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Comment by comfypotato | Hacker News Reader

The flaw here is that the aliens are significantly smarter. This logic doesn’t translate in your comparison.

The excel “aliens” are significantly smarter than humans when it comes to basic organization and math, but they still require humans to generate value.

Similarly, AGI is much smarter for a set of tasks, but it still requires humans to generate value. LLMs are astounding/fascinating in what they are able to do, but they don’t replace employees end-to-end (except for a few niche industries).

Better tools will be made with AGI, and the outcomes will better society. For a long time now, humans have required computers/AI to compete in business, and this will just be extended by the new AGI. Humans+AI will always be better than either alone.

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> Similarly, AGI is much smarter for a set of tasks, but it still requires humans to generate value. LLMs are astounding/fascinating in what they are able to do, but they don’t replace employees end-to-end (except for a few niche industries).

What you're describing sounds like an early iteration of AGI. But unless we stop the research, progress will continue and the limited AGI you describe is not where things will stop.

LLMs are not AGI, and their limits are unsurprising as such. But the limits of LLMs are not informative about the broader concerns of an eventual AGI.

In each of your descriptions you've limited the scope of what an AGI can accomplish, but those limitations need to be justified. If we continue to iterate, and especially if there's ever a moment where the computers surpass our own understanding, there is no reason to believe that those limits you imply are absolute.

This is totally valid and I misinterpreted your earlier statement to say that we’ve already arrived at what you’re talking about.

It’s a tale as old as the semiconductor really. Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near” only with a different spin that incorporates the latest tech.

I do, however, personally believe that computers won’t ever surpass the Human+computer combo. That is to say that computers will never be so dominant that our involvement is useless.

Pontificating about the future wasn’t the point of what I was saying though, rather that the current state of AI (even with the incoming few years of generative AI applications) is a far stride behind the current Human+computer combination.

> Humans+AI will always be better than either alone.

What makes you confident in this belief?

The confidence was for rhetorical purposes really. There’s no empirical basis to make such a statement.

I do, however, believe it. The current state of AI is so far behind the human mind that I think it’s reasonable to say it will never surpass the Human+computer combo.

It’s like talking about humans traveling outside of our galaxy. I guess, theoretically, it’s possible or technically even likely with a large enough amount of time. Theorizing that far into the future is meaningless though, as far as I’m concerned.

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