AI megathread

But then... some people purported have visions of their future which do come to pass no matter how much they try and run? Perhaps that is just part of it... by trying to run away, we end up meeting that future. Perhaps we see or hear or whatever what we need to see in order for that fated future to occur ~ because that is what our soul is aiming for. That is ~ we get what we need that will orientate us properly.

AFAICTell information coming back in time, as in a time loop, isn't logically possible:

Causal loops, infinite regresses, and information

E. Feser

...It is perhaps easiest to see what is wrong in the notebook example from “By His Bootstraps”: The earlier stage of the notebook came from the later stage, and the later from the earlier. But what about the information embodied in the notebook? Why did the notebook have just the content it did, rather than some other content or no content at all?

But something similar can be said about the other cases. Hector’s later self knew from memory that the woman would be visible to his earlier self from precisely such-and-such a spot in the woods, and therefore took steps to make sure that she would stand there. But his earlier self, because he had acquired the information about her location from observing where she was standing, was able to form those memories only because his later self had had the information in question. So why was it precisely that information about her location that got transmitted from the past to the future and then back to the past? Jane’s genetic information came from his/her “mother” and “father,” but they are really just later versions of her. So why was it exactly that genetic information that gave Jane his/her distinctive biological features? Why did Jane have that specific height and hair color, those specific behavioral predilections, and so forth – indeed, why was he/she a human being at all rather than a dog, or a blade of grass, or something inorganic? It is because we need an account of the informational content of these temporally looped events that merely noting that each event was generated by another is insufficiently explanatory.

Now, notice that exactly the same point applies, even if perhaps less obviously, when we consider an infinite regress of events into the past rather than a temporal loop. In “On the Ultimate Origination of Things,” Leibniz notes that if we were told that a certain geometry textbook had been copied from an earlier copy, that one from an earlier one still, that one from a yet earlier copy, and so on infinitely into the past, we would hardly have a sufficient explanation of the book we started out with. Moreover, why does the series of books as a whole exist, and with precisely the content they have rather than some other content...

But I do think a lot of people who believe in the idea of future information coming from the past in a time loop dislike the more logical alternative, that spirits - God or whoever - arranges events so they have to come to pass.

@Valmar I've not quoted your post, this is just a general reply to some difficult questions you raised. The part which interests me is the extent to which some of the things you said might contradict or conflict with the idea of our having free will.

My own opinion is that free-will is a vital part of the reason we are here, to have opportunities to make actual decisions and see how they then play out. Or to place ourselves in a position where we must choose and see how we actually respond in this real world. As opposed to how we might theoretically presume or claim that we would act.

In terms of what is or is not 'fated' to happen, I think in many situations there are multiple possible paths, one of them will be taken. That may then give rise to a further set of choices. Some things in life may be sort of mapped out or pre-planned but my impression is that there may be a team of helpers working in the background, a bit like shifting points on a railway network, to realign our journey after we've made or failed to make some particular decision. I don't think there is just a single fixed path in a deterministic fashion, things are ever-changing and shifting, like sliding blocks in a puzzle.

It ties in with the power of thought, things we think, positive or negative about how we relate to things, even when we are not taking action, the thoughts can realign things too. For me this world is a fluid place, even where the surface appears calm.

Sorry - this is an AI thread and I don't think any of this relates to AI - except to suggest what AI is not.

AFAICTell information coming back in time, as in a time loop, isn't logically possible:

Causal loops, infinite regresses, and information

E. Feser

Interesting... but in my case, I am all-in-all rather uncertain what my past self in that moment was actually witnessing. Perhaps it just was a memory of that event... it's impossible for me to be certain, given what little insight I have into that life at the moment. The reaction was just not quite what I was expecting, I think. Perhaps because it had already happened for me in that life... my experiencing of that moment had to happen at a certain point in this life to be causally complete.

But I do think a lot of people who believe in the idea of future information coming from the past in a time loop dislike the more logical alternative, that spirits - God or whoever - arranges events so they have to come to pass.

