Spzi

I guess you’re right, but find this a very interesting point nevertheless.

How can we tell? How can we tell that we use and understand language? How would that be different from an arbitrarily sophisticated text generator?

For the sake of the comparison, we should talk about the presumed intelligence of other people, not our (“my”) own.

That very much depends on what you define as “intelligent”. We lack a clear definition.

I agree: These early generations of specific AIs are clearly not on the same level as human intelligence.

And still, we can already have more intelligent conversations with them than with most humans.

It’s not a fair comparison though. It’s as if we’d compare the language region of a toddler with a complete brain of an adult. Let’s see what the next few years bring.

I’m not making that point, just mentioning it can be made on an academic level: There’s a paper about the surprising emergent capabilities of ChatGPT 4.0, titled “Sparks of AGI”.

Sorry, I could have been more clear. I did not mean to equate current LLMs with human brains. The question was rather:

Can’t we describe the working of (other) human brains in a very similar fashion as you did before? Or where exactly is the difference which sets us apart?

world models, we have imagination, a physical and metaphysical simulation of the world around us

AIs which can and need to interact with the physical world have those, too. Naturally, an AI which is restricted to language has much less necessity and opportunity to develop these, much like our brain area for smell is probably not so good at estimating velocities and catching a ball.

I think your approach of demystifying technology is valid and worthwhile. I’m just not sure if it does what you maybe think it does; highlight the difference to our intelligence.

Something trained only on form” — as all LLMs are, by definition — “is only going to get form; it’s not going to get meaning. It’s not going to get to understanding.”

I had lengthy and intricate conversations with ChatGPT about philosophy and religious concepts. It allowed me to playfully peek into Spinoza’s worldview, with a few errors.

I have no problem to accept it is form, but cannot deny it conveys meaning as if it understands.

The article is very opinionated and dismissive in that regard. It even goes so far that it predicts what future research and engineering cannot achieve; untrustworthy.

We cannot pin down what we even mean with intelligence and meaning. While being way too long, the article doesn’t even mention emergent capabilities, or quote any of the many contrary scientific views.

Apart from the unnecessarily long anecdotes about autistic and disabled people, did anybody learn anything from this article? I feel it’s an uncritical parroting of what people like to think anyways to feel supreme and secure.

I can mostly follow, just want to exclude the last paragraph which contains assumptions about a black box.

That being said, how is the human brain different from what you describe?

I feel the ‘pale blue dot’ was/is philosophically important for humanity. To realize all our wars and arguments, struggles and victories, take place on this small and fragile rock, floating in an endless void of nothingness. I think this experience was both humbling and inspiring for millions, and this package only comes with (wo)manned space missions.

Long term, I also dream of space habitats and space industry, to reduce the strain on Earth’s ecosystems. Or the other way around; space habitats dedicated to preservation.

Very long term, there just is no way around it. Humans will keep exploring and push the boundary. Also it’s wise to have an off-site backup.

The Moon is great because of close proximity to Earth (communication, and logistics), and because of low gravity.

Space launches are expensive because of gravity. Mars is similar to Earth in that regard. To launch from Moon, we can use electromagnetic launchers installed on the surface, powered by solar panels or nuclear reactors. To launch from Mars, we need chemical rockets which are mostly fuel, like on Earth.

If we ever want to do space exploration or even space industry on scale, we need to get away from chemical rockets. We either need to make something like a space elevator / hook / sling / whatever, or locate the assembling industry and launch facilities outside of the massive gravity wells of planets. It’s hard to imagine humans launching more than a few probing missions to Mars or asteroids, without simultaneously developing a Moon base which can support more than that.

The Moon is a place close to home where we can mine certain materials, assemble our spaceships, and launch missions to everything else in our solar system. A bit like an airport outside of a big city. No one goes there because it in itself is so interesting, but because it makes it easy to get to other interesting places.

The Moon still has properties on top which make it interesting, like doing radio astronomy from the other side, which is shielded from terrestrial radiation.