What’s a common “fact” that’s spread around that’s actually not true and pisses you off that too many people believe it?
Oh plenty…
The myth of “alpha wolves” and all the men who build a toxic social and psychological image of themselves and other men because of it, apparently because they would like to live in a zoo and get into conflicts with other men they have never met before or something.
But seriously, there were some grave errors in how this came to be. This wasn’t observing wolves in their natural environment. There are no “alpha wolves” in nature. The researcher, David Mech, who was in part responsible for this stupidity has been working since then to correct this, but media and society already swallowed the misconception too hard.
Next one:
“LLMs are not AI.” Yes, they are. AI is a scientific label for a bunch of methods, algorithms, and models.
“But they are not ‘intelligent’.” My dear fellow flesh bag, we do not even have a clear definition of what ‘intelligence’ even is. Come up with a good one, then let’s talk about this particular label. Until then, you can rename AI to ‘pesto alfredo’ for all I care as long as we agree what kind of methods we mean by that to categorize a bunch of computer science stuff.In the opposite corner:
“We have achieved AGI with LLMs”. No, we have not. There is still a substantial lack of capabilties and properties.Or: “LLMs are sentient and self-aware”. To the best of my knowledge, they are not. To be fair, there is little room for debate, which often boils down to stuff like semantic arguments about consciousness and definitions of understanding, but the consensus is that they are not.
Another one:
“Homeopathy cures diseases.” No, it doesn’t. It has a placebo effect but that’s pretty much about it.
There is more:
“Evolution theory is just a ‘theory’.” No, it’s a proven set of explanations and models supported by overwhelming empirical evidence. Popular confusion of the colloquial use of the word “theory” with the scientific one.Colloquial meaning: a guess, hunch, speculation, or unproven idea.
Scientific meaning: a well-substantiated explanatory framework supported by extensive evidence and capable of being tested and potentially falsified.
And there is even more, but I have already written a wall of text and am tired now.
“LLMs are not AI”
Artificial intelligence is a term used in computer science to describe a system capable of performing any cognitive tasks that would normally require human intelligence - like generating natural-sounding language. The issue isn’t that the term is being used incorrectly, but rather that most people think it means more than it actually does. It’s a broad term that covers everything from old Atari chess engines to artificial superintelligence.
Minor corrections: AI does not just comprise methods for tasks that require ‘cognition’. Let’s rather use the more general “information processing”. Nor is it restricted to “normally requires humans”. Think of swarm intelligence methods for example, like ant colony optimization.
There is an inherent issue in the definition of the word “intelligence” though. For labelling a bunch of methods, that’s not as problematic, we could call all that ‘banana milkshake’ as long as we agree upon what we put into that category.
But we do not even have a good definition of “intelligence” itself. As soon as this issue is solved, we might start rethinking the label ‘artificial intelligence’.
My proposed “information processing” is also insufficient, as it would make a fancy pocket calculator indistinguishable from what we usually call “AI”.
Thinking about that: if we would apply some AI methods, e.g. from the field of machine learning, to perform operations that a pocket calculator already solves (which is kind of ridiculous, because we would be using a computer to train an AI model to mimick a computer) does that make a calculator AI? Or the AI a calculator? What would that make us humans?
Artificial intelligence is a term used in computer science
Arguing that because nerds appropriated an original term does not mean that we have to change the meaning of the original term…
I don’t look out my “transpart glass” I look out my windows. Even tho that’s the name of an operating system. If I say I grok something, it means I understand like Heinlen intended, not that I asked a racist AI about it.
“Artificial Intelligence” and all sorts of things computer nerds are trying to claim they invented have existed in theory at least as far back as Rome.
So “the problem” is you first heard about it in the context of chatbots, so now you want to insist that is the only meaning the phrase has ever represented and everyone else needs to change to accomdoate you.
The problem isn’t people are using the phrase wrong, the problem is you don’t know what it means except in a very narrow context.
