Comment on YSK that "AI" in itself is highly unspecific term

• hendrik@palaver.p3x.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Yeah, I'd say some select tasks. And it's not really the entire distinction. I can do math equations with my cognitive capabilities. My pocket calculatir can do the same, yet it's not AI. So the definition has to be something else. And AI can do tasks I cannot do. Like go through large amounts of data. Or find patterns a human can not find. So it's not really tied to specific things we do. But a generalized form of intelligence, and I don't think that's well defined or humans are the measurement.

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  • Perspectivist@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Most definitions are imperfect - that’s why I said the term AI, at its simplest, refers to a system capable of performing any cognitive task typically done by humans. Doing things faster, or even doing things humans can’t do at all, doesn’t conflict with that definition.

    Humans are unarguably generally intelligent, so it’s only natural that we use “human-level intelligence” as the benchmark when talking about general intelligence. But personally, I think that benchmark is a red herring. Even if an AI system isn’t any smarter than we are, its memory and processing capabilities would still be vastly superior. That alone would allow it to immediately surpass the “human-level” threshold and enter the realm of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI).

    As for something like making a sandwich - that’s a task for robotics, not AI. We’re talking about cognitive capabilities here.

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    • hendrik@palaver.p3x.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Yeah, you're right. I think we can circle back to your original post, which stated the term is unspecific. However, I don't think that makes sense in computer science, or natural science in general. The way I learned is: you always start out with definitions. And mathematical, concise and waterproof ones, because you then base an entire building on top of it. And that just collapses if the foundation isn't there. And maths starts to show weird quirks. So the computer scientists need a proper definition anyway. But that doesn't stop us using the imperfect one in every day talk. I think they're not the same, though.

      I'm not sure about the robotics. Some people say intelligence is inherently linked to interacting with the real world. And that it isn't a thing in isolation. So that would mean an AI would need to be able to manipulate the real world. You're certainly right that can be done without robotics and limited to text and pictures on a screen. But I think ultimately it's the same thing. And multimodal models can in fact use almost the same mechanisms they use to process and manipulate image and text, and apply it to movements and navigate 3D space. I'd argue robotics is the same side of the same coin.

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