[coldtea]

>The LLM is predicting what tokens come next, based on a bunch of math operations performed over a huge dataset.

Whereas the child does what exactly, in your opinion?

You know the child can just as well to be said to "just do chemical and electrical exchanges" right?

[jazzyjackson]

Okay but chemical and electrical exchanges in an body with a drive to not die is so vastly different than a matrix multiplication routine on a flat plane of silicon

The comparison is therefore annoying

[coldtea]

>Okay but chemical and electrical exchanges in an body with a drive to not die is so vastly different than a matrix multiplication routine on a flat plane of silicon

I see your "flat plane of silicon" and raise you "a mush of tissue, water, fat, and blood". The substrate being a "mere" dumb soul-less material doesn't say much.

And the idea is that what matters is the processing - not the material it happens on, or the particular way it is.

Air molecules hitting a wall and coming back to us at various intervals are also "vastly different" to a " matrix multiplication routine on a flat plane of silicon".

But a matrix multiplication can nonetheless replicate the air-molecules-hitting-wall audio effect of reverbation on 0s and 1s representing the audio. We can even hook the result to a movable membrane controlled by electricity (what pros call "a speaker") to hear it.

The inability to see that the point of the comparison is that an algorithmic modelling of a physical (or biological, same thing) process can still replicate, even if much simpler, some of its qualities in a different domain (0s and 1s in silicon and electric signals vs some material molecules interacting) is therefore annoying.

[JoshTriplett]

Intelligence does not require "chemical and electrical exchanges in an body". Are you attempting to axiomatically claim that only biological beings can be intelligent (in which case, that's not a useful definition for the purposes of this discussion)? If not, then that's a red herring.

"Annoying" does not mean "false".

[jazzyjackson]

No I'm not making claims about intelligence, I'm making claims about the absurdity of comparing biological systems with silicon arrangements.

[coldtea]

>I'm making claims about the absurdity of comparing biological systems with silicon arrangements.

Aside from a priori bias, this assumption of absurdity is based on what else exactly?

Biological systems can't be modelled (even if in a simplified way or slightly different architecture) "with silicon arrangements", because?

If your answer is "scale", that's fine, but you already conceded to no absurdity at all, just a degree of current scale/capacity.

If your answer is something else, pray tell, what would that be?

[anonymous908213]

At least read the other replies that pre-emptively refuted this drivel before spamming it.

[coldtea]

At least don't be rude. They refuted nothing of the short. Just banged the same circular logic drum.

[anonymous908213]

There is an element of rudeness to completely ignoring what I've already written and saying "you know [basic principle that was already covered at length], right?". If you want to talk about contributing to the discussion rather than being rude, you could start by offering a reply to the points that are already made rather than making me repeat myself addressing the level 0 thought on the subject.

[JoshTriplett]

Repeating yourself doesn't make you right, just repetitive. Ignoring refutations you don't like doesn't make them wrong. Observing that something has already been refuted, in an effort to avoid further repetition, is not in itself inherently rude.

Any definition of intelligence that does not axiomatically say "is human" or "is biological" or similar is something a machine can meet, insofar as we're also just machines made out of biology. For any given X, "AI can't do X yet" is a statement with an expiration date on it, and I wouldn't bet on that expiration date being too far in the future. This is a problem.

It is, in particular, difficult at this point to construct a meaningful definition of intelligence that simultaneously includes all humans and excludes all AIs. Many motivated-reasoning / rationalization attempts to construct a definition that excludes the highest-end AIs often exclude some humans. (By "motivated-reasoning / rationalization", I mean that such attempts start by writing "and therefore AIs can't possibly be intelligent" at the bottom, and work backwards from there to faux-rationalize what they've already decided must be true.)

[anonymous908213]

> Repeating yourself doesn't make you right, just repetitive.

Good thing I didn't make that claim!

> Ignoring refutations you don't like doesn't make them wrong.

They didn't make a refutation of my points. They asserted a basic principle that I agreed with, but assume acceptance of that principle leads to their preferred conclusion. They make this assumption without providing any reasoning whatsoever for why that principle would lead to that conclusion, whereas I already provided an entire paragraph of reasoning for why I believe the principle leads to a different conclusion. A refutation would have to start from there, refuting the points I actually made. Without that you cannot call it a refutation. It is just gainsaying.

> Any definition of intelligence that does not axiomatically say "is human" or "is biological" or similar is something a machine can meet, insofar as we're also just machines made out of biology.

And here we go AGAIN! I already agree with this point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please, for the love of god, read the words I have written. I think machine intelligence is possible. We are in agreement. Being in agreement that machine intelligence is possible does not automatically lead to the conclusion that the programs that make up LLMs are machine intelligence, any more than a "Hello World" program is intelligence. This is indeed, very repetitive.

[JoshTriplett]

You have given no argument for why an LLM cannot be intelligent. Not even that current models are not; you seem to be claiming that they cannot be.

If you are prepared to accept that intelligence doesn't require biology, then what definition do you want to use that simultaneously excludes all high-end AI and includes all humans?

By way of example, the game of life uses very simple rules, and is Turing-complete. Thus, the game of life could run a (very slow) complete simulation of a brain. Similarly, so could the architecture of an LLM. There is no fundamental limitation there.