the author's premise is correct, and LLMs are plenty powerful given the right context. Can an LLM recognize the context deficit and frame the right questions to ask? They can not: LLMs have no ability to understand when to stop and ask for directions. They routinely produce contradictions, fail simple tasks like counting the letters in a wo…

It feels crazy to keep arguing about LLMs being able to do this or that, but not mention the specific model? The post author only mentions the IMO gold-medal model. And your post could be about anything. Am I to believe that the two of you are talking about the same thing? This discussion is not useful if that’s not the case.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#32

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

mrlongroots wrote: post #23

I very much disagree. To attempt a proof by contradiction: Let us assume that the author's premise is correct, and LLMs are plenty powerful given the right context. Can an LLM recognize the context deficit and frame the right questions to ask? They can not: LLMs have no ability to understand when to stop and ask for directions. They routinely produce contradictions, fail simple tasks like counting the letters in a wo…

Claude routinely stops and asks me clarifying questions before continuing, especially when the given extended thinking or doing research.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#33

Post by alanbernstein »

nradov wrote: post #29
fnordpiglet wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you buy the idea of a post scarcity society and assuming we can separate our long ingrained notion that spending your existence in toil to survive is a moral imperative and not working is deserving of punishment if not death, I personally look forward to a time we can get off the hamster wheel. Most buttons that get pushed by people are buttons not worth spending your existence pushing. This includes an awfu…

We will never have a post scarcity society. Automation can make certain foodstuffs and manufactured goods somewhat cheaper but the things that people really want will always be in short supply, for example real estate in geographically favorable areas.

I have never understood "post scarcity" to mean the end of ALL scarcity, which is essentially impossible by definition.

Relative to 500 years ago, we have already nearly achieved post-scarcity for a few types of items, like basic clothing.

It seems this is yet another concept for which we need to adjust our understanding from binary to a spectrum, as we find our society advancing along the spectrum, in at least some aspects.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#34

Post by djrj477dhsnv »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #27
thorum wrote: post #7

This article is insightful, but I blinked when I saw the headline “Reducing the human bottleneck” used without any apparent irony. At some point we should probably take a step back and ask “Why do we want to solve this problem?” Is a world where AI systems are highly intelligent tools , but humans are needed to manage the high level complexity of the real world… supposed to be a disappointing outcome?

Assuming you buy the idea of a post scarcity society and assuming we can separate our long ingrained notion that spending your existence in toil to survive is a moral imperative and not working is deserving of punishment if not death, I personally look forward to a time we can get off the hamster wheel. Most buttons that get pushed by people are buttons not worth spending your existence pushing. This includes an awfu…

Do you really want to live in this "post scarcity" world? With no effort required to meet your needs and desires, what motivation will you have to do anything?

Kaczynski's warnings seem more apt with every year that passes.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#35

Post by parineum »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #30
nradov wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will never have a post scarcity society. Automation can make certain foodstuffs and manufactured goods somewhat cheaper but the things that people really want will always be in short supply, for example real estate in geographically favorable areas.

With a stable population, post scarcity is surely possible technically . Just invest resource into improving everything that already exists. I also agree that we will never have a post scarcity society; but this is more about humanity than technology.

There will always be scarcity for goods whose value is derived from their scarcity.

Maybe food won't be scarce (we wre actually very close to that) and shelter may not be scarce but, even if you invent the replicator, there will still be things that are bespoke.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#36

Post by GauntletWizard »

nradov wrote: post #29
fnordpiglet wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you buy the idea of a post scarcity society and assuming we can separate our long ingrained notion that spending your existence in toil to survive is a moral imperative and not working is deserving of punishment if not death, I personally look forward to a time we can get off the hamster wheel. Most buttons that get pushed by people are buttons not worth spending your existence pushing. This includes an awfu…

We will never have a post scarcity society. Automation can make certain foodstuffs and manufactured goods somewhat cheaper but the things that people really want will always be in short supply, for example real estate in geographically favorable areas.

