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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

#71

Post by diggan »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #32
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.

Indeed, the ability to do so seems to depend more on how well your system prompt is laying out that workflow, than how "intelligent" the model is.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#72

Post by nasmorn »

alanbernstein wrote: post #33
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.

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…

Also for basic food. You can get all the rice and beans you really need for basically no money. That means actual starvation is nowadays a political not a resource issue

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#73

Post by TacticalCoder »

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…

[dead]

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#74

Post by fmbb »

> It’s because the bottleneck isn’t in intelligence, but in human tasks: specifying intent and context engineering.

So the bottleneck is intelligence.

Junior engineers are intelligent enough to understand when they don't understand. They interrogate the intent and context of the tasks they are given. This is intelligence.

Solving math questions is not intelligence, computers have been better than humans at that for like 100 years, as long as you first do the intelligent part as a human: specifying the task formally.

Now we just have computer programs with another kind of input in natural language, and which require dozens of gigabytes of video ram and millions of cores to execute. And we still have to have humans to the intelligent part, figure out how to describe the problem so the dumb but very very fast machine can answer the question.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#75

Post by nine_k »

boredhedgehog wrote: post #62
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.

When the celibate classes have been able to sublimate what is arguably the strongest of all wants for as long as they have, I doubt there is any desire that could not be redirected with similar techniques.

This assumes that the celibate was actually maintained, not pretended and secretly violated. There is plenty of evidence that those who were intended to preserve celibate in medieval times actually did not.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#76

Post by pvtmert »

fmbb wrote: post #74

> It’s because the bottleneck isn’t in intelligence, but in human tasks: specifying intent and context engineering. So the bottleneck is intelligence. Junior engineers are intelligent enough to understand when they don't understand. They interrogate the intent and context of the tasks they are given. This is intelligence. Solving math questions is not intelligence, computers have been better than humans at that for l…

I truly love this comment, which essentially says: LLMs are glorified calculators, with ambiguous grammar. :)

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#77

Post by vladms »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #36
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.

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 p…

> There will always be a limited quantity of being "The Best" at anything

Still, to pick a simple example, we do have different sports at which different people are "The Best". One solution would be to multiple the categories, which I feel is already happening to some extent with all the computer games or niche artistical trends.

And I would claim that very few people are "The Best", it's mostly about not being "the worst" at everything you are involved in.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#78

Post by djrj477dhsnv »

vkou wrote: post #64
djrj477dhsnv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Look, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Kaczynski didn't invent any of these ideas, or even develop them, instead of citing him, why not cite... Literally any other person with them whose mind wasn't blown out by LSD and a desire to commit random political murder. You're doing your point a disservice by bringing in all of that baggage.

Perhaps there are more original or precise sources for the ideas. I've read Jacques Ellul, for example, but for someone not well versed in philosophy like myself, Kaczynski is more accessible and well known.

I don't agree with many of his conclusions or actions, but I have no problem judging the good ideas he advocated on their own merit.

Re: Model intelligence is no longer the constraint for automation

#79

Post by javcasas »

djrj477dhsnv wrote: post #34
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…

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.

I want to live in the post scarcity world. Given that we are headed into an ultra-productive world, I prefer by miles a world without scarcity over a world full of scarcity because the elites are hoarding the resources, and the only way to provide for oneself is by outcompeting the machines that already produce at zero marginal price, but only for the elites.
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