Um, human history has repeatedly demonstrated that when a new technology emerges, the two highest priorities are:
- How can we kill things with this?
- How can we bone with this?
Right but a chatbot is light years away from artificial general intelligence. And also let’s be honest if we want to go the pornography route then that’s going to need robots, so that would need general intelligence. As would in fact killer drones.
So yeah, scepticism is highly warranted
Either (you genuinely belive) you are 18 (24, 36 does not matter) months away from curing cancer or you’re not.
What would we as outsiders observe if they told their investors that they were 18 months away two years ago and now the cash is running out in 3 months?
Now I think the current iteration of AI is trying to get to the moon by building a better ladder, but what do I know.
The thing about AI is that it is very likely to improve roughly exponentially¹. Yeah, it’s building ladders right now, but once it starts turning rungs into propellers, the rockets won’t be far behind.
Not saying it’s there yet, or even 18/24/36 months out, just saying that the transition from “not there yet” to “top of the class” is going to whiz by when the time comes.
¹ Logistically, actually, but the upper limit is high enough that for practical purposes “exponential” is close enough for the near future.
why is it very likely to do that? we have no evidence to believe this is true at all and several decades of slow, plodding ai research that suggests real improvement comes incrementally like in other research areas.
to me, your suggestion sounds like the result of the logical leaps made by yudkovsky and the people on his forums
Because AI can write programs? As it gets better at doing that, it can make AI’s that are even better, etc etc. Positive feedback loops increase exponentially.
AI can’t write programs, at least not complex programs. The programs / functions it can write well are the ones that are the ones that are very well represented in the training data – i.e. ultra simple functions or programs that have been written and re-written millions of times. What it can’t do is anything truly innovative. In addition, it can’t follow directions, it has no understanding of what it’s doing, it doesn’t understand the problem, it doesn’t understand its solution to the problem.
The only thing LLMs are able to do is create a believable simulation of what the solution to the problem might look like. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the simulation is realistic enough that the output actually works as a function or program. But, the more complex the problem, or the more distant from the training data, the less it’s able to simulate something realistic.
So, rather than building a ladder where the rungs turn into propellers, it’s building one where the higher the ladder gets, the less the rungs actually look like rungs.
As I said elsewhere, the AI probably isn’t going to just be an LLM. It’s probably gonna be a complex model that uses modules like LLMs to fulfill a compound task. But the exact architecture doesn’t matter.
We know that it can output code, which means we have a quantifiable metric to make it better at coding, and thousands of people are certainly trying. AI video was hot garbage 18 months ago, now it’s basically perfect.
It’s not if we’re going to get a decent coding AI, it’s when.
It’s probably gonna be a complex model that uses modules like LLMs to fulfill a compound task.
That sounds very hand-wavey. But, even the presence of LLMs in the mix suggests it isn’t going to be very good at whatever it does, because LLMs are designed to fool humans into thinking something is realistic rather than actually doing something useful.
We know that it can output code, which means we have a quantifiable metric to make it better at coding
How so? Project managers have been working for decades to quantify code, and haven’t managed to make any progress at it.
It’s not if we’re going to get a decent coding AI, it’s when.
The year 30,000 AD doesn’t count.
LLMs are designed to fool humans into thinking something is realistic rather than actually doing something useful.
So closer to average human intelligence than it would appear. I don’t know why people keep insisting that confidently making things up and repeating things blindly is somehow distinct from the average human intelligence.
But more seriously, this whole mindset is based on a stagnation in development that I’m just not seeing. I think it was Stanford recently released a paper on a new architecture they developed that has serious promise.
How so? Project managers have been working for decades to quantify code, and haven’t managed to make any progress at it.
I think you misunderstand me. The metric is the code. We can look at the code, see what kind of mistakes it’s making, and then alter the model to try to be better. That is an iterative process.
The year 30,000 AD doesn’t count.
Sure. Maybe it’s 30,000AD. Maybe it’s next month. We don’t know when the breakthrough that kicks off massive improvement is going to hit, or even what it will be. Every new development could be the big one.
You’ve misunderstood many things in those two sentences.
