Way back in the foggy mists of time, about 1964, I had my first job as a computer programmer. Some evenings a few of us would gather in the glass walled room with the big starship console, the big gray memory cabinets, the card reader, the printer, and two walls of high speed mag tape units. The operator would mount a tape and push a button. The tape units and printer would come to life. Instructions and status messages would type themselves on typewriter terminals located around the room. It was kind of spooky, as though the computer was alive. The press called computers "electronic brains,” and sci-fi became obsessed with visions of computers becoming gods or demons. There was all kinds of speculation about whether computers were or could become smarter than humans. Most of those doing the speculating then, as now, had little or no experience with actual intelligence and certainly couldn't define what it was or what it could do. The scammy idea of Artificial Intelligence evolved, and every few years some Professor Feigenbaum or Minsky etc would have an AI flavored bridge to sell us. AI is simulated intelligence, not artificial intelligence. Successful feats of automation or computation are often misrepresented as AI to fool the investors into thinking that AI has become skilled and useful at something. The current AI bubble is already deflating because it has reduced itself to absurdity by demanding that the electric grid be quadrupled in capacity to “train” LLMs. Woe to all the electric car drivers!
It’s interesting that the delusion of intelligence that the VC and Bro-ligarchs promote is now accompanied by the demand for access to ALL materials produced by humans. Because no one would want to prevent the creation of a new form of life, nor stand in the way of the Manhattan 2.0 project.
Ah, the “Eliza” program. Have not thought of that since grad school. Never thought of it as AI, early form or not, but rather as social commentary upon Psychiatry (specifically, the banality of Rogerian Psychotherapy) as a “science”. My second favorite was a program that wrote baseball game highlights—BART (Baseball Automated Recap Tool). Wonderful commentary on the banality of cliche filled sports reporting of the day. We amused ourselves and others in the computer lab with this program’s output.
Today, everywhere we look it seems, AI infests the internet. I’ve come to the point my dear Briggs where I fear I will one day read your column only to be informed that you, yourself, have been an AI of long standing duration—the real Briggs reading the daily commentary for a good “laugh”. On that day, I will unplug the computer for good.
Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron. Real intelligence is natural, organic, an emergent property of life. Dogs and horses can be intelligent. Two examples: Bullet and Trigger. There are others. Even an amoeba has low level intelligence, enough to move to food, consume it, and thereby continue its existence.
Real intelligence is independent, self-contained. AI requires a nuclear reactor and a server farm to think. All I need is a sandwich.
Real intelligence is creative. Thinking is drawing parallels, making comparisons, finding metaphors. Intelligence requires imagination. The sea is a cruel mistress, etc.
Intelligence is self awareness. I am so, the computer isn't. Grok hasn't got a soul. I do. Big difference. I know it, somehow. Grok doesn't and never will, despite all the programming in the world.
Although removed from the garden, the desire of man to be godlike, to aspire for power which is beyond his reach, drives his attempt to create intelligent life. Will such hubris lead to humanity's downfall?
Variant: Train a multi-modal music generation model with all music up to and including Palestrina, Vivaldi and Buxtehude, and with all of Lutheran theology, and see whether it generates the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach.
What physically are these intelligence mimicking LLMs residing in data centers? They are a finite numbers of circuits and logic gates that store values of 1 or 0. The LLM programs make tokens out of finite amounts of them and adjust the various 1/0 states as the tokens interact as directed by the higher level algorithms.
What is a biological brain? It is a finite number of distinct cells which each have a finite number of dendrites that interact with the dendrites of other cells which makes changes in the cells and changes the other cells through electrical and chemical processes. Is there some fundamental difference between the token and the cell? Perhaps it's because the token has discreet digital values while the cell has an analog range of value. Perhaps this would make it impossible for the token based to duplicate the cell. Then again, perhaps the digital logic gates could be made into tiny analog electrical stores. Perhaps there's some way to turn this into a circular argument.
“There is this human-like element to models that I think is important to acknowledge,” Askell, 37, says during an interview at Anthropic’s headquarters, asserting the belief that “they’ll inevitably form senses of self.”
She compares her work to the efforts of a parent raising a child. She’s training Claude to detect the difference between right and wrong while imbuing it with unique personality traits.
The distinction between an act of consciousness and an object of consciousness, whether you prefer the Aristotelian-Thomist or phenomenological flavor, ought to be the knock-down argument against any notion of genuine thinking happening in the thinking machines [sic].
Objects don't act and acts aren't objects.
The lure of VC cash, plus the budget materialist metaphysics of a gadget-obsessed society, make it near impossible for these cultists to even see what they are saying (much less entertain objections and alternatives).
While you all fidget and fuss with A/i, I'll continue to use my Magic 8 Ball still in service since around 1963. It needs no new programming, no upkeep and always tells the truth.
"AGI is the ability to figure things out. That’s it.*
*We appreciate that such an imprecise definition will not settle any philosophical debates. Pragmatically speaking, what do you want if you’re trying to get something done? An AI that can just figure stuff out. How it happens is of less concern than the fact that it happens."
Shut up and calculate.
Where have we heard that before?
Hard AI proponents still desperate to make the sale that they too can be God.
In Peircean terms, AI models exclusively deal with 'signs' and their interrelations as a closed system. Real world 'objects' and 'interpretants' (meanings) are not included.
