• technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago

    “AI” doesn’t exist. Nobody that you know is actually using “AI”. It’s not even close to being a real thing.

    • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      We’ve been productively using AI for decades now – just not the AI you think of when you hear the term. Fuzzy logic, expert systems, basic automatic translation… Those are all things that were researched as artificial intelligence. We’ve been using neural nets (aka the current hotness) to recognize hand-written zip codes since the 90s.

      Of course that’s an expert definition of artificial intelligence. You might expect something different. But saying that AI isn’t AI unless it’s sentient is like saying that space travel doesn’t count if it doesn’t go faster than light. It’d be cool if we had that but the steps we’re actually taking are significant.

      Even if the current wave of AI is massively overhyped, as usual.

      • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        The issue is AI is a buzz word to move product. The ones working on it call it an LLM, the one seeking buy-ins call it AI.

        Wile labels change, its not great to dilute meaning because a corpo wants to sell some thing but wants a free ride on the collective zeitgeist. Hover boards went from a gravity defying skate board to a rebranded Segway without the handle that would burst into flames. But Segway 2.0 didn’t focus test with the kids well and here we are.

        • weker01@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          The people working on LLMs also call it AI. Just that LLMs are a small subset in the AI research area. That is every LLM is AI but not every AI is an LLM.

          Just look at the conference names the research is published in.

          • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Maybe, still doesn’t mean that the label AI was ever warranted, nor that the ones who chose it had a product to sell. The point still stands. These systems do not display intelligence any more than a Rube Goldberg machine is a thinking agent.

            • 0ops@lemm.ee
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              6 days ago

              These systems do not display intelligence any more than a Rube Goldberg machine is a thinking agent.

              Well now you need to define “intelligence” and that’s wandering into some thick philosophical weeds. The fact is that the term “artificial intelligence” is as old as computing itself. Go read up on Alan Turing’s work.

                • 0ops@lemm.ee
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                  6 days ago

                  That’s just kicking the can down the road, because now you have to define agency. Do you have agency? If you didn’t, would you even know? Can you prove it either way? In any case, this is no longer a scientific discussion, but a philosophical one, because whether or not an entity has “intelligence” or “agency” are not testable questions.

                  • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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                    5 days ago

                    We have functional agency regardless of your stance on determinism in the same way that computers can obtain functional randomness when they are unable to generate a true random number. Artificial intelligence requires agency and spontaneity, and these are the lowest bars it must pass. And they do not pass these and the current path of their development can not pass these, no matter how updated their training set, or how bespoke their weights are.

                    these large models do not have “true” concepts over what they provide in the same way a book does not have a concept of the material they contain, no matter how fancy the index is

                  • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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                    5 days ago

                    We have functional agency, regardless of your stance on the determinism. “AI” does not even reach that bar, and so far has no pathways to reach that with its current direction. Though that might be by design. But whether humanity wants an actual AI is a different discussion entirely. Either way these large models are not AI, they are just sold as such to make them seem more than they actually are.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        6 days ago

        We’ve been using neural nets (aka the current hotness) to recognize hand-written zip codes since the 90s.

        Not to go way offtop here but this reminds me: Palm’s “Graffiti” handwriting recognition was a REALLY good input method back when I used it. I bet it did something similar.

    • tauren@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      AI is a standard term that is used widely in the industry. Get over it.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I don’t really care what anyone wants to call it anymore, people who make this correction are usually pretty firmly against the idea of it even being a thing, but again, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about it or what we call it, because the race is still happening whether we like it or not.

      If you’re annoyed with the sea of LLM content and generated “art” and the tired way people are abusing ChatGTP, welcome to the club. Most of us are.

      But that doesn’t mean that every major nation and corporation in the world isn’t still scrambling to claim the most powerful, most intelligent machines they can produce, because everyone knows that this technology is here to stay and it’s only going to keep getting worked on. I have no idea where it’s going or what it will become, but the toothpaste is out and there’s no putting it back.

    • Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 days ago

      While i grew up with the original definition as well the term AI has changed over the years. What we used to call AI is now what’s referred to as AGI. There are several steps still to break through before we get the AI of the past. Here is a statement made by AI about the subject.

      The Spectrum Between AI and AGI:

      Narrow AI (ANI):

      This is the current state of AI, which focuses on specific tasks and applications.

      General AI (AGI):

      This is the theoretical goal of AI, aiming to create systems with human-level intelligence.

      Superintelligence (ASI):

      This is a hypothetical level of AI that surpasses human intelligence, capable of tasks beyond human comprehension.

      In essence, AGI represents a significant leap forward in AI development, moving from task-specific AI to a system with broad, human-like intelligence. While AI is currently used in various applications, AGI remains a research goal with the potential to revolutionize many aspects of life.

    • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      If you say a thing like that without defining what you mean by AI, when CLEARLY it is different than how it was being used in the parent comment and the rest of this thread, you’re just being pretentious.