We can automate plenty in physiological needs, and in fact have already. There's plenty of food and housing for everyone to have them, but a bunch of people will immediately destroy them if provided with such. I don't think "Dispose of a full house every 3 months" will ever be practical, but we might be able to "solve" physiological needs.

Safety needs might be possible to solve. Totalitarian states with ubiquitous panopticons can leave you "safe" in a crime sense, and AI gaslighting and happy pills will make you "feel" safe.

Love and belonging we have "Plenty" of already - If you're looking for your people, you can find them. Plenty aren't willing to look.

But once you get up to Esteem, it all falls apart. Reputation and Respect are not scalable. There will always be a limited quantity of being "The Best" at anything, and many are not willing to be "The Best" within tight constraints; There's always competition. You can plausibly say that this category is inherently competitive. There's no respect without disrespect. There's no best if there's no second best, and second best is first loser. So long as humans interact with each other - So long as we're not each locked in our own private shards of reality - There will be competition, and there will be those that fall short.

Self Actualization is almost irrelevant at this point. It falls into exactly the same as the above. You can simulate a reality where someone is always the best at whatever they decide to so, but I think it will inherently feel hollow. Agent Smith said it best: https://youtu.be/9Qs3GlNZMhY?t=23

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#37

Post by simoncion »

gjm11 wrote: post #10
Kuinox wrote: post #6

It's specific model that run for maths. GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 still cannot compute an arbitrary length sum of whole number without a calculator. I have a proceduraly generated benchmark of basic operations, LLMs gets better at it with time, but they cant still solve basic maths or logic problems. BTW I'm open to selling it, my email is on my hn profile.

> GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 still cannot compute an arbitrary length sum of whole number without a calculator. Neither can many humans, including some very smart ones. Even those who can will usually choose to use a calculator (or spreadsheet or whatever) rather than doing the arithmetic themselves.

> Neither can many humans...

1) GPT-5 is advertised as "PhD-level intelligence". So, I take OpenAI (and anyone else who advertises their bots with language like this) at their word about the bot's capabilities and constrain the set of humans I use for comparison to those who also have PhD-level intelligence.

2) Any human who has been introduced to long addition will absolutely be able to compute the sum of two whole numbers of arbitrary length. You may have to provide them a sufficiently strong incentive to actually do it long-hand, but they absolutely are capable because the method is not difficult. I'm fairly certain that most adult humans [0] (regardless of whether or not they have PhD-level intelligence) find the method to be trivial, if tedious.

[0] And many human children!

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#38

Post by simoncion »

neom wrote: post #2

Same same human problems. Regardless of their inherent intelligence...humans perform well only when given decent context and clear specifications/data. If you place a brilliant executive into a scenario without meaningful context.... an unfamiliar board meeting where they have no idea of the company’s history, prior strategic discussions, current issues, personel dynamics...expectations..etc etc, they will struggle j…

> I think context is the primary primitive property of intelligent systems in general?

What do you mean by 'context' in this context? As written, I believe that I could knock down your claim by pointing out that there exist humans who would do catastrophically poorly at a task that other humans would excel at, even if both humans have been fully informed of all of the same context.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#39

Post by rileymat2 »

Kuinox wrote: post #19
mathiaspoint wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but most (competent) humans will reliably use a calculator. It's difficult to get these to reliably make lots of tool calls like that.

I do think that competent humans can solve any arbitrary sum of 2 whole number with a pen, paper and time. LLMs can't do that.

That’s interesting, you added a tool. You did not just leave it to the human alone.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#40

Post by stephc_int13 »

This is because we tend to use a human-centric reference to evaluate the difficulty of a task : playing chess at grand master level is a lot harder than folding laundry, except that it is the opposite, and this weird bias is well known as Moravec’s Paradox.

Intelligence is the bottleneck, but not the kind of intelligence you need to solve puzzles.

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