None of any of this shit is new, people are just ignorant.
It’s like when I was a kid and watched pro-wrestling, I thought I was cool and original, because I didn’t know the media that they were blatantly ripping off of.
That’s where you are at right now with Artificial Intelligence, you only know the version the grifters have appropriated.
Pre-emptive edit:
I’m not saying chatbots are AI, I’m saying the definition that calls them AI is incorrect because grifters just changed it to fit what they were doing, for money.
So “the problem” is you first heard about it in the context of chatbots, so now you want to insist that is the only meaning the phrase has ever represented and everyone else needs to change to accomdoate you.
No, it’s a term used in science and engineering to categorize a bunch of algorithms, methods, and models that is being misunderstood by many people in the first place and has existed well before the first chatbots.
Such misconceptions are not unusual, which is often a result of using scientific terminology from a colloquial point of view. Think of the term “theory” for another example.I’m not saying chatbots are AI, I’m saying the definition that calls them AI is incorrect because grifters just changed it to fit what they were doing, for money.
I disagree with the money part. You are now throwing scIentists and engineers into one pot with those who exploit this term for marketing purposes alone.
But I agree that the “intelligence” part is difficult to justify.I understand that it is an intuitive choice for labelling methods that can mimick or outperform “natural intelligence” (people, birds, ants, fungi, bacteria, …) on tasks that involve some form of information processing. The “artificial” part underlines that these methods are usually well… not found in nature (although often inspired from) but manufactured, man-made.
From my point of view the issue really begins at the “intelligence” part. We throw this word around as if it was something unique to humans. Yet, there exists no solid definition of what the fuck ‘intellgience’ even is. I challenge you to think about an airtight definition of ‘intelligence’. If we have a solid definition for that, we can think about how we might carry that over to what we currently call artificial intelligence and may consider relabeling if necessary.
Currently, I lack an alternative. And for that reason I stick with AI as a commonly accepted working label.
That the general population are directly responsible for the amount of pollution occurring a la “carbon footprint” when there are 10 companies producing 70% of the world’s pollution
Huh, odd, why do they do this?
To make the general population think that they’re responsible for the problems caused by the massive uncontrolled exploitation of limited resources by corporations.
(Or in simpler terms; So the general population don’t show the CEOs just how fragile their mortal bodies are.)
No, why do they produce all the emissions?
Combustion produces byproducts, such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and depending on the fuel or the quality of combustion, sulphur oxides and other fantastically poisonous substances that are building up in our limited breathing air and drinking water.
Engines that use this process are called internal combustion engines, they mix the fuel with air and ignite it, this creates heat and pressure, because the big molecules that make up the fuel are broken down into a massive quantity of smaller ones. That pressure then pushes on pistons which turn a crankshaft that can be connected to a transmission in a car, or a generator in a power plant, the hot exhaust gases that make up a lot of the pollution then get forced out of the engine into the air.
Unless you’re asking why specifically those companies are the ones producing the emissions, in which case it’s a matter of the amount of carbon fuel they use to mine/refine/move the materials and build/run the factories, and the transport they use to move their finished product and run all of the processes that lead up to the product being made. All of which drives emissions.
To draw on an example thats incredibly apt right now, considering Utah is now allowing a datacenter that will use 9 GW of power, more than every combined person and business in the state uses.
A data center is designed in CAD software - electrical energy from the grid is used in the computer
The data center is built - Heavy machinery prepares the ground and Concrete is poured - earthmovers use carbon fuel, the concrete manufacturer itself burns fuel to create the concrete, then ships it via trucks to the building site where it is poured, setting concrete also releases carbon dioxide.
The computer components are built - rare earth metals are dug from the ground and refined into chips that are shipped to factories where they are assembled onto circuitboards - the material and manufacture requirements of these components take a lot of fuel, and a lot of highly specialised equipment that is energy intensive
The computer components are shipped to the site - this also takes fuel.
