AI Is the PERFECT name for all of this stuff. Artificial Intelligence.
He's arguing because it's artificial it shouldn't be called artificial.
He's arguing because it's artificial it shouldn't be called artificial.
The truth is that the model has no intelligence, but can do what we attribute to humans intelligence. Alike to how computers were deemed intelligent by the public for doing fast mathematics, computers still cannot think. There is no self-reflection, agency, or abstract thought.
Also, for readers, this person is often regarded as the equivalent of Michael Jordan (the NBA player) of AI. He's a superstar in the field, so it's safe to take his word with considerable weight.
Intelligence, reasoning and AI are all very loosely defined words, and unfortunately neuroscience hasn't gone far enough to explain a lot of these mechanisms.
We could maybe compare AI to a dog's intelligence, but even then there's a goal system in the dog, and the dog wants to optimize for it (getting treats). LLMs are created to be purely tools, and not reflective or goal-oriented.
No, he's arguing that it shouldn't be called intelligent because it is not.
Intelligence how we actually use the term just means semi-autonomous decision making system — from how to flank you in CoD, to the best move in chess, to the best move in tic tac toe, to the best reply in a chat.
We don't call it "intelligent" or "intelligence", we call it "artificial intelligence". Adjectives matter.
Furthermore, what is intelligence? Define it. Is an ant intelligent? Is a microbe which exhibits simple yet effective behavior intelligent? Is a machine that can play chess far better than any other known lifeform intelligent?
Personally, I am a fan of "efficient cross domain maximization" as a definition but I feel it only implies the self establishment of value systems over the relative values of domains. The reality is that we don't have a perfect definition of intelligence or the spectrum but we roughly hold up ourselves as the example. This is a deep topic I'm not going to burn further time on for HN.
I'd suggest that intelligence is an emergent property of the interaction of dumb systems. The lack of a clear line is a symptom of our lack of clear definition. More impactfuly, or lack of understanding of how brains produce/host it.
I think a real objection is that the user of the term of AI is associated with the disappointment and drying up of funding in academic research that had been correlated to irresponsible use of the language. The apologists came up with AGI but this is humans. Some people think their marketing benefits by saying "AI" and most of the world has neither the expertise or product knowledge to call them on it. So too do we have a word "literally" with a definition of "figuratively".
Our brains are using some clever tricks. There's no magic at all.