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0 pointsNitpickLawyer1mo ago0 comments

I don't see it as a gotcha. Just an (evergreen, it seems) observation that people will absolutely move the goalposts every time there's something new. And people can be ignorant outsiders or experts in that field as well.

For example, ~2 years ago, an expert in ML publicly made this remark on stage: LLMs can't do math. Today they absolutely and obviously, can. Yet somehow it's not impressive anymore. Or, and this is the key part of the quote, this is somehow not related to "intelligence". Something that 2 years ago was not possible (again, according to a leading expert in this field), is possible today. And yet this is somehow something that they always could do, and since they're doing it today, is suddenly no longer important. On to the next one!

No idea why this is related to darwin or definitions of life. The definitions don't change. What people considered important 2 years ago, is suddenly not important anymore. The only thing that changed is that today we can see that capability. Ergo, the quote holds.

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latexr1mo ago· 2 in thread

> For example, ~2 years ago, an expert in ML

See, that’s a poor argument already. Anyone could counter that with other experts in ML publicly making remarks that AI would have replaced 80% of the work force or cured multiple diseases by now, which obviously hasn’t happened. That’s about as good an argument as when people countered NFT critics by citing how Clifford Stoll said the internet was a fad.

> made this remark on stage: LLMs can't do math. Today they absolutely and obviously, can.

How exactly are “LLMs can’t” and “do math” defined? As you described it, that sentence does not mean “will never be able to”, so there’s no contradiction. Furthermore, it continues to be true that you cannot trust LLMs on their own for basic arithmetic. They may e.g. call an external tool to do it, but pattern matching on text isn’t sufficient.

> The definitions don't change.

Of course they do, what are you talking about? Definitions change all the time with new information. That’s called science.

NitpickLawyerOP1mo ago

The definition of "can/cannot do math" didn't change. That's not up for debate. 2 years ago they couldn't solve an erdos problem (people have tried, Tao has tried ~1 year ago). Today they can.

Definitions don't change. The idea that now that they can it's no longer intelligence is changing. And that's literally moving the goalposts. Read the thread here, go to the bottom part. There are zillions of comments saying this.

You are keen to not trying to understand what the quote is saying. This is not good faith discussion, and it's not going anywhere. We're already miles from where we started. The quote is an observation (and an old one at that) about goalposts moving. If you can't or won't see that, there's no reason to continue this thread.

latexr1mo ago

> The definition of "can/cannot do math" didn't change. That's not up for debate.

That is not the argument. The point is that the way you phrased it is ambiguous. “Math” isn’t a single thing, and “cannot” can either mean “cannot yet” or “cannot ever”. I don’t know what the “expert” said since you haven’t provided that information, I’m directly asking you to clarify the meaning of their words (better yet, link to them so we can properly arrive at a consensus).

> Definitions don't change.

Yes they do! All the time!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-that-used-to-...

> And that's literally moving the goalposts.

Good example. There are no literal goal posts here to be moved. But with the new accepted definition of the words, that’s OK.

> There are zillions of comments saying this.

Saying what, exactly? Please be clear, you keep being ambiguous. The thread barely crossed a couple of hundred comments as of now, there are not “zillions” of comments in agreement of anything.

> You are keen to not trying to understand what the quote is saying. (…) If you can't or won't see that, there's no reason to continue this thread.

Indeed, if you ascribe wrong motivations and put a wall before understanding what someone is arguing, there is indeed no reason to continue the thread. The only wrong part of your assessment is who is doing the thing you’re complaining about.

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