[aithrowawaycomm]

I continue to be dismayed by AI's quixotic focus on "human" intelligence. AI is very far from pigeon-level intelligence or dog-level intelligence. I strongly suspect transformers are dumber than spiders.[1] This focus on human intelligence via formal human knowledge is putting the cart before the horse. If your "human-level" AI architecture cannot conceivably be modified for chimp intelligence, and requires bootstrapping with a bunch of pre-processed human knowledge, then it is not actually emulating human intelligence. LLMs are fancy encyclopedias, not primitive brains.

[1] Suppose you have an accurate web-spinning simulator and you train a transformer ANN on 40 million years of natural spiderweb construction: between trees, rocks, etc. This AI is excellent at spinning natural webs. Would the transformer be able to spin a functional web in your pantry or basement. If not, then the AI isn't as smart as a spider. I don't think this thought experiment is actually possible: any computer simulation would excessively simplify the physical complexity. But based on transformers' pattern of failures in other domains, I don't think they are good enough to pull it off.

[raddan]

I’m not sure the emphasis is quixotic. I would prefer to say myopic, but the myopia is understandable: human intelligence is the only intelligence we have any firsthand experience with.

One of the things I love about computer science is that it forces us to devise definitions—working definitions at least—so that we can move forward. What is intelligence? Turns out we don’t really know. What we do know about are TASKS or PROBLEMS, and that certain kinds of machines are more or less suited for certain problems. A human intelligence is one that can solve a large range of problems, but often only with training. Is the human mind a mechanism that we can replicate or is it something more? We don’t know. Are there other kinds of intelligence? Is intelligence just a matter of definition? We don’t know.

Personally, I think it is an exciting time to be alive, because these questions are no longer merely philosophical. And we finally have the ability to start answering them scientifically.

[FrustratedMonky]

I tend to agree, what is being lost in most recent discussions on Human Level AI, is the focus on Language and LLM's.

There are plenty of other researchers and companies working on non-LLM models. And there you start getting a little more 'human' like reasoning.

Maybe eventually the LLM will just be the 'human interface' to a different AI model underneath, that does have a model of the world, and goals that it is charting through the real-world complexity and not just a game simulation.

[lm28469]

I also find it quite weird, I think the fact that the current cycle is focused on chat bots fools a lot of people into anthropomorphising LLMs and perceiving them as better than they actually are. It's very comforting in a world with increasingly less meaningful social interaction

[PittleyDunkin]

I think we should discard the entire concept of intelligence at this point. If it is a thing, humans are too dumb to even agree on what it looks like.