301–310 of 405 posts
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Peak HN comment. Put this in the history books.
Has anyone else noticed that HN is starting to sound a lot like reddit / discussion of similar quality? Can't hang out anywhere now on the web... I used to be on here daily but with garbage like this its been reduced to 2-3 times per month... sad
I'm kind of shocked by this thread. I cant get over the hubris that we think concepts that were introduced to society at large by science fiction in and before the 19th century is _inevitable_ just because we made a really really good predictive text engine in the 21st century. Just because a concept exists star trek episode does not guarantee technology moving in that direction. I understand art has an effect on rea…
Unless you believe in some kind of magic (soul/divine spark/etc.), it seems completely inevitable to conclude that human cognition can be replicated by a machine, at the extreme end simply by simulating the whole thing.
I would argue that "language" was a defining characteristic of human intelligence (as opposed to "lesser animals") long before we even conceived of AI, and hitting language processing/understanding benchmarks that far exceed animal capabilities is a very strong indicator by itself.
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I think you make a lot of assumptions that you should perhaps reexamine. > Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? Here are some of your assumptions: 1. Human intelligence is entirely explic…
I understand all the words you've used but I truly do not understand how they're supposed to be an argument against the GP post. Before this unfolds into a much larger essay, should we not acknowledge one simple fact: that our best models of the universe indicate that our intelligence evolved in meat and that meat is just a type of matter. This is an assumption I'll stand on, and if you don't disagree, we need to bac…
I already wrote that even under the assumption that intelligence is a purely biological phenomenon, it does not follow that computation can produce intelligence.
This isn't a matter of probabilities. We know what computation is, because we defined it as such and such. We know at least some essential features of intelligence (chiefly, intentionality). It is not rocket science to see that computation, thus defined, does not include the concepts of semantics and intentionality. By definition, it excludes them. Attempts to locate the latter in the former reminds me of Feynman's anecdote about the obtuse painter who claimed he could produce yellow from red and white paint alone (later adding a bit of yellow paint to "sharpen it up a bit").
I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…
And the driver of this corporation is survival of the fittest under the constraints of profit maximization, the algorithm we have designed and enforced. That's how you get paperclip maximizers.
What gives this corporate cyborg life is not a technical achievement, but the law. At a technical you can absolutely shut off a cybo-corp, but that’s equivalent to saying you can technically shut down Microsoft. It will not happen.
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> I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line either; this might be true for now, but this is already being circumvented with current LLMs (by giving them web access etc). They don't have agency, because they don't have persistent state. They're like a function that you can query and get an answer. During that answer the LLM has state, but once it's done the state is gone. Humans (and other "agents") have persis…
I have no words to express how profoundly disappointed I am to keep reading these boring, shallow, shorttermist, unimaginative takes that are invalidated by a model/arch upgrade next week, or - in this case - more like years ago, since pretty much all big LLM platforms are already augmented by RAG and memory systems. Do you seriously think you’re discussing a serious long term limitation here?
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I don't get how you can see one of those CLI coding tools in action and still parrot the "no agency" line. The goal-oriented behavior is rather obvious. Sure, they aren't very good at agentic behavior yet, and the time horizon is pretty low. But that keeps improving with each frontier release.
What LLM programs do has zero resemblance to the human agency. That's just a modern variation of very complex set of GoTos and IfElses. Agency would be an LLM parsing your question and answering you "fuck off". Now that is agency, that is independent decision making, not programmed in advance and triggered by keywords. Just an example.
It's not hard to make something like that. It's just not very useful.
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Ah yes, rings a bell. Doesn't change the sentiment though. They're all crooks and cheaters who will sacrifice the greater good for their own self interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Georgia_Hyundai_plant_imm... It's the fear of death that's killing us all.
There are tons of examples of chaebols behaving evilly in Korea. You don't have to pull out a scenario where half of Americans and most non-Americans think Hyundai are the victims, not the bad guys.
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Why not go and hit up OpenAI and tell them you've solved AGI and ask for a job and see what they say?
Well for one I hate them.
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I'm sure if you email him explaining how stupid he is he'll send you his Nobel prize. Less flippantly, Penrose has always been extremely clear about which things he's sure of, such as that human intelligence involves processes that algorithms cannot emulate, and which things he puts forward as speculative ideas that might help answer the questions he has raised. His ideas about quantum mechanical processes in the bra…
I want to ignore the flame fest developing here. But, in case you are interested in hearing a doubter's perspective, I'll try to express one view. I am not an expert on Penrose's ideas, but see this as a common feature in how others try to sell his work. Starting with "things he's sure of, such as that human intelligence involves processes that algorithms cannot emulate" as a premise makes the whole thing an exercise…
Linking those two is really the contribution of the argument. You can reject both or accept both (as I've said elsewhere I don't think it's conclusively decided, though I know which way my preferences lie), but you can't accept the premise and reject the conclusion.
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I dismiss it much like I dismiss ideas such as "Ketamine for Breakfast for All" . Attainable, sure, but I don't like where it goes.
I think most people would have a better life using ketamine, but not that regularly for breakfasts as it permanently damages (shrinks) your bladder, eventually to the point where you can‘t hold any urine at all anymore.