Care to elaborate?
the problem is that ai’s are trained on programs that humans have written. At best the llm architectures it creates will be similar to the state of the art that humans have created at that point.
however, even more important than the architecture of an ai model is the training data that it is trained on. If we start including ai-generated programs in this data, we will quickly observe model collapse: performance of models tend to get worse as more ai-generated data is included in the training data.
rather than AIs generating ever smarter new AIs, the more likely result is that we can’t scrape new quality datasets as they’ve all been contaminated with llm-generated data that will only reduce model performance
They could stick to unpoisoned datasets for next token prediction by simply not including data collected after the public release of ChatGPT.
But the real progress they can make is that LLMs can be subjected to reinforcement learning, the same process that got superhuman results in Go, Starcraft, and other games. The difficulty is getting a training signal that can guide it past human-level performance.
And this is why they are pushing to include ChatGPT in everything. Every conversation is a datapoint that can be used to evaluate ChatGPT’s performance. This doesn’t get poisoned by the public adoption of AI because even if ChatGPT is speaking to an AI, the RL training algorithm evaluates ChatGPT’s behavior, treating the AI as just another possible thing-in-the-world it can interact with.
As AI chatbots proliferate, more and more opportunities arise for A/B testing - for example if two different AI chatbots write two different comments to the same reddit post, with the goal of getting the most upvotes. While it’s not quite the same as the billions of games playing against each other in a vacuum that made AlphaGo and AlphaStar better than humans, there is definitely opportunity for training data.
And at some point they could find a way to play AI against each other to reach greater heights, some test that is easy to evaluate despite being based on complicated next-token-prediction. They’ve got over a trillion dollars of funding and plenty of researchers doing their best, and I don’t see a physical reason why it couldn’t happen.
But beyond any theoretical explanation, there is the simple big-picture argument: for the past 10 years I’ve heard people say that AI could never do the next thing, with increasing desperation as AI swallows up more and more of the internet. They have all had reasons about as credible-sounding as yours. Sure it’s possible that at some point the nay-sayers will be right and the technology will taper off, but we don’t have the luxury of assuming we live in the easiest of all possible worlds.
It may be true that 3 years from now all digital communication is swallowed up by AI that we can’t distinguish from humans, that try to feed us information optimized to convert us to fascism on behalf of the AI’s fascist owners. It may be true that there will be mass-produced drones that are as good as maneuvering around obstacles and firing weapons as humans and these drones will be applied against anyone who resists the fascist order.
We may be only years away from resistance to fascism becoming impossible. We can bet that we have longer, but only if we get something that is worth the wait.
I’m not arguing that AI won’t get better, I’m arguing that the exponential improvements in AI that op was expecting are mostly wishful thinking.
they could stick to old data only, but then how do you keep growing the dataset by the amounts that have been done recently? that is where a lot of the (diminishing) improvements the last years have come from.
and it is not at all clear how to apply reinforcement learning for more generic tasks like chatbots, without a clear scoring system like both chess and StarCraft have.
I’m arguing that the exponential improvements in AI that op was expecting are mostly wishful thinking.
You not only have improvements on training methodology, but the models themselves get better, and the superstructure of multiple coordinated specialized models gets better. 3 years ago, AI generated video was nightmare fuel, now it’s basically photorealistic.
AI creating AI is a recursive loop, and the tiniest acceleration amplifies exponentially in a recursive loop. AI programmers are going to become about as good as the average human programmer, it’s inevitable. It won’t be an LLM, it might be a structure of individually trained LLMs, it might be a superstructure of those structures, it might be something else entirely.
Whatever it is, it’s going to happen. And once AI programmers are at least average, they can devote millions of virtual hours to make one a bit better than average, rinse and repeat. Once we hit that point, it skyrockets.
I don’t know when it’ll happen, but I’m damn sure it will happen, and the conditions get more favorable every day.
Then it doesn’t make sense to include LLMs in “AI.” We aren’t even close to turning runs into propellers or rockets, LLMs will not get there.
