←back to thread

265 points ctoth | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
mellosouls ◴[] No.43745240[source]
The capabilities of AI post gpt3 have become extraordinary and clearly in many cases superhuman.

However (as the article admits) there is still no general agreement of what AGI is, or how we (or even if we can) get there from here.

What there is is a growing and often naïve excitement that anticipates it as coming into view, and unfortunately that will be accompanied by the hype-merchants desperate to be first to "call it".

This article seems reasonable in some ways but unfortunately falls into the latter category with its title and sloganeering.

"AGI" in the title of any article should be seen as a cautionary flag. On HN - if anywhere - we need to be on the alert for this.

replies(13): >>43745398 #>>43745959 #>>43746159 #>>43746204 #>>43746319 #>>43746355 #>>43746427 #>>43746447 #>>43746522 #>>43746657 #>>43746801 #>>43749837 #>>43795216 #
jjeaff ◴[] No.43745959[source]
I suspect AGI will be one of those things that you can't describe it exactly, but you'll know it when you see it.
replies(7): >>43746043 #>>43746058 #>>43746080 #>>43746093 #>>43746651 #>>43746728 #>>43746951 #
NitpickLawyer ◴[] No.43746058[source]
> but you'll know it when you see it.

I agree, but with the caveat that it's getting harder and harder with all the hype / doom cycles and all the goalpost moving that's happening in this space.

IMO if you took gemini2.5 / claude / o3 and showed it to people from ten / twenty years ago, they'd say that it is unmistakably AGI.

replies(4): >>43746116 #>>43746460 #>>43746560 #>>43746705 #
sebastiennight ◴[] No.43746705{3}[source]
I don't think so, and here's my simple proof:

You and I could sit behind a keyboard, role-playing as the AI in a reverse Turing test, typing away furiously at the top of our game, and if you told someone that their job is to assess our performance (thinking they're interacting with a computer), they would still conclude that we are definitely not AGI.

This is a battle that can't be won at any point because it's a matter of faith for the forever-skeptic, not facts.

replies(1): >>43746759 #
Jensson ◴[] No.43746759{4}[source]
> I don't think so, and here's my simple proof:

That isn't a proof since you haven't ran that test, it is just a thought experiment.

replies(1): >>43747137 #
1. ben_w ◴[] No.43747137{5}[source]
I've been accused a few times of being an AI, even here.

(Have you not experienced being on the recieving end of such accusations? Or do I just write weird?)

I think this demonstrates the same point.

replies(1): >>43749414 #
2. Jensson ◴[] No.43749414[source]
> Have you not experienced being on the recieving end of such accusations?

No, I have not been accused of being an AI. I have seen people who format their texts get accused due to the formatting sometimes, and thought people could accuse me for the same reason, but that doesn't count.

> I think this demonstrates the same point.

You can't detect general intelligence from a single message, so it doesn't really. People accuse you for being an AI based on the structure and word usage of your message, not the content of it.

replies(1): >>43749635 #
3. ben_w ◴[] No.43749635[source]
> People accuse you for being an AI based on the structure and word usage of your message, not the content of it.

If that's the real cause, it is not the reason they give when making the accusation. Sometimes they object to the citations, sometimes the absence of them.

But it's fairly irrelevant, as they are, in fact, saying that real flesh-and-blood me doesn't pass their purity test for thinking.

Is that because they're not thinking? Doesn't matter — as @sebastiennight said: "This is a battle that can't be won at any point because it's a matter of faith for the forever-skeptic, not facts."

replies(1): >>43749898 #
4. Jensson ◴[] No.43749898{3}[source]
So is your argument is that all skeptics are unreasonable people that can't ever be convinced based on being called an AI once? Don't you see who is the unreasonable one here?

There are always people that wont admit they are wrong, but most people do come around when presented with overwhelming evidence, it has happened many times in history and most people switches to new technology very quickly when its good enough.