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0 pointsstaticassertion1mo ago0 comments

You're just defining intelligence as "undefined", which okay, now anything is anything. What is the point of that?

Indeed, there's quite a lot of work that's been done on what these terms mean. The fields of neuroscience and cognitive science have contributed a lot to the area, and obviously there are major areas of philosophy that discuss how we should frame the conversation or seek to answer questions.

We have more than enough, trivially, to say that human intelligence is distinct, so long as we take on basic assertions like "intelligence is related to brain structures" since we know a lot about brain structures.

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stavros1mo ago

Our intelligence is related to brain structures, not all intelligence. You can't get to things like "what all intelligence, in general, is" from "what our intelligence is" any more than you can say that all food must necessarily be meat because sausages exist.

staticassertionOP1mo ago

But... we're talking about our intelligence. So obviously it's quite relevant. I didn't say that AI isn't intelligent, I said that we have good reason to believe that our intelligence is unique. And we do, a lot of good evidence.

I obviously don't believe that all intelligence is related to specific brain structure. Again, I'm a functionalist, so I believe that any structure that can exhibit the necessary functions would be equivalent in regards to intelligence.

None of this would commit me to (a) human exceptionalism (b) LLMs/ Agents being intelligent (c) LLMs/ Agents being intelligent in the way that humans are.

stavros1mo ago

This is too dependent on what you mean by "unique", though. What do we have that apes don't, and which directly enables intelligence? What do we have that LLMs don't? What do LLMs have that we don't?

I don't think we know enough to definitively say "it's this bit that gives us intelligence, and there's no way to have intelligence without it". We just see what we have, and what animals lack, and we say "well it's probably some of these things maybe".

staticassertionOP1mo ago

> What do we have that apes don't, and which directly enables intelligence?

Again, there are multiple fields of study with tons of amazingly detailed answers to this. We know about specific proteins, specific brain structures, we know about specific cognitive capabilities in the abstract, etc.

> What do we have that LLMs don't?

Again, quite a lot is already known about this.

This feels a bit like you're starting to explore this area and you're realizing that intelligence is complex, but you may not realize that others have already been doing this work and we have a litany of information on the topic. There are big open questions, of course, but we're definitely past the point of being able to say "there is a difference between human and ape intelligence" etc.

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stavros1mo ago

staticassertionOP1mo ago

None of this would commit me to (a) human exceptionalism (b) LLMs/ Agents being intelligent (c) LLMs/ Agents being intelligent in the way that humans are.

stavros1mo ago

This is too dependent on what you mean by "unique", though. What do we have that apes don't, and which directly enables intelligence? What do we have that LLMs don't? What do LLMs have that we don't?

staticassertionOP1mo ago

> What do we have that apes don't, and which directly enables intelligence?

> What do we have that LLMs don't?

Again, quite a lot is already known about this.

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