The problem with that is they can’t actually point to a metric where when the number goes beyond that point we’ll have ASI. I’ve seen graphs where they have a dotted line that says ape intelligence, and then a bit higher up it has a dotted line that says human intelligence. But there’s no meaningful way they can possibly have actually placed human intelligence on a graph of AI complexity, because brains are not AI so they shouldn’t even be on the graph.
So even if things increase exponentially there’s no way they can possibly know how long until we get AGI.
If you’ve ever wondered why porn sites use pictures of cars, buses, stop signs, traffic lights, bicycles and sidewalks in their captchas, it’s because they’re using the data to train car-driving AIs to recognize those patterns.
This is not what an imminent breakthrough in cancer research looks like.
Source?
Google recaptcha? They literally talk about this publically. It’s in their mission statement or whatever. It’s used to train other kinds of model too.
They were. They haven’t been using recaptchas to collect trainings day for years now.
Y’know, it’s bullshit that a) you seem to expect this to be common knowledge, as if everyone is supposed to have an archive of internet minutiae saved in their heads or have read and remembered any such info at all…
And b) you chose to downvote and pretty much just said LMGTFY without even the sarcastically provided results instead of backing up your claim. It’s basic courtesy to provide a source for claims instead of downvoting like it’s some kind of affront to your ego that someone wants info on your claim.
It’s not even my claim you are talking about jackass. Read the usernames. If you have fallen into the rabbit hole that is Lemmy you should have been around enough to know about recapcha. If not it’s one DuckDuckGo search away. In fact you could just click the link on the recapcha itself that explains how they use the data for training. Hardly arcane knowledge.
Your comment to me read like Sealioning.
Ah, that makes it so much better. My bad for you jumping into an argument randomly? You’re not improving my view of the shitty attitude here when you double down on “you should have known.”
False dichotomy.
People using AI to cure cancer are not the people implementing weird chatbots. Doing one has zero effect on the other.
Pretty sure this is a direct dig against Sam Altman specifically who is making huge claims despite no evidence that they’re making progress on AGI.
The people actually using AI to cure cancer were probably doing it before OpenAI (remember when we called it Machine Learning?) and haven’t been going to the media and Musking the completion date
Musking the completion date
🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, the people actually making progress were doing it before Sam Altman. RFdiffusion was made by the same people who released Rosetta@home 20 years ago
Yeah it’s not a very good one though because it’s predicated on the idea that a company can’t make more than one product.
I also don’t believe OpenAI is anywhere close to AGI, but obviously they can try to make AGI and make horny chatbots at the same time.
No, it’s still a pretty good dig. Their inflated valuation hinges on AGI but the only news they actually provide is that they’re going to let subscribers fuck their chatbots for $200/month (or whatever it costs)
It couldn’t be more obvious that they’re grasping at straws
It’s making fun of things like: “ChatGPT boss predicts when AI could cure cancer”.
Yes, AI already helps in oncology research and has for years and years, probably decades.
Think about all of the erotic chatbots that those oncologist phds could have created instead.
I mean, at least they’d be smart and horny, right?
My favorite kind of phd
Pound HarDer?
Probably High on Drugs
ProbablyPretty
and then they could get together with boston dynamics and we’ve got
sam altman and openai just announced they are allowing erotica for “verified users”
its only a matter of time before they allow full blown pornographic content, the only thing is that you have to verify your ID. so, openai and the “gubment” will know all the depraved shit you will ask for, and i guarantee it will be used against you or others at some point.
itll either become extremely addictive for the isolated who want the HER experience, or it will be used to undermine political discidents and anti fascist users.
despite what people think, openai does in fact hand over data to the authorities (immediate government representatives) and that information is saved and flagged if they deem it necessary.
basically if you say anything to chagpt, you can assume at some point it will be shared with law enforcement/government/government adjacent surveillance corporations like palantir.
they used to say they would refuse to make this type of content, knowing full well the implications of what might happen if they did. now due to “public demand” they are folding.
my advice, get a dumb phone, a digital camera, and a laptop to still have access to the internet and tools. reduce your physical ability to access the internet so readily. its saturated with AI, deep fakes, agents, and astroturfing bots that want you plugged in 100% of the time so they can further your addictions, manipulate you, and extract as much data from you as possible.
