← Back to context

Comment by Quarrelsome

2 hours ago

> The "something deeply wrong" part about AI, that even most technology enthusiasts evidently do not seem to grasp, is that it is still fundamentally a statistical model — an algorithmic construct — and does not possess any real intelligence or critical thought whatsoever.

I feel like that what a lot of people who say this don't seem to grasp, is that despite this flaw its still often capable of saying more interesting things than a lot of humans. Which says a lot about humans.

Idk something about a mirror maybe and the output reflecting the input?

> I feel like that what a lot of people who say this don't seem to grasp, is that despite this flaw its still often capable of saying more interesting things than a lot of humans.

So does the Google search bar, but I don't ascribe intelligence to it.

  • The Google search bar is not capable of generating original text though. LLMs definitely are - you can get pretty creative output easily.

  • The google search bar is surprisingly smart sometimes. What's your definition of intelligence that completely excludes most of what a computer does?

    • Happily, I don't need to define "intelligence" here, because it's squarely in "I know it when I see it" territory. It's notoriously hard to define.

      I also don't ascribe intelligence to a pocket calculator.

      1 reply →

  • I mean I'm quite proud of some of my search queries in the same way I'm quite proud of some of the LLM output I get. I'm probably just very arrogant and enjoying myself via some LLM indirection.

    Am I the only one that sometimes reads back particularly good emails they've written? I feel like its a similar thing :).

> often capable of saying more interesting things than a lot of humans. Which says a lot about humans.

Other humans aren't there to entertain you, the LLM is.