Comment by staticassertion
6 days ago
But... we're talking about our intelligence. So obviously it's quite relevant. I didn't say that AI isn't intelligent, I said that we have good reason to believe that our intelligence is unique. And we do, a lot of good evidence.
I obviously don't believe that all intelligence is related to specific brain structure. Again, I'm a functionalist, so I believe that any structure that can exhibit the necessary functions would be equivalent in regards to intelligence.
None of this would commit me to (a) human exceptionalism (b) LLMs/ Agents being intelligent (c) LLMs/ Agents being intelligent in the way that humans are.
This is too dependent on what you mean by "unique", though. What do we have that apes don't, and which directly enables intelligence? What do we have that LLMs don't? What do LLMs have that we don't?
I don't think we know enough to definitively say "it's this bit that gives us intelligence, and there's no way to have intelligence without it". We just see what we have, and what animals lack, and we say "well it's probably some of these things maybe".
> What do we have that apes don't, and which directly enables intelligence?
Again, there are multiple fields of study with tons of amazingly detailed answers to this. We know about specific proteins, specific brain structures, we know about specific cognitive capabilities in the abstract, etc.
> What do we have that LLMs don't?
Again, quite a lot is already known about this.
This feels a bit like you're starting to explore this area and you're realizing that intelligence is complex, but you may not realize that others have already been doing this work and we have a litany of information on the topic. There are big open questions, of course, but we're definitely past the point of being able to say "there is a difference between human and ape intelligence" etc.
It'd probably be more productive for you to actually back up your claims with these things we know from neuroscience, rather than just stating that we know things, and so therefore you're right. What do we know?
EDIT: can't reply, so I'll just update here:
You're arguing that the mechanism that produces human intelligence is unique, so therefore the intelligence itself is somehow fundamentally different from the intelligence an LLM can produce. You haven't shown that, you just keep saying we know it's true. How do we know?
5 replies →