Fully automated luxury kompromat
basically if you say anything to chagpt, you can assume at some point it will be shared with law enforcement/government/government adjacent surveillance corporations like palantir.
That’s why I have all my private with deepseek.
I’m an adult, there’s no reason I can’t have the bot talk dirty to me. That’s a lot of text for essentially saying you wish the censorship stayed.
Surveillance state and data extraction are real issues that need to be tackled at the root (which isn’t AI).
i feel like you really need to take the time to research the implications of AI and surveillance more. specifically how the US and virtually every government and tech corporation on the planet is intending/already using them, together.
AI exists because of illegal/unconsentual data extraction, its almost entirely built on it, and theres no way that will likely ever stop. you can attempt to regulate it, but the US governement deregulated it on purpose for a bribe and the promise of more control.
it wont happen while money and power still exist at the end of the rainbow.
This is precisely why I’m saying AI and our surveillance state are completely different issues.
Yes the surveillance state is really bad and we need comprehensive laws that protect our personal data.
That being said, what the copyright industry is desperately clinging to has nothing to do with that. Your second paragraph has nothing to do with the first. So I don’t agree with both, I only agree with the first, which is my main point, about how they are seperate issues.
my main point is that there is no possible way to seperate the two. you can dream about it if you like, work on it on a limited local version, but even that has its risks. but if you ever want to use the big models, there will be no separation between AI and the state. you are being surveilled. and there is zero shot they will ever relinquish that power once they have it. even “altruistic” governments wouldnt do that, for them its a matter of national security at this point.
i am serious when i say this, you shouldnt listen to me and you should fight tooth and nail to stop this if you think its possible, i am doing my part by warning as many people as i can, and spreading the word whenever possible. both AI and surveillance states, even when completely separated, are going to be a massive detriment to the average persons freedom in the long run. added together, we are pretty much screwed already. its already being implemented.
cats out the bag, pandoras box, all that.
You’re getting downvoted because of how you put it. Most people do not understand the difference between AI used for research (like protein sequencing) and LLMs.
Also, the people making LLMs are not making protein sequencers.
No, OP is about how OpenAI said they were releasing a chatbot with PhD level intelligence about half a year ago (or was it a year ago?) and now they are saying that they’ll make horny chats for verified adults (i.e. paying customers only).
What happened to the PhD level intelligence Sam?! Where is it?
I agree, for most people ‘AI’ is ChatGPT and their perception of the success of AI is based on social media vibes and karma farming hot takes, not a critical academic examination of the state of the field.
I’m not remotely worried about the opinions of random Internet people, many of which are literally children just dogpiling on a negative comment.
Reasonable people understand my point and I don’t care enough about the opinions of idiots to couch my language for their benefit.
You’re my role model for the day
That’s not what it’s saying though. It’s making the very reasonable point that if you (the leader of an AI company) think you’re about to have an AGI that can do sci-fi AGI things, then why the hell would you be developing chatbots, which are significantly less advanced technology, only for your chatbot to be immediately superseded by your AGI?
If you’re about to get access to the world’s largest diamond mine you’re not going to spend the next few months messing around with get rich quick schemes.
Ah I see the misunderstanding. Government pivoting is the problem.
NIH blood cancer research was defunded few months ago while around same time government announced they will be building 500-billion datacenters for LLMs.
“If LLM becomes AGI we won’t need the image-recognition linear algebra knowledge anymore, obviously.”
Researchers are still the good and appreciated no matter what annoying company is deploying their work.
We are closer to making horny chatbots than a superintelligence figuring out a cure for cancer.
Actually, if the latter wins, would that super AI win a Nobel prize?
what if my kink is curing cancer?
No money in curing cancer with an LLM. Heaps of money taking advantage if increasingly alienated and repressed people.
You could sell the cure for a fortune. Imagine something that can reliably cure late stage cancers. You could charge a million for the treatment, easily.
