[Jensson]

> Surely that's an irrelevant distinction, from the point of view of a hiring manager?

Stop moving the goalposts closer, that you think humans might make an AGI in the future doesn't mean the current AI is an AGI just because it uses the same interface.

[ben_w]

Your own comment was a movement of the goalposts.

Preceding quotation to which you objected:

> A middle schooler has general intelligence (they know about and can do a lot of things across a lot of different areas) but they likely can't replace white collar workers either.

Your response:

> Middle schoolers replace white collars workers all the time, it takes 10 years for them to do it but they can do it.

So I could rephrase your own words here as "Stop moving the goalposts closer, that you think a middle schooler might become a General Intelligence in the future doesn't mean the current middle schooler is a General Intelligence just because they use the same name".

[Jensson]

Its the same middle schooler, nobody gave a time limit for how long it takes the middle schooler to solve the problem. These AI models wont solve it no matter how much time spent, you have to make new models, like making new kids.

Put one of these models in a classroom with middle schoolers, and make it go through all the same experiences, they still wont replace a white collar worker.

> a middle schooler might become a General Intelligence in the future

Being able to learn anything a human can means you are a general intelligence now. Having a skill is narrow intelligence, being able to learn is what we mean with general intelligence. No current model has demonstrated the ability to learn arbitrary white collar jobs, so no current model has done what it takes to be considered a general intelligence. The biological model homo sapiens have demonstrated that ability, thus we call homo sapiens generally intelligent.

[ben_w]

> Its the same middle schooler, nobody gave a time limit for how long it takes the middle schooler to solve the problem.

Yeah they do. If a middle schooler take 40 hours to solve a maths exam, they fail the exam.

> These AI models wont solve it no matter how much time spent, you have to make new models, like making new kids.

First: doesn't matter, "white collar jobs" aren't companies aren't paying for seat warmers, they're paying for problems solved, and not the kinds of problems 11 year olds can do.

Second: So far as I can tell, every written exam that not only 11 year olds but even 16 year olds take, and in many cases 21 year olds take, LLMs ace — the problem is coming up with new tests that describe the stuff we want that models can't do which humans can. This means that while I even agree these models have gaps, I can't actually describe those gaps in a systematic way, they just "vibe" like my own experience of continuing to misunderstand German as a Brit living in Berlin.

Third: going from 11 years old to adulthood, most or all atoms in your body will be replaced, and your brain architecture changes significantly. IIRC something like half of synapses get pruned by puberty.

Fourth: Taking a snapshot of a model and saying that snapshot can't learn, is like taking a sufficiently detailed MRI scan of a human brain and saying the same thing about the human you've imaged — training cut-offs are kinda arbitrary.

> No current model has demonstrated the ability to learn arbitrary white collar jobs, so no current model has done what it takes to be considered a general intelligence.

Both "intelligence" and "generality" are continuums, not booleans. It's famously hard for humans to learn new languages as they get older, for example.

All AI (not just LLMs) need a lot more experience than me, which means my intelligence is higher. When sufficient traing data exists, that doesn't matter because the AI can just make up for being stupid by being stupid really fast — which is how they can read and write in more languages than I know the names of.

On the other hand, LLMs so far have demonstrated — at the junior level of a fresh graduate of 21, let alone an 11 year old — demonstrated algebra, physics, chemistry, literature, coding, a hundred or so languages, medicine, law, politics, marketing, economics, and customer support. That's pretty general. Even if "fresh graduate" isn't a high standard for employment.

It took reading a significant fraction of the internet to get to that level because of their inefficiency, but they're superhumanly general, "Jack of all trades, master of none".

Well, superhuman compared to any individual. LLM generality only seems mediocre when compared to the entire human species at once, these models vastly exceed any single human because no single human speaks as many languages as these things let alone all the other stuff.

[Jensson]

I think you are off topic here. You agree these models can't replace those humans, hence you agree they aren't AGI, the rest of your post somehow got into whether companies would hire 11 year olds or not.

Point is if we had models as smart as a 10 year old, we could put that model through school and then it would be able to do white collar jobs like a 25 year old. But no model can do that, hence the models aren't as smart as 10 year olds, since the biggest part to being smart is being able to learn.

So until we have a model that can do those white collar jobs, we know they aren't as generally smart as 10 year olds since they can't replicate the same learning process. If they could replicate the learning process then we would and we would have that white collar worker.

[ben_w]

Reread it, I edit stuff while composing, and hadn't finished until at least 13 minutes after your comment.

Employability is core issue, as you brought up white collar worker comparison:

"""No they wouldn't, since those still can't replace human white collar workers even at many very basic tasks.

Once AGI is here most white collar jobs are gone, you'd only need to hire geniuses at most.""" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43746116

Key thing you likely didn't have in comment you replied to: G and I are not bool.