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Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

victoramartinez.com

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Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#61

Post by suddenlybananas »

James_K wrote: post #58
GrayShade wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recursive solution has a stack depth proportional to the number of disks. That's three pieces (two pegs and how many disks to move) of data for each recursive call, so for 6 disks the "stack" will contain up to around 15 values, which is generally higher than an unaided human will be able to track. In addition, 64-256 moves is quite a lot and I suspect people will generally lose focus before completing them.

It's still pretty simple. I think you are really underestimating the ability of humans to do rote activities. Especially since we could give the human a pen and paper in this case and let them write stuff down on it to give parity to the AI which can write words in its output. It seems pretty clear to me that learning how to go about following an arbitrary set of rules is a part of general intelligence. There are lot…

You have to understand these people are fundamentally misanthropic, and think everyone but them is an idiot. That's why they're so impressed by LLMs even when they fail miserably.

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#62

Post by staticman2 »

saberience wrote: post #37
cardanome wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People confuse performance and internal presentation. A simple calculator is vastly better as adding numbers than any human. An chess engine will rival any human grand master. No one would say that this got us closer to AGI. We could absolutely see LLMs that produce poetry that humans can not tell apart or even prefer to human made poetry. We could have LLMs that are perfectly able to convince humans that they have c…

The problem with your argument is the idea that there is this special thing called "consciousness" that humans have and AI "doesn't". Philosophers, scientists, thinkers have been trying to define "consciousness" for 100+ years at this point and no one has managed to either a) define it, or b) find ways to test for it. Saying we have "consciousness" and AI "doesn't" is like saying we have a soul, a ghost in the machin…

Before you assert nobody has defined consciousness you should maybe consult the dictionary?

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#63

Post by saberience »

staticman2 wrote: post #62
saberience wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your argument is the idea that there is this special thing called "consciousness" that humans have and AI "doesn't". Philosophers, scientists, thinkers have been trying to define "consciousness" for 100+ years at this point and no one has managed to either a) define it, or b) find ways to test for it. Saying we have "consciousness" and AI "doesn't" is like saying we have a soul, a ghost in the machin…

Before you assert nobody has defined consciousness you should maybe consult the dictionary?

Are you trying to misunderstand me purposefully?

I'm talking about a precise, technical, scientific definition, that scientists all agree on, and which doesn't rely on the definitions of other words, and can also be reliably tested.

There has been constant debate about what consciousness means among scientists, philosophers, psychologists for as long as the word has existed. And there has never been any consistent and agreed upon test for consciousness.

The Google definition of consciousness is: "the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings."

By that definition, a Tesla self driving car is conscious, it is aware of and responsive to its surroundings...

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#64

Post by mcv »

cardanome wrote: post #20
roenxi wrote: post #6

Has anyone come up with a definition of AGI where humans are near-universally capable of GI? These articles seem to be slowly pushing the boundaries past the point where slower humans are disbarred from intelligence. Many years ago I bumped in to Towers of Hanoi in a computer game and failed to solve it algorithmicly, so I suppose I'm lucky I only work a knowledge job rather than an intelligence-based one.

People confuse performance and internal presentation. A simple calculator is vastly better as adding numbers than any human. An chess engine will rival any human grand master. No one would say that this got us closer to AGI. We could absolutely see LLMs that produce poetry that humans can not tell apart or even prefer to human made poetry. We could have LLMs that are perfectly able to convince humans that they have c…

The best argument I've heard for why LLMs aren't there yet, is that they don't have a real world model. They only interact with text and images, and not with the real world. They have no concept of the real world, and therefore also no real concept of truth. They learn by interacting with text, not with the world.

I don't know if that argument is true, but it does make some sense.

In fact, I think you might argue that modern chess engines might have more of a world model (although an extremely limited one): they interact with the chess game. They learn not merely by studying the rules, but by playing the game millions of times. Of course that's only the "world" of the chess game, but it's something, and as a result, they know what works in chess. They have a concept of truth within the chess rules. Which is super limited of course, but it might be more than what LLMs have.

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#65

Post by staticman2 »

saberience wrote: post #63
staticman2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you assert nobody has defined consciousness you should maybe consult the dictionary?

Are you trying to misunderstand me purposefully? I'm talking about a precise, technical, scientific definition, that scientists all agree on, and which doesn't rely on the definitions of other words, and can also be reliably tested. There has been constant debate about what consciousness means among scientists, philosophers, psychologists for as long as the word has existed. And there has never been any consistent an…

If you meant a scientific definition why do you keep mentioning philosophy?

