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I don't think AGI is right around the corner

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336 points mooreds | 6 comments | 06 Jul 25 20:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.914s | source | bottom
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dathinab ◴[06 Jul 25 21:54 UTC] No.44484445[source]▶
I _hope_ AGI is not right around the corner, for social political reasons we are absolutely not ready for it and it might push the future of humanity into a dystopia abyss.

but also just taking what we have now with some major power usage reduction and minor improvements here and there already seems like something which can be very usable/useful in a lot of areas (and to some degree we aren't even really ready for that either, but I guess thats normal with major technological change)

it's just that for those companies creating foundational models it's quite unclear how they can recoup their already spend cost without either major break through or forcefully (or deceptively) pushing it into a lot more places then it fits into

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pbreit ◴[06 Jul 25 22:06 UTC] No.44484517[source]▶
Must "AGI" match human intelligence exactly or would outperforming in some functions and underpformin in others qualify?
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1. crooked-v ◴[06 Jul 25 22:17 UTC] No.44484600[source]▶
For me, "AGI" would come in with being able to reliably perform simple open-ended tasks successfully without needing any specialized aid or tooling. Not necessarily very well, just being capable of it in the first place.

For a specific example of what I mean, there's Vending-Bench - even very 'dumb' humans could reliably succeed on that test indefinitely, at least until they got terminally bored of it. Current LLMs, by contrast, are just fundamentally incapable of that, despite seeming very 'smart' if all you pay attention to is their eloquence.

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2. ◴[07 Jul 25 01:43 UTC] No.44485912[source]▶
3. carefulfungi ◴[07 Jul 25 01:46 UTC] No.44485936[source]▶
If someone handed you an envelope containing a hidden question, and your life depended on a correct answer, would you rather pick a random person out of the phone book or an LLM to answer it?

On one hand, LLMs are often idiots. On the other hand, so are people.

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4. crooked-v ◴[07 Jul 25 02:53 UTC] No.44486310[source]▶
That's not at all analogous to what I'm talking about. The comparison would be picking an LLM or a random person out of the phone book to, say, operate a vending machine... and we already know LLMs are unable to do that, given the results of Vending-Bench.
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5. bookman117 ◴[07 Jul 25 04:12 UTC] No.44486689[source]▶
I'd learn as much as I could about what the nature of the question would be beforehand and pay a human with a great track record of handing such questions.
6. carefulfungi ◴[07 Jul 25 13:59 UTC] No.44490448{3}[source]▶
More than 10% of the global population is illiterate. Even in first world countries, numeracy rates are 75-80%. I think you overestimate how many people could pass the benchmark.

Edit - rereading, my comment sounds far too combative. I mean it only as an observation that AI is catching up quickly vs what we manage to teach humans generally. Soon, if not already, LLMs will be “better educated” than the average global citizen.