You don’t think there is such a thing as “understanding” a subject? Knowing the fundamental buildings blocks of that subject? Rearranging those building blocks within other domains to make new discoveries?
A few days ago you commented, in reference to needing an expert for imagery:
“Because someone who knows something about pixels needs to make a judgement.”
Would this person not need “understanding” of how pixels emerge into tasteful art?
This is quite terrifying, a bunch of people who have no understanding of anything, prompting a thing that also has no understanding of what the human is prompting. Good times ahead.
You don’t think there is such a thing as “understanding” a subject?
I probably misunderstood (lol) you, because I was thinking of the phenomenal feeling of "getting it" - which is the only thing that I was able to label as "understanding" that exists in humans, but (I think) not in machine models. But when we feel insight, that's not some "real" understanding, it's a heuristics-powered illusion. That's why I wrote that.
It's quite ironic: I genuinely thought I understand what you're referring to, but that was a misunderstanding.
Knowing the fundamental buildings blocks of that subject? [...]
Ah, in that sense - as having a mental model of something at its structural level - yes, it exists. But then computer models can understand things too - LLMs are not just giant Markov chains with pure token statistics, they build internal representations way beyond that. Look for the Othello-GPT story, it's pretty small, but quite fascinating how a model had built a world model out of just moves.
Would this person not need “understanding” of how pixels emerge into tasteful art?
First, let me be clear that the key point there was the judgement bit. A machine lacks personhood, thus it cannot be held responsible, thus cannot make a judgement. That classic IBM memo.
For a judgement alone, just knowledge is sufficient. Seeing an irregularity is pattern matching, "those pixels look sloppy" phase doesn't yet need a "why", just a trained eye. But - yes, understanding is necessary follow-up, how to make those pixels stop raising eyebrows. Gotta not just see that e.g. "this hand has weird fingers", but also why they're weird, and then how to correct that.
This is quite terrifying
Yes, but - IMHO - not because of how shallow some understanding might be. Competence shifts are perfectly natural, skills that are in demand remain, skills that aren't atrophy, I don't see anything too scary about that.
What's uncanny is that a lot of people indeed pass on judgement and even agency to a tool that has none. "AI" takes jobs, "AI" destroys environment, "AI" makes people zombies, "AI" steals art - that's what's really scary, that a lot of slogans put a veil in front of the actual (very much human) agents and their actions.
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You don’t think there is such a thing as “understanding” a subject? Knowing the fundamental buildings blocks of that subject? Rearranging those building blocks within other domains to make new discoveries?
A few days ago you commented, in reference to needing an expert for imagery:
“Because someone who knows something about pixels needs to make a judgement.”
Would this person not need “understanding” of how pixels emerge into tasteful art?
This is quite terrifying, a bunch of people who have no understanding of anything, prompting a thing that also has no understanding of what the human is prompting. Good times ahead.
I probably misunderstood (lol) you, because I was thinking of the phenomenal feeling of "getting it" - which is the only thing that I was able to label as "understanding" that exists in humans, but (I think) not in machine models. But when we feel insight, that's not some "real" understanding, it's a heuristics-powered illusion. That's why I wrote that.
It's quite ironic: I genuinely thought I understand what you're referring to, but that was a misunderstanding.
Ah, in that sense - as having a mental model of something at its structural level - yes, it exists. But then computer models can understand things too - LLMs are not just giant Markov chains with pure token statistics, they build internal representations way beyond that. Look for the Othello-GPT story, it's pretty small, but quite fascinating how a model had built a world model out of just moves.
First, let me be clear that the key point there was the judgement bit. A machine lacks personhood, thus it cannot be held responsible, thus cannot make a judgement. That classic IBM memo.
For a judgement alone, just knowledge is sufficient. Seeing an irregularity is pattern matching, "those pixels look sloppy" phase doesn't yet need a "why", just a trained eye. But - yes, understanding is necessary follow-up, how to make those pixels stop raising eyebrows. Gotta not just see that e.g. "this hand has weird fingers", but also why they're weird, and then how to correct that.
Yes, but - IMHO - not because of how shallow some understanding might be. Competence shifts are perfectly natural, skills that are in demand remain, skills that aren't atrophy, I don't see anything too scary about that.
What's uncanny is that a lot of people indeed pass on judgement and even agency to a tool that has none. "AI" takes jobs, "AI" destroys environment, "AI" makes people zombies, "AI" steals art - that's what's really scary, that a lot of slogans put a veil in front of the actual (very much human) agents and their actions.