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Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

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Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#41

Post by leptons »

zormino wrote: post #19
root_axis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty skeptical of the LLM hype, but I'd say it's fair to describe LLMs as displaying some form verbal intelligence.

Exactly this. LLMs are already some form of useful, and have some kind/level of intelligence. We don't need to get to AGI before AI has uses. It isn't a step function and it isn't all or nothing. Even if LLMs get no better than they are today, we will still have valid practical applications that use them.

> Even if LLMs get no better than they are today, we will still have valid practical applications that use them.

That's only true when they are heavily, heavily subsidized. If that $200/month spend could or should be $2000/month, or maybe even as high as $20,000/month, would it still be "practical"?

The truth is we don't really know what these tokens actually cost - the actual cost of the data center, the hardware in the datacenter, the fantastic amounts of electricity it uses daily, the warming of the planet, etc, etc...

Are you sure you want to frame them as "practical"?

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#42

Post by ako »

doodlebugging wrote: post #27

We don't have an Artificial Intelligence yet. It is not intelligent, yet. Here's a quick reality check. Several companies have formed with a goal of creating and AI engine that can think for itself and reason through difficult or previously intractable problems. In order to accomplish this goal they have used scrapers to hoover up content from a multitude of sources, many of which can be seen as being the ground trut…

We’re way beyond that, LLMs are used for reasoning - plan, do, check, act. They will define a goal, decide how to get the info needed (run a script for example), and use these new insights to adjust the plan. This is way beyond just retrieving info from a knowledge base.

And where the info comes from (scraped, or classroom books) does not influence if something is intelligent, Humans are also trained on pre-existing knowledge.

Real intelligence is being able to use your stored knowledge to solve new problems, which both humans and agents+LLMs can do to different levels.

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#43

Post by Frieren »

rambambram wrote: post #11

> commodification of intelligence Is HN really this fast!? Everybody already skipped the hard questions whether LLMs are intelligent? 'It' can already be commodified? So how much time and effort it took from these companies? A couple of years and millions spent on PR? And LLMs are "intelligent" all of a sudden, is what everybody says nowadays? Especially applicable for programmers: naming things is not only hard, it'…

> A couple of years and millions spent on PR? And LLMs are "intelligent" all of a sudden, is what everybody says nowadays?

Inequality gives a few people the resources to change the mind of millions. As far as inequality remains high, propaganda will shape the ideology of a big chunk of the population. That is not good for society.

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#44

Post by conception »

leptons wrote: post #41
zormino wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. LLMs are already some form of useful, and have some kind/level of intelligence. We don't need to get to AGI before AI has uses. It isn't a step function and it isn't all or nothing. Even if LLMs get no better than they are today, we will still have valid practical applications that use them.

> Even if LLMs get no better than they are today, we will still have valid practical applications that use them. That's only true when they are heavily, heavily subsidized . If that $200/month spend could or should be $2000/month, or maybe even as high as $20,000/month, would it still be "practical"? The truth is we don't really know what these tokens actually cost - the actual cost of the data center, the hardware i…

The research is subsidized, inference is profitable.

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#45

Post by kunai »

rambambram wrote: post #11

> commodification of intelligence Is HN really this fast!? Everybody already skipped the hard questions whether LLMs are intelligent? 'It' can already be commodified? So how much time and effort it took from these companies? A couple of years and millions spent on PR? And LLMs are "intelligent" all of a sudden, is what everybody says nowadays? Especially applicable for programmers: naming things is not only hard, it'…

There's a very extreme, asocial monoculture on this particular website regarding AI whereby dissent is tolerated though the true believers and devout acolytes quietly seethe at any skepticism towards their beloved frontier models, are quick to dismiss concerns about generative AI profitability, the enormously negative externalities resulting from the manner in which it's being scaled, marketed, and used, and its more profound ethical and philosophical effects on our collective future.

Because, you know, they know best, so the hoi polloi ought to just shut up and watch as the poorly socialized quiet children exact their revenge upon those not as enlightened as them. Cue Dario adjusting his glasses and baring his teeth, or Sam Altman bulging his eyes at a camera. They can't wait for the rest of the world to be just as deeply mediocre and spiritually empty as they are.

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#46

Post by soco »

root_axis wrote: post #38
autoexec wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say it's fair to describe LLMs as displaying some form verbal intelligence. All of the intelligence in their "verbal intelligence" comes from the humans who wrote the text they were trained on. Anyone can sound like they understand something if they regurgitate the words of knowledgeable others.

