Comment by ninetyninenine

>We invented a linguist and mistook it for an engineer.

People are missing the point. LLMs aren’t just fancy word parrots. They actually grasp something about how the world works. Sure, they’re still kind of stupid. Imagine a barely functional intern who somehow knows everything but can’t be trusted to file a document without accidentally launching a rocket.

Where I really disagree with the crowd is the whole “they have zero intelligence” take. Come on. These things are obviously smarter than some humans. I’m not saying they’re Einstein, but they could absolutely wipe the floor with someone who has Down syndrome in nearly every cognitive task. Memory, logic, problem-solving — you name it. And we don’t call people with developmental disorders letdowns, so why are we slapping that label on something that’s objectively outperforming them?

The issue is they got famous too quickly. Everyone wanted them to be Jarvis, but they’re more like a very weird guy on Reddit with a genius streak and a head injury. That doesn’t mean they’re useless. It just means we’re early. They’ve already cleared the low bar of human intelligence in more ways than people want to admit.