Yes, selling the actual cure would be profitable…but an LLM would only ever provide the text for synthesizing it but none of the extensive testing, licensing, or manufacturing, etc… An existing pharmaceutical company would have to believe the LLM and then front the costs for the development, testing, and manufacture…which constitutes a large proportion of the costs of bringing a treatment to market. Burning compute time on that is a waste of resources, especially when fleecing horny losers is available right now. It is just business.
and LLMs hallucinate a lot of shit they “know” nothing about. a big pharma company spending millions of dollars on an LLM hallucination would crack me the fuck up were it not such a serious disease.
Right, that is why I originally said there is no money in a cancer cure invented by LLM. It’s just not a serious possibility.
There’s loads of money in curing cancer. For one you can sell the cure for cancer to people with cancer.
What a weird take, research use AI already? Some researchers even research things that, gasp, is not monetiseable right away!
I used to work in academic physics, and I currently work in data science. I am deeply familiar with both ends of the subject in question. LLMs are useful research tools because they speed up the reference finding and literature review process, not because they synthesize new information that does not need to be independently verified.
In the context of medical research, they could absolutely use LLMs to facilitate a literature search. What LLMs cannot do is hand researchers a proposed cure that they could sell to people. You still need to do the leg work of synthesizing the molecules, standardizing the process, industrializing it, patenting it, multiple rounds of testing on increasingly complex animals and eventually people, and then going through the drug approval process with the FDA and others. LLMs speed up the CHEAPEST and EASIEST part of the research process. That is why LLMs will not be handing us the cure for cancer.
FYI, using openAI/ChatGPT is expensive. Programming it to program users into dependency on its “friendship” gets them to pay for more tokens, and then why not blackmail them or coerce/honeypot them into espionage for the empire. If you don’t understand yet that OpenAI is arm of Trump/US military, among its pie in the sky promises is $35B for datacenters in Argentina.
What espionage is an AI simp going to be able to conduct?
I’m pretty sure this is just them flailing around not being able to come up with anything meaningful so they’re going this route so they have some profit. I don’t think a conspiracy beyond that is required.
What espionage is an AI simp going to be able to conduct
The AI simp’s you are referring to isn’t the tech billionaires who’ve managed useful technology development? It’s an insult to users. Incels can’t know anything sensitive?
they’re going this route so they have some profit
Your data and secrets is monetizable, and has been traded for last 20 years. The biggest AI customer is going to be US government’s military/disinformation/destabilization departments. If you tell your AI gf that anti fa seems more reasonable than pro fa, then she will gift you an israeli pager.
Sure, OpenAI can get $20/month from you to just be your bff, as bff 1.0. OpenAI’s real BFF customer, will start giving it ideas on how 2.0 can make OpenAI more money.
Supposedly, there was a leak from META where they were directing team to romanticize AI engagement with 8 year olds for better engagement numbers. Having unlimited time with you, is a powerful tool to shape ideology and loyalties. Media has traditionally programmed the masses after it replaced churches. You denying that absolute control isn’t a goal when the tool is ideally suited for it is not a good look for you.
I appreciate that this post is using dark mode
startups hyping shit up to get the investors drooling is one of the most despicable things a man can observe.
The thing that makes it actually bad is that they’re taking advantage of the mentally handicapped(investors). That and that said investors have millions to toss at nonsense while so many people are licky to have pennies to toss at such luxuries as “food”.
Honestly though I don’t think taking advantage of evil people, who swear they deserve their millions because they’re definitely super smart, is really anything I care that much about.
facts
ehm… cure cancer? I thought “cute cancer”. Sorry bout that
You can’t solve cancer because cancer is not a problem. It’s a solution. Humans are the problem.
The kind of slop not even AI spits out
My dog died to cancer.
Sorry for your loss.
Wow, you’re really edgy and cool, aren’t you? How does it feel to be a 13 year old nihilist that just realized that people are bad sometimes?
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I’m procrastinating. It’ll take me half a century or so.
They think if they say the criminally insane part out loud it will protect them.
Well that is just basicness implied as if was intelligence. If you cannot work with anyone do not fucking cry when you are the common problem. Quote me cus I will be quoting myself.
What?
What you trying to say there Skippy?
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Mods of microblog, consider this a personal attack towards you and your families explicitly.
Hurry up weak dogs your bias is showing
