We have various methods of measuring individual intelligence (which are pretty sketchy imo). But do we have any way to measure or quantify the intelligence of the larger structures that mediate our thought? How do you measure the intelligence of a university, or a business? How much intelligence is contained within a collection of books and papers? To what degree do the tools we use amplify our intelligence?
I see students obsess every day over their SAT scores, which to some is a measure of individual intelligence. But what SAT score would a pair of students working together on a single test get? Or a dozen students working together? Would it be higher or lower? What sort of strategies would maximize their ability to collaborate? What would be the effect of giving/removing access to a calculator on a student's score? Access to scratch paper? Access to textbooks? Access to a dictionary? Access to unlimited time?
If we want to claim to understand intelligence, these are the sort of questions we should be able to answer. Can we?
One measure is the ability to find an optimal solution among many options. From solving an integration problem (option = equation, optimal = correct) to life (option = life choice, optimal = best QOL).
Statistically, an LLM finds a better optimal solution than one individual. But LLM solutions are more similar to each other than individuals’, so among many individuals, a few find a better optimal solution than the LLMs.
Hence why I think we need AI that responds more uniquely. Whether that be fine-tuned local models, one LLM that’s more influenced by its prompt and well-supports extremely long prompts, AI tools for humans, or something else. I’d love to see a local AI with continuous learning that generates complex UX to better interact with the user (more than prompts), but that may be far-fetched…
Substance that can hold State that can allow the substance to produce more of the same state in a dangerous universe full of entropy that wants to remove state-full entities by default - and which is prowled by other state-full entities which predate one another, in such a way that game theory and evolutionary pressure applies.
That is not true. We can detect the presence of a thing by the observation of something it causes. That does not imply we have a good definition of the thing.
At that point, we can only define it as something that causes this observation. And that is not very useful.
We might both agree its a poor definition, but at least it's a poor definition that's observable and neutral. That's useful in regards to this conversation.
Where as the other answer is simply "I can't say, but it's not [this]" and that isn't useful at all. It's simply opinion, which is literally the worst definition around. Personally, I don't define intelligence as "whatever qsera acknowledges as intelligence with no qualifying context"...
I have a two year old that can't count. She can definitely walk around, talk, eat, and do all sorts of other things that I would argue indicate some form of intelligence.
Same for my dog.
Same for entire cultures, including adult humans (anumeric cultures).
Arguably, they're constantly doing calculus, because they can walk, throw, catch, etc - but none of them can count.
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That said, to the point of my original comment - forcing a definition was absolutely useful, because it allows a more detailed and interesting conversation than "qsera doesn't believe an LLM is intelligent".
I agree that one is a poor definition, though. I also don't really think it rules out LLMs.
Yea no worries, just wanted others to know since when I typed the comment, the submission was quite fresh. It was my hope that it would make less people confused.
An ambiguous metric that's been (ab)used quite a lot by human fundamentalists to try to draw a line between what we can do and what machines can do, in order to feel better about themselves.
I see students obsess every day over their SAT scores, which to some is a measure of individual intelligence. But what SAT score would a pair of students working together on a single test get? Or a dozen students working together? Would it be higher or lower? What sort of strategies would maximize their ability to collaborate? What would be the effect of giving/removing access to a calculator on a student's score? Access to scratch paper? Access to textbooks? Access to a dictionary? Access to unlimited time?
If we want to claim to understand intelligence, these are the sort of questions we should be able to answer. Can we?