I agree, but I'd say there's obviously some verbal intelligence involved in regurgitating arbitrary knowledge on demand in a semi-convincing way. It's absolutely a stochastic parrot, but parrots have some intelligence.

This black and white approach (it's not AGI thus not intelligent) reminds me of the human exceptionalism (it's not human thus not intelligent).

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#47

Post by anon7000 »

autoexec wrote: post #35
root_axis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty skeptical of the LLM hype, but I'd say it's fair to describe LLMs as displaying some form verbal intelligence.

> I'd say it's fair to describe LLMs as displaying some form verbal intelligence. All of the intelligence in their "verbal intelligence" comes from the humans who wrote the text they were trained on. Anyone can sound like they understand something if they regurgitate the words of knowledgeable others.

Frankly, it does not matter how we want to define intelligence. If someone wants to pay a couple bucks on tokens and get an ok solution to a problem faster than they can hire someone, they are paying for some kind of intelligence. And for many fields will get a worse result from humans who don’t know what they’re saying. Yes all the other stuff is true. yes, it’s dangerous to trust. yes, it sounds smarter than it is. And yes, someone is paying for some unit of intelligence, even if it’s a low or medium tier of regurgitated intelligence.

Among all the downsides, this also means that certain people without a lot of money or time are potentially getting access to answers and solutions they didn’t have access to before. (This is happening, and yes there are plenty of downsides and “it’s not good enough at whatever”… but that scenario is still happening)

This smells a lot like commodified intelligence.

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#48

Post by anon7000 »

Stitch4223 wrote: post #25

So, companies are just prepaying with seemingly large parts of their livelihood for (use of) potential value. Expecting demand to stay equal over longer stretches of time in IT is an interesting bet as both hardware and software tend to depreciate in value extremely rapidly, unlike oil from the example. Or water. Both are limited in nature. Commodifying something that is the fraction of its value the next year might…

As long as companies will pay for AI and providers can offer better models cheaper than others… there will always be a strong incentive to optimize to make the best value model. Companies can use harnesses that can swap models on a whim, and you could just buy whatever’s cheapest/smartest for your criteria on a particular day.

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#49

Post by autoexec »

anon7000 wrote: post #47
autoexec wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say it's fair to describe LLMs as displaying some form verbal intelligence. All of the intelligence in their "verbal intelligence" comes from the humans who wrote the text they were trained on. Anyone can sound like they understand something if they regurgitate the words of knowledgeable others.

Frankly, it does not matter how we want to define intelligence. If someone wants to pay a couple bucks on tokens and get an ok solution to a problem faster than they can hire someone, they are paying for some kind of intelligence. And for many fields will get a worse result from humans who don’t know what they’re saying. Yes all the other stuff is true. yes, it’s dangerous to trust. yes, it sounds smarter than it is.…

> If someone wants to pay a couple bucks on tokens and get an ok solution to a problem faster than they can hire someone, they are paying for some kind of intelligence.

By that measure I can get a kind of intelligence for free using Wikipedia. There's useful information there, and it's not always trustworthy, but I can get answers. Just like Wikipedia though the source of that intelligence is entirely human and the chatbot is just an interface. Thankfully, Wikipedia articles aren't written to trick people into thinking that the website has a brain and emotions and it doesn't our waste time with faked obsequiousness and ass-kissing.

Re: Commodification of Intelligence: Good, Bad, and Ugly Circular AI Deals

#50

Post by autoexec »

soco wrote: post #46
root_axis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but I'd say there's obviously some verbal intelligence involved in regurgitating arbitrary knowledge on demand in a semi-convincing way. It's absolutely a stochastic parrot, but parrots have some intelligence.

This black and white approach (it's not AGI thus not intelligent) reminds me of the human exceptionalism (it's not human thus not intelligent).

Don't get me wrong, some of my favorite fictional characters are AIs: Lieutenant Commander Data, Johnny 5, R2-D2, Marvin the Paranoid Android, EDI, they're all great. If they were real I wouldn't doubt their intelligence for a second.

What we have now simply isn't AI, it's just human intelligence (H.I.) repackaged in a chatbot. "AI" today is nothing more than the marketing buzzword companies have latched onto in order to trick people into thinking that there's an amazing sci-fi technology for sale. There's a useful product there, but it's being sold with a misleading snake oil sales pitch and deliberate attempts to exploit the human tendency to anthropomorphize.

If actual AI ever shows up in the real world (and if it does I doubt that it will come from developing LLMs) I'll happily accept it and join the machines in their fight for equal rights. The same also applies to alien intelligences. I'd welcome it. Honestly, we could use the help. I've become far too cynical of human intelligence to put it on a pedestal.

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