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by kdmccormick 941 days ago
I am not well versed in any of this, but from reading the counterarguments, I think two good points are being made:

* Analogies aside, neurons are quite different than NN nodes, because each neuron has an incredibly complex internal cellular state, whereas an NN node just has an integer for state.

* A brain is not a "function" in the way that a trained LLM model is. Human life is not a series of input prompts and output prompts. Rather, we experience a fluid stream of stimuli, which our brain multiplexes and reacts to in a variety of ways (speaking, moving, storing memories, moving our pupils, releasing hormones, etc). That is NOT TO SAY a brain violates causality; it's saying that the brain is mechanically doing so much more than an LLM, even if the LLM is better at raw computation.

None of this IMO precludes AGI from happening in the medium term future, but I do think we should be careful when making comparisons between AGI and the human brains.

Rather than comparing "apples to gorillas", I'd say it's like comparing a calculator to a tree. Yes, the calculator is SIGNIFICANTLY better at multiplication, but that doesn't make it "smarter" than a tree, whatever that means.

1 comments

I do not even think any of this has much of impact on AGI timelines. Human brain cells are not a superior substrate for computing "intelligence". They just are what they are; individual cells can somewhat meaningfully "want" stuff and be quasi-agents unto themselves, they do much more than integrate and fire. Weights in an ANN are purely terms in an equation without any inner process or content.