[kk58]

Perhaps it's time to call this synthetic intelligence instead of AI which has an implicit understanding of an alternative method to construct a human like AI.

What is clear is that on this earth itself we have cetacean, corvid, cephalopod intelligence which is wired very differently. Perhaps we need to respect the diversity of intelligences that exist and study this growth in LLM and adjoint areas as just synthetic intelligence.

Rebranding maybe could help drive a level of objectivity this conversation on ethics etc that seems to be missing

[JohnFen]

I don't understand. "Synthetic intelligence" is just a synonym for "artificial intelligence". The term has all the same issues, does it not?

[dougmwne]

Actually I agree with them a new name would be helpful. I would propose inorganic intelligence to try to pick a term with less value judgments.

AI is really an overloaded term that includes 70 years of snake oil, Skynet, the Singularity and killer robots. I think we need a new name to start fresh.

And personally, I think we are extremely biased by our sci-fi to think of this tech as malevolent. As far as we can see, it can only know what we teach it since it relies on all of our perceptions to learn. LLMs seem both extremely promising as a useful tool and very pliant to the operator’s wishes. I’m way beyond “this is a fancy next word predictor” as I think it’s emergent behavior has many of the hallmarks of reasoning and novel inference, but at best I think it is only part of a mind and an unconscious one at that.

[riffraff]

> Let’s forget the term AI. Let’s call them Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences (SALAMI).

https://blog.quintarelli.it/2019/11/lets-forget-the-term-ai-...

[cjbprime]

> it can only know what we teach it since it relies on all of our perceptions to learn

> I think it’s emergent behavior has many of the hallmarks of reasoning and novel inference

You contradicted yourself here, right?

[ftxbro]

> The term has all the same issues, does it not?

It could be useful for a similar reason as the euphemism treadmill. We could leave behind all of the misguided assumptions about AI with the old 'artificial intelligence' nomenclature and move forward with 'synthetic intelligence' which has our new understanding of what systems like GPT-4 can do.

[JohnFen]

I'm thinking the problematic part of the term isn't the "artificial" part, but the "intelligence" part.

Since nobody actually knows what "intelligence" is, the word will mean to people whatever they want it to mean.

[nwienert]

I’m partial to Plausible Regurgitation

[fasterik]

>Since nobody actually knows what "intelligence" is

Everybody knows what intelligence is. Even if we can't agree on a precise definition, it's pretty obvious that it's the thing that humans and other animals do that involves learning, reasoning, planning, and problem solving. We can also agree that being successful at certain tasks constitutes intelligence. Solving a math problem is intelligence. Writing a poem is intelligence.

[pixl97]

>Everybody knows what intelligence is

Much like...

"Everyone knows what porn is"

"Everyone knows who god is"

"Everyone knows what beauty is"

The devil is in the details and rather generic words that describe a gradient can never capture the exact nature of what we're trying to define in specific situations.

[TeMPOraL]

> The devil is in the details

Only if you care about those details. Almost no one does.

In almost any conversation, everyone does in fact know what intelligence, porn, god and beauty are. Yes, all those ideas are fuzzy at the borders, but we almost never need to resolve them in detail when talking about them. When we do, then yes, things get tricky and there's a lot of disagreement - but at the end of the day, as the phrase I once read on the Internet goes, it all has to add up to normality. You can still work with fuzzy, casual concepts, even though you can't define them precisely.

[fasterik]

You can never capture the exact nature of anything outside of logic and math. That's too high of a bar. Philosophers who have worked on this problem like Wittgenstein talk about concepts in terms of family resemblances, not exact definitions. If I'm trying to understand whether a system is intelligent, I don't need a logical proof. I learn whether it is intelligent by testing whether it can successfully do many of the same things that other intelligent systems do.

[JohnFen]

I disagree. I think that nobody knows what it is, as demonstrated by the fact that there is such a wide disagreement about what it is.

> We can also agree that being successful at certain tasks constitutes intelligence. Solving a math problem is intelligence. Writing a poem is intelligence.

As an example, I don't agree that either of those things indicates intelligence all by themselves. We've had programs that nobody would call "intelligent" to do both of those things for decades.

[fasterik]

>We've had programs that nobody would call "intelligent" to do both of those things for decades.

So you're right that if I have separate algorithms, each designed for a specific purpose, that those algorithms aren't intelligent. However, if I have a general system that can learn how to solve a math problem, write a poem, and do a bunch of other things that humans can do, then that system is intelligent.

[xmprt]

I think Artificial Intelligence has taken on the meaning that the intelligence is real but just that it's coming from machines. Synthetic intelligence (at least to me) sounds more like we're acknowledging that the machines aren't really intelligent and just simulating intelligence.

[akiselev]

Why not just eliminate the middle man and call it simulated intelligence? That at least implies that there are different levels of fidelity as quantified by number of parameters and training data set size.

[jonplackett]

This makes more sense

[DJBunnies]

If we can’t (and we haven’t) define intelligence, how could we possibly define artificial intelligence or synthetic.

[laminatedsmore]

I had a chat with GPT about this and it came up with the term 'data grounded cognition' to describe an 'intelligence' that is derived purely from (and expressed through) statistical patterns in data.

I quite like the term, and it seems quite unique (perhaps cribbing from 'grounded cognition' though that's an entirely different idea AFAIK)

[JohnFen]

"Cognition" means understanding and knowing. As problematic as "intelligence" is when describing these systems, I think "cognition" is even worse. "Intelligence" is vague and "cognition" is specific, but "cognition" is also incorrect.

[laminatedsmore]

The googled definition says "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.", which I think fits ok.

Do you have a word that you prefer?

[JohnFen]

Right. That's the definition I think doesn't fit. GPTs do not "understand", and certainly do not "experience" or have senses.

> Do you have a word that you prefer?

Nope. That's why I use "intelligence" despite the problems with it. "Intelligence" may be a blank slate on which you can write whatever meaning you wish, but at least it can stretch to mean something accurate.

[laminatedsmore]

I'd say that knowledge (stored as weights) is acquired through experience (starting from a mostly blank start, weights are formed through exposure to training data). For me that's a useful mental model which helps me think about what a LLM is and isn't.

'Understanding' has an ambiguous meaning, while thought and senses are certainly not applicable.

But it's a semantic discussion about a novel and not well understood topic so :shrug: :)

[JohnFen]

> But it's a semantic discussion about a novel and not well understood topic

I agree entirely.

[Waterluvian]

AI has always meant so many things to so many different audiences. I think attempting to argue that X is AI but Y isn't is generally going to be a subjective endeavour of pedantry.

[surprisetalk]

Here’s an essay on why we should start saying “synthetic intelligence” in certain contexts:

https://taylor.town/synthetic-intelligence

[justanotherjoe]

that is assuming. Why don't we simply refer to our own intelligence as 'human intelligence' instead. We don't really know what intelligence is. So adding modifier in front of it will just lead to more confusion. AI helps us understand what intelligence actually is, to learn more of it's very essence. It's not that we already know what it is.

[hanniabu]

"Collective intelligence" since all it's really doing is regurgitating what people have collectively posted online

[anyonecancode]

What about "simulated intelligence"?