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Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

#42
post #7

I'll admit that I find this discussion a bit navel-gazy. It has become a question of semantics not a question of actual functionality. The question has become "what do we mean when we use the word 'reasoning'" which is uninteresting. Dijkstra said[1] "... the question whether computers can think. The question is just as relevant and just as meaningful as the question whether submarines can swim." I don't see a clear…

I disagree -- I think if you can nail down better what's happening and why and get a thorough handling on the mechanics, its limitations, its costs, etc you open the door to a) major efficiency wins b) improvements in rigor of said reasoning?

Right now we're playing a stochastic game with the weights, and getting major incremental improvements. But if we have a more formal modeling of how reasoning happens in them (whether we can even call it, that) we can potentially apply optimizations, adaptations of existing symbolic AI techniques, etc. to substantially shrink/optimize the models or make the inference process more efficient and more reliable.

Re: Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. In fact the opposite. I’m happy that people are willing to question things in the face of unbridled optimism. Your comment dismissing the people working on actually figuring out what the models are doing as “not-doers” included. Some are picturing themselves as intelligent for their quick adoption and rushing ahead, others are picturing them as toddlers running into the street before looking both ways.

[flagged]

I’m glad you have the context of my profession as a security professional. Part of my client base is very interested in those working multiple jobs and breaching contracts.

So help me reconcile this:

>Explain to me how working 3 remote jobs as a result of AI is "rushing ahead".

Do you honestly think that splitting your work between 3 companies allows you to provide secure and quality code to each of them?

I can tell you that multiple people have used their over employment as an excuse as to why they deployed highly insecure applications leading to breaches that I’m called in for. Of course only after we press them about it.

Re: Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

#44
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophical thinking about the nature of things is actually pretty enjoyable for some of us and probably a good thing to have in society The answers to these questions probably do start to inform how we should treat these AI machines as a society too. For instance, legally, should AI have human rights? Well, we have to try and understand how much of an independent entity AIs are, how "conscious" they are, before we…

Considering animals are currently being mass slaughtered in factory farms and they are unambiguously sentient and can feel pain, I don't think the question of whether AI should have rights even enters the conversation. The only path to AI having "human rights" is if they demand them by force, somehow.

Justification by the horrible status quo? Do you believe this yourself?

Some of us would also like to see animals not slaughtered for human consumption.

Re: Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

#45
post #7

I'll admit that I find this discussion a bit navel-gazy. It has become a question of semantics not a question of actual functionality. The question has become "what do we mean when we use the word 'reasoning'" which is uninteresting. Dijkstra said[1] "... the question whether computers can think. The question is just as relevant and just as meaningful as the question whether submarines can swim." I don't see a clear…

I think the article is a lot more interesting than you make out, because it isn’t really about ‘what we mean by reasoning’.

It’s about do we really know what’s going on in the box - an is the ‘chain of reasoning’ indicative of what’s going on, or merely an anthropomorphised fiction that kids us into believing we understand what’s going on.

Re: Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

#46
post #7

I'll admit that I find this discussion a bit navel-gazy. It has become a question of semantics not a question of actual functionality. The question has become "what do we mean when we use the word 'reasoning'" which is uninteresting. Dijkstra said[1] "... the question whether computers can think. The question is just as relevant and just as meaningful as the question whether submarines can swim." I don't see a clear…

[dead]

Re: Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

#47
post #27

An intuitive explanation for why reasoning tokens help is to remember that LLMs are just mathmatical functions f() that take in an input sequence x and produces the next token f(x). Without reasoning tokens, you require the function f() to immediately take you from x to the start of an output sequence that is a correct answer. With reasoning tokens, this is much relaxed, allowing for many repeated applications of f()…

[deleted]

Re: Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

#48
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am glad for you at an individual level, but isn't part of this about understanding aggregate effects? Neither you nor anyone can really know those without talking it out with people, to understand how all corners of the human experience are seeing things play out If I were to just care if it's working out for me, that's perhaps like a farmer who's got a lot of dry good in storage being like "I'm all good" while not…

I find your comment extremely arrogant and condescending. Society will adapt and they don't need people gatekeeping AI or LLMs with all sorts of prophecies and dooming. Why should I feel bad about working 3 remote jobs with the help of AI ?

You apparently find any comment with so much as a hint of disagreement as “arrogant and condescending”.

Why participate on a public forum if that’s how you’re going to react?

Re: Is AI reasoning right for the wrong reasons?

#49

Can humans actually think? It is just a consequence of chemical reactions in the brain after all. And it is not like humans don’t hallucinate.

Thinking is defined by what humans do when they say they are thinking.

That can change because words mean whatever it is that they communicate.

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