Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by remix2000 26 days ago
I don't believe there will ever be any artificial intelligence, not with Markov chains (next token prediction), not otherwise. Especially not now when the current ML hype is already winding down. And yes this is a matter of belief since I don't think any science precludes agi from existing nor is there any reason to be sure it could someday materialize. I honestly would rather believe societal collapse hits us before agi can even be theorized.
2 comments

I don't believe there will be self driving cars that will be perfect and never get into any accident or cause someone to die.

That does not matter when discussing its practicality; or whether they will cause drivers to lose jobs.

>I don't believe there will ever be any artificial intelligence, ...

Sounds like you're talking about AGI, not AI. AI is here today.

AI was here in the 1970's too for that matter, in the form of expert systems. "AI" is the label that perennially gets applied to whatever current technology does something that was previously considered similar to human intelligence, then later on gets removed and applied to something new.

You'll know were making progress towards AGI when LLMs start being called LLMs again, and something new starts being called AI.

As a die hard Schemer -and Prolog newbie-, I agree.
A thing that people have chosen to call AI is here today.
That just continues a tradition of moving the goalposts for "AI" to just beyond what's currently possible.
Kind of, but I wouldn't exactly put it like that since AI has never meant anything more than automated intelligence/decision making of some sort. The bar isn't moving, just this almost meaningless label is just forever getting slapped on the latest shiny new thing.

You could legitimately call a thermostat "AI". Expert systems were previously called AI. Today it's Large Language Models. Tomorrow it'll be something else.

I think the issue is that technologists use the term AI to mean one thing, which is something we've had since the 60s with lisp, forth, and prolog. And the average person uses AI to mean something more like Data from Star Trek, which we don't have and may or may not have this century. We're all talking past each other.
There is no rigorous definition of intelligence, let alone artificial intelligence. What you're referring to is people simply not knowing what they're talking about.

More to the point, there has always been a cottage industry in predicting an amazing future, just around the corner. 'AGI' is just the latest incarnation.

If you want to lean into the lie, you do you. I will not.
"AI" is a marketing buzzword. Real AI doesn't exist.