An LLM tells me references such as Oxford Dictionary of Science probably include a definition of consciousness but I suppose that would be behind a pay wall so I can't verify it.

Of course you are demanding one that "scientists all agree on" which is an impossibly high bar so I don't think anyone is going to meet you there.

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#66

Post by lostmsu »

mcv wrote: post #64
cardanome wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People confuse performance and internal presentation. A simple calculator is vastly better as adding numbers than any human. An chess engine will rival any human grand master. No one would say that this got us closer to AGI. We could absolutely see LLMs that produce poetry that humans can not tell apart or even prefer to human made poetry. We could have LLMs that are perfectly able to convince humans that they have c…

The best argument I've heard for why LLMs aren't there yet, is that they don't have a real world model. They only interact with text and images, and not with the real world. They have no concept of the real world, and therefore also no real concept of truth. They learn by interacting with text, not with the world. I don't know if that argument is true, but it does make some sense. In fact, I think you might argue tha…

It doesn't make any sense. You aren't interacting with neutrinos either. Nothing really beyond some local excitations of electrical fields and EM waves in certain frequency range.

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#67

Post by lostmsu »

staticman2 wrote: post #65
saberience wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to misunderstand me purposefully? I'm talking about a precise, technical, scientific definition, that scientists all agree on, and which doesn't rely on the definitions of other words, and can also be reliably tested. There has been constant debate about what consciousness means among scientists, philosophers, psychologists for as long as the word has existed. And there has never been any consistent an…

If you meant a scientific definition why do you keep mentioning philosophy? An LLM tells me references such as Oxford Dictionary of Science probably include a definition of consciousness but I suppose that would be behind a pay wall so I can't verify it. Of course you are demanding one that "scientists all agree on" which is an impossibly high bar so I don't think anyone is going to meet you there.

Because it is clear the comment claiming "AIs have no consciousness" did not mean that dictionary definition, which is exactly the issue.

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#68

Post by jmsdnns »

Lerc wrote: post #53
jmsdnns wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it wont. This comment essentially says science doesnt matter for anyone, only whether or not they're leading in marketing.

I think it's closer to saying that those who are falling behind declare that the science doesn't matter.

one hasnt fallen behind when those in "front" are on the wrong path

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#69

Post by jmsdnns »

djoldman wrote: post #19

> I would consider this a death blow paper to the current push for using LLMs and LRMs as the basis for AGI. Anytime I see "Artificial General Intelligence," "AGI," "ASI," etc., I mentally replace it with "something no one has defined meaningfully." Or the long version: "something about which no conclusions can be drawn because the proposed definitions lack sufficient precision and completeness." Or the short version…

"there is no such thing as general intelligence, natural or artificial" - Alison Gopnik

Re: Why Claude's Comment Paper Is a Poor Rebuttal

#70

Post by 542354234235 »

chrsw wrote: post #25
djoldman wrote: post #19

> I would consider this a death blow paper to the current push for using LLMs and LRMs as the basis for AGI. Anytime I see "Artificial General Intelligence," "AGI," "ASI," etc., I mentally replace it with "something no one has defined meaningfully." Or the long version: "something about which no conclusions can be drawn because the proposed definitions lack sufficient precision and completeness." Or the short version…

One vague definition I see tossed around a lot "something can replace almost any human knowledge/white collar worker". What does that mean in concrete terms? I'm not sure. Many of these models can already pass bar exams but how many can be lawyers? Probably none. What's missing?

Tests designed for humans are not good at testing LLMs because the failure modes are different. Humans don’t have eidetic memories, so they can’t just ingest random facts and recall them at will. Memorizing the relevant facts and figures in a subject and recalling them on a test shows at least some sort of study and likely some sort of overall understanding of the subject. AI, not so much.

A driving test that shows a red octagon with white letters and asks what it means, is a good indicator whether a driver will know that out in the real world, regardless of if it is half covered by a tree, has graffiti on it, is hanging upside down, etc. We found that self driving cars can’t “generalize” like that and failed to recognize a stop sign when it was upside down (and had to be retrained). What is missing is a well functions "judgement" or "reasoning" part that can generalize knowledge, experience, and context. Some models can do something like that for a specific task, but nothing that works long term.

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