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A comment on Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model?. Parent comment

Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by DougN7 on Sunday September 01, 2024 @10:17AM (#41417152)
To be fair, they also include the best human intelligence has to offer. But you’re right in that they can’t tell the difference. They’ll never be able to tell us how to build an interstellar transport beam though since none of the input data had that information.
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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by urbandw311er on Sunday September 01, 2024 @10:27AM (#41417231)
Perhaps. But equally, even if they don’t know how to build one, they might be able to work through the steps, iterate on their ideas, and eventually figure it out. The hypothesis is that, by modelling language they have essentially modelled the underlying human abilities of logic and rationalism.

Let me put it another way. If you put a thousand human researchers in a room with all the existing data and came up with a process to assess their outputs and iterate on their best ideas, how long before they built an interstellar transport beam - fifty years? A hundred years?

Now do it with a thousand AI researchers, and feed back their test results to them and allow them to iterate. But this time, assume they can work maybe a million times faster than the humans, or maybe ten million times faster. They’re limited only by the time it takes to build and test their prototype hardware.

Now how long does it take?

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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by akdev1l on Sunday September 01, 2024 @10:39AM (#41417329)
> iterate on their ideas

I don’t think it’s clear that LLMs can have/express novel ideas.

I would argue an LLM by definition cannot generate _novel_ ideas.

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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by kordlessagain on Sunday September 01, 2024 @10:43AM (#41417351)
In "Me" by Thomas T. Thomas, novel thinking came from introducing random retrieval of memories in the entity. With vector search, this might include singleton outliers added to the prompt.
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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by slowmovintarget on Sunday September 08, 2024 @02:36PM (#41482163)
Just because the idea was expressed in science fiction, doesn't mean it's useful in the real world.

Solving a non-trivial problem that hasn't been solved before is not something random walks on text token probabilities will get you. Text production algorithms have the problem of being unable to detect whether the text produced is internally consistent, let alone true in the logical sense. These two qualities are required for creating net new solutions to unsolved next-level problems.

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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by bryanlarsen on Sunday September 01, 2024 @10:30AM (#41417262)
LLM's can tell the difference much of the time. The deranged stuff on the internet is rarely consistent or well formed so is not a good source for predictions. More factual writing tends to be more consistent with other writing and becomes a better source for predictions.
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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by exe34 on Sunday September 01, 2024 @10:23AM (#41417193)
LLMs won't, but some day we will have AIs running physics experiments that we will barely understand and they will come up with new technology that we will see as magic.

imagine what it must be like to our chimp cousins, watching us light a fire, take off in a plane, summon another from beyond the hills without raising our voice.

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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by tazu on Sunday September 01, 2024 @10:24AM (#41417201)
> some day we will have AIs running physics experiments that we will barely understand and they will come up with new technology that we will see as magic.

Citation needed.

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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by urbandw311er on Sunday September 01, 2024 @10:29AM (#41417247)
Is that some catty way of saying you don’t agree? Maybe you should say why you don’t agree. Hacker News encourages a slightly higher quality of debate than glib remarks like this.
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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by omnicognate on Sunday September 01, 2024 @11:08AM (#41417576)
I agree that it's catty, but it's a way of pointing out that the original comment didn't provide any reason to believe the extremely speculative prediction that it stated as fact. That itself is glib, low quality commenting and it seems fair to point it out. There's no onus on the responder to provide a reason for disagreeing when no reason was given to believe the statement in the first place.

Debate is hard on the internet, but fortunately it's a temporary inconvenience because in future the infrastructure will be replaced with direct neural connections, turning the entire human race into a single giant mind with one coherent worldview.

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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by xanderlewis on Sunday September 01, 2024 @11:00AM (#41417499)
What is there to agree with? The parent comment is an assertion about the future presented without evidence. ‘Citation needed’ might come across as snarky, but it’s a valid point.
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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by exe34 on Sunday September 01, 2024 @11:22AM (#41417691)
Sorry, it seemed pretty obvious to me. I have now added some examples of present day work - Google might be able to help you find more.
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Re:Have we stopped to think about what LLMs model? by slowmovintarget on Sunday September 08, 2024 @02:39PM (#41482181)
:)

The glib response to that "citation needed" is "Sir, or madam, this is not Slashdot."

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