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by horsawlarway 53 days ago
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"...

1 comments

I think it is useless as a definition, so not even a poor one.

But here you go, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47918103

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.

You are not getting it or getting it all very wrong..

Is a robot that can walk, throw and catch is intelligent?

Last day there was a robot that can play ping pong? Is that intelligent?

but that's exactly the point. Is that intelligent?

We also see robots excel at chess and go, is that not intelligent? Why not? Given that's the mental opposite of the physical examples you're happy to discard (side note: I've done real world robotics development, I'd call walking/catching/throwing considerably more difficult activities than chess/go, and much closer to intelligence).

We see LLMs absolutely blow through the turing test, and that was literally the philosophical "gold standard" for machines that exhibit human-like intelligence for like 70 years.

So I really don't think I'm "getting it all very wrong" - I think this is a fundamental question that you're basically failing to honestly engage with because you've already made up your mind.

So again - define intelligence?

>Is that intelligent?

huh? In the comment above you said you would argue that it is. So is that not your argument?

>I'd call walking/catching/throwing considerably more difficult activities than chess/go, and much closer to intelligence

This is an even bizarre idea. I get that those things are harder to implement in a robot since it requires extremely fine sensors and motor control. But that making it closer to intelligence? That does not make a lot of sense..

Just because we cannot exactly define intelligence does not mean that you can call any arbitrary thing intelligent!

> This is an even bizarre idea. I get that those things are harder to implement in a robot since it requires extremely fine sensors and motor control. But that making it closer to intelligence? That does not make a lot of sense..

Why? It requires understanding a complex sense of self: where am I? How can I move? how do I fit within the environment? How can I change the environment?

Understanding, reasoning, self-awareness, and planning are all considered core aspects of intelligence, and those are all on display during navigation and locomotion.

I'd suggest those are all much closer to intelligence than the rules of chess. More complicated, too.

> Just because we cannot exactly define intelligence does not mean that you can call any arbitrary thing intelligent!

And just because intelligence appears alien in nature to you, doesn't mean it's not there... An ant only has ~250,000 neurons (far less than an LLM) are ants not intelligent? Not at all?

So if you define intelligence simply as "human", then sure - LLMs aren't that. But I also think that's an uninteresting and banal conclusion.

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So my core point remains - define intelligent. I think it's surprisingly hard to do in a way that rules out LLMs, but doesn't also rule out large categories of things we do probably agree are intelligent.