This is all contributing to the emissions cost that the company has racked up, and the datacenter isn’t even active yet.
ALSO, NONE of these examples take into account physical pollution, where crude oil or a carbon product (such as in Palestine… the American one; where a derailed train load of polyvinyl was set on fire and left to uncontrollably burn because it was cheaper than calling a chemical spill team) is either poured into the worlds water from crashed tankers or from drilling platforms (or from military actions where refineries are burned, and we get events like the mass swathe of marine life dieoff thanks to oil being spilled into the ocean)
Hopefully that answers your question, if not you’ll have to ask a different way because I don’t know what you mean when you say “why do they produce emissions?” (The answer is burning things makes emissions, and they’re burning the lot.)
I’m being a bit annoying about it because the companies don’t burn all that crap for fun but, as you laid out, for our collective consumption patterns. I developed the impression that the whole “x companies do y% of emissions!” thing, similar to “no ethical consumption” reminders tends to fulfill a function not aimed at motivating larger-scale changes (e.g. banning animal agriculture wholly instead of making an individual choice to not consume em; banning ICE cars from being produced/sold while creating comprehensive public transport instead of merely biking to work yourself) but at detaching oneself from the role we do actually play in society. (Also, smaller/individual scale weirdoes are a good source of activists that can radiate social structures out into general society)
To be clear: the direction I’d like to see isn’t ignoring larger-scale changes but embracing that these things are linked. Companies don’t burn fuel for fun, but for profit (or non-capitalist modes of resource allocation - if the central party committee decides to satiate the people’s hunger for meat and cars, that’s also a problem). And the profit there comes from all of us, individually as well as collectively. So action against that probably should also happen on both levels.
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your brain doesn’t do maths to figure out how to move yourself or how to throw things, it just learned/knows which neurons to fire to move different parts of your body and has an impression of how much force must be applied to do different types of physical work. (e.g move through fluid)
I agree so much with this. We can use math to describe what you are doing when you throw a ball, that doesn’t mean you are doing the math calculations when you throw it.
We can use math to calculate all sorts of things, doesn’t mean those things themselves are doing math to decide how to do them. Waves, the moon’s orbit, all kinds of natural systems we can use math to describe, but they aren’t doing math.
That’s philosophical.
Are our neurons, are waves etc. not just a system that directly ‘perform’ maths without ‘doing’ maths? Math can be seen as a language for us to describe, explore and predict stuff. But you could equivalently say that the math is already there and we just discover it and put it into words.That relates to the question whether math is discovered or invented. The one is an act of uncovering universal and natural truths, the other a rather creative process of bringing something new into a universe where it isn’t naturally found.
But that’s the catch. We wouldn’t say that, for example, coffe machines are discovered, they are not found in nature. (If they would, that would be quite a headline to wake up to.) They are clearly invented. Math however builds upon a fundament of provable truths. Of stuff that is already there and can be found in nature. So while we might argue that at least some parts of math may be invented (just like the coffee machine that operates on physical principles that exist elsewhere in nature with respect to their components), isn’t the fundament of math itself rather discovered? We just put into words and symbols, what is already there and uncover the hidden mechanisms.
I am not a mathematician, but have heard somewhere that it is already quite an effort to prove why our numbers make sense or why 1+1 can equal 2. And while we certainly do not need to tie math to an observable physical reality, we derived fundamental working principles from it, don’t we?
Propaganda from the fossil fuel industry.
Solar panels are the cheapest source of electricity now. Batteries have dropped in price by more than 90% in the past decade, and are now viable for grid-scale storage, addressing the main issue with renewable energy. EVs are competitive with combustion cars, and in some ways superior. Heat pumps are now superior to furnaces in many locations. The solar punk future is now! But you wouldn’t know any of this by listening to the public discourse, mainstream media, and many politicians.
Relevant video from Technology Connections
