I wonder why sometimes I defend a bad position. I know that I am wrong, but I stand my ground. I think of myself as someone who is driven by science, and that when given a more correct answer I will always move in the right direction. It is not in all cases, but occasionally I eschew science and drive down the wrong direction. My dive into AI is starting to expose my own human mind as well as others. Now before I dig in deep let us dive into some history.
Originally humans decided that we are the most intelligent species because we have the largest brain. Comparing ourselves with other animals we believed we have the biggest brains in the animal kingdom. Our dominance was due to that size; thus, brain size must be the sign of intelligence. This also translates into fiction, watch a movie that has aliens in it and what do you notice. They all have big heads! Why? Simple, if they can travel through space, they must be smarter than us, hence a bigger brain, and that leads to a big head on Aliens in movies.
Science though got in the way of this bigger brain theory. As we studied the animal kingdom, we discovered that we did not have the biggest brains. The Sperm whale has that honor. In a panic humans did what we do best, we changed the definition, it was now ratio of brain size to body size determines intelligence. That should have been shot down immediately as insects would win that, but for not we ignore facts.
When computers came about, we needed a way to test its intelligence. The Turning test came out in 1949 (Alan Turning) and really had a simple thought. If an evaluator cannot tell the difference between a person and a machine, the machine passes the test. This is interesting, and those of us who are aging well remember fun software like Eliza. This was an interesting program that many developers wrote versions of that would be a chatbot and you could converse with it. It had some simple responses and could not really think. It could fake some people out, and I am sure someone would argue that these simple programs could pass a test.
Fast forward to November of 2022 and ChatGPT drops. And suddenly there is a chat tool that just blows people away. I know I am skipping a lot of chat failures, but when ChatGPT came out AI hit mainstream. Technically if you chatted with one, or some humans you may not be able to tell the difference Turning test solved. Well like the brain size before, we moved the goal posts. Humans first started attacking them, finding where they would go awry. People had to prove that these new chat tools (and ones after) have flaws that they are not as smart as people.
The latest thought is Humanities Last Exam. This is such a hard exam that even the best AI tool only scored 10% on this test. It is a test of 3,000 questions on complex topics that you could not easily google an answer. Just as the test came out new models are created that slowly do better. What happens when AI models are suddenly scoring on the high 90s? They will rename the test the Humanities Second to Last Exam and a new Exam will be created.
In our desire to show we are superior to AI we move the definition of intelligence. In Neil de Grasse Tyson’s book he starts out saying “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” Though we often talk about AI currently being a Stocastic Parrot but is it possible that it moves away from that? There is a classic saying that something is impossible till it is not (paraphrasing Nelson Mandela) and when it does change is it possible that we do not understand it?
Revisiting the beginning of this post, why do I not admit I am wrong when presented with normally convincing evidence. It is the same reaction humans have with AI, we want to believe we are the smartest, most intelligent thing. The belief of being wrong is a lack of intelligence. It is not, being wrong is just that, you are wrong in that situation. It is a sign of intelligence to recognize it, make the correction and move on. If you correct Chat GPT, it acknowledges that it was wrong and gives a different answer so maybe it is already more intelligent than humans. Guess I will spend my time trying to be more like it.
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This Blog is a labor of love and was originally going to be a book. With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path. I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content. I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip. I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog. AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information. Images without notes are created using an AI tool that allows me to reuse them.