Way back in the foggy mists of time, about 1964, I had my first job as a computer programmer. Some evenings a few of us would gather in the glass walled room with the big starship console, the big gray memory cabinets, the card reader, the printer, and two walls of high speed mag tape units. The operator would mount a tape and push a button. The tape units and printer would come to life. Instructions and status messages would type themselves on typewriter terminals located around the room. It was kind of spooky, as though the computer was alive. The press called computers "electronic brains,” and sci-fi became obsessed with visions of computers becoming gods or demons. There was all kinds of speculation about whether computers were or could become smarter than humans. Most of those doing the speculating then, as now, had little or no experience with actual intelligence and certainly couldn't define what it was or what it could do. The scammy idea of Artificial Intelligence evolved, and every few years some Professor Feigenbaum or Minsky etc would have an AI flavored bridge to sell us. AI is simulated intelligence, not artificial intelligence. Successful feats of automation or computation are often misrepresented as AI to fool the investors into thinking that AI has become skilled and useful at something. The current AI bubble is already deflating because it has reduced itself to absurdity by demanding that the electric grid be quadrupled in capacity to “train” LLMs. Woe to all the electric car drivers!
It’s interesting that the delusion of intelligence that the VC and Bro-ligarchs promote is now accompanied by the demand for access to ALL materials produced by humans. Because no one would want to prevent the creation of a new form of life, nor stand in the way of the Manhattan 2.0 project.
Ah, the “Eliza” program. Have not thought of that since grad school. Never thought of it as AI, early form or not, but rather as social commentary upon Psychiatry (specifically, the banality of Rogerian Psychotherapy) as a “science”. My second favorite was a program that wrote baseball game highlights—BART (Baseball Automated Recap Tool). Wonderful commentary on the banality of cliche filled sports reporting of the day. We amused ourselves and others in the computer lab with this program’s output.
Today, everywhere we look it seems, AI infests the internet. I’ve come to the point my dear Briggs where I fear I will one day read your column only to be informed that you, yourself, have been an AI of long standing duration—the real Briggs reading the daily commentary for a good “laugh”. On that day, I will unplug the computer for good.
Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron. Real intelligence is natural, organic, an emergent property of life. Dogs and horses can be intelligent. Two examples: Bullet and Trigger. There are others. Even an amoeba has low level intelligence, enough to move to food, consume it, and thereby continue its existence.
Real intelligence is independent, self-contained. AI requires a nuclear reactor and a server farm to think. All I need is a sandwich.
Real intelligence is creative. Thinking is drawing parallels, making comparisons, finding metaphors. Intelligence requires imagination. The sea is a cruel mistress, etc.
Intelligence is self awareness. I am so, the computer isn't. Grok hasn't got a soul. I do. Big difference. I know it, somehow. Grok doesn't and never will, despite all the programming in the world.
-->"The code has not reached self-awareness."
E.g., See also Democrats. Also, not sentient.
Although removed from the garden, the desire of man to be godlike, to aspire for power which is beyond his reach, drives his attempt to create intelligent life. Will such hubris lead to humanity's downfall?
It already did?
Variant: Train a multi-modal music generation model with all music up to and including Palestrina, Vivaldi and Buxtehude, and with all of Lutheran theology, and see whether it generates the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach.
What physically are these intelligence mimicking LLMs residing in data centers? They are a finite numbers of circuits and logic gates that store values of 1 or 0. The LLM programs make tokens out of finite amounts of them and adjust the various 1/0 states as the tokens interact as directed by the higher level algorithms.
What is a biological brain? It is a finite number of distinct cells which each have a finite number of dendrites that interact with the dendrites of other cells which makes changes in the cells and changes the other cells through electrical and chemical processes. Is there some fundamental difference between the token and the cell? Perhaps it's because the token has discreet digital values while the cell has an analog range of value. Perhaps this would make it impossible for the token based to duplicate the cell. Then again, perhaps the digital logic gates could be made into tiny analog electrical stores. Perhaps there's some way to turn this into a circular argument.
Help.
/quote
“There is this human-like element to models that I think is important to acknowledge,” Askell, 37, says during an interview at Anthropic’s headquarters, asserting the belief that “they’ll inevitably form senses of self.”
She compares her work to the efforts of a parent raising a child. She’s training Claude to detect the difference between right and wrong while imbuing it with unique personality traits.
/endquote
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-amanda-askell-philosopher-ai-3c031883?st=Ttxa7m&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The distinction between an act of consciousness and an object of consciousness, whether you prefer the Aristotelian-Thomist or phenomenological flavor, ought to be the knock-down argument against any notion of genuine thinking happening in the thinking machines [sic].
Objects don't act and acts aren't objects.
The lure of VC cash, plus the budget materialist metaphysics of a gadget-obsessed society, make it near impossible for these cultists to even see what they are saying (much less entertain objections and alternatives).
While you all fidget and fuss with A/i, I'll continue to use my Magic 8 Ball still in service since around 1963. It needs no new programming, no upkeep and always tells the truth.
I was always skeptical of the AI hype because AI is produced by machines and the human mind is not a machine.
Ah, but that’s it. They believe it is. They have no proof of this. Just the belief.
And belief is the most powerful force humanity possesses.
"AGI is the ability to figure things out. That’s it.*
*We appreciate that such an imprecise definition will not settle any philosophical debates. Pragmatically speaking, what do you want if you’re trying to get something done? An AI that can just figure stuff out. How it happens is of less concern than the fact that it happens."
Shut up and calculate.
Where have we heard that before?
Hard AI proponents still desperate to make the sale that they too can be God.
Dr Feser rightly leans on superb Don Heck pencils and John Tartaglione inks for eye-catching artwork to make his point.
How can he be doubted?
Seriously, great points by Dr Feser and by our host, the Statistician to the Stars!
In Peircean terms, AI models exclusively deal with 'signs' and their interrelations as a closed system. Real world 'objects' and 'interpretants' (meanings) are not included.
If an EX were I,
And code knew puns and my Y,
That might be AI?