That's what I think happened in my case. The soul has decided certain things in advance, and aims strongly towards that goal. Maybe sometimes to the point of manipulating the course of events in such a so that it must occur in some form at some point, even if we're being entirely unconsciously guided and nudged towards that. In the sense of bringing to our awareness certain things and ideas that lead us down the desired path, knowing that we will take interest.

@Valmar I've not quoted your post, this is just a general reply to some difficult questions you raised. The part which interests me is the extent to which some of the things you said might contradict or conflict with the idea of our having free will.

I don't think it contradicts it, so much as these thoughts are based on my many years of experience with Jungian Shadow work. A pertinent quote that has long stuck with me:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
― C.G. Jung

My own opinion is that free-will is a vital part of the reason we are here, to have opportunities to make actual decisions and see how they then play out. Or to place ourselves in a position where we must choose and see how we actually respond in this real world. As opposed to how we might theoretically presume or claim that we would act.

I quite agree. But we do not start out with as much free will as we may like ~ the challenge and struggle is in attaining a state where we are free of the whims of the unconscious. That is part of Jung's ideas of Individuation ~ where we, through integration of the contents of the Shadow and Anima / Animus, we free ourselves from being at the whims of the collective unconscious, to become a true individual. That is what Jung saw as the ultimate purpose of life: a coming into genuine, full consciousness.

If we delude ourselves into thinking that we are free when we are not, then the Shadow will continue influencing us ~ merely seeking expression, integration and wholeness. True freedom ironically only begins to come when we can accept that we are not in full control ~ then we can begin to calmly examine the Shadow and Anima / Animus and seek to integrate their contents, such that we can be actually free and in actual control, because we do not deny our unconscious, but seek to bring it into full conscious awareness.

In terms of what is or is not 'fated' to happen, I think in many situations there are multiple possible paths, one of them will be taken. That may then give rise to a further set of choices. Some things in life may be sort of mapped out or pre-planned but my impression is that there may be a team of helpers working in the background, a bit like shifting points on a railway network, to realign our journey after we've made or failed to make some particular decision. I don't think there is just a single fixed path in a deterministic fashion, things are ever-changing and shifting, like sliding blocks in a puzzle.

I agree ~ but then there seem to be some paths which must happen, whether we want them to or not. Paths which are pre-planned in advance.

I do agree that this is the reason why we have spirit guides or helpers ~ to make certain that those paths come to pass.

It ties in with the power of thought, things we think, positive or negative about how we relate to things, even when we are not taking action, the thoughts can realign things too. For me this world is a fluid place, even where the surface appears calm.

Agreed... I think the surface to be our conscious awareness, whereas the below is everything we are unconscious of to increasing degrees. The mind does feel like an ocean sometimes...

Sorry - this is an AI thread and I don't think any of this relates to AI - except to suggest what AI is not.

Agreed. I think that free will is a pertinent part of what makes an individual mind genuinely conscious and intelligent ~ it is a chasm AI can never cross, due to its severe limitations.

I'm really liking the Register's AI section:

Have we stopped to think about what LLMs actually model?

Lindsay Clark

Chasing the AI dragon? Your IT might be circling the drain, IBM warns

Dan Robinson

IBM reports that fewer than half of the respondents believe their IT organization is effective in delivering basic services, compared to 69 percent from a survey in 2013. Among chief execs, that figure is 36 percent today, down from 64 percent previously, while for chief financial officers, the figures are 50 percent now, down from 60 percent before.

What might be causing this? The Armonk-based biz says that 43 percent of surveyed tech CxOs indicated that concerns about their IT infrastructure have increased over the past six months due to the focus on optimizing their infrastructure for generative AI.

The report highlights a disconnect between CEOs and the IT department, with three quarters of the former believing that their organization's digital infrastructure is ready to scale and "deliver value." However, only 16 percent of tech execs say they're confident their current cloud and data processing capabilities are ready to support generative AI, given the enormous demands it places on infrastructure, particularly during training

Good to see people talking about real practical implementation issues, as there's just too much hype out there right now.

OpenAI is a Ponzi scam operation

David Hsing

$150 billion of SMOKE

Let’s look at how OpenAI fits the description of a Ponzi to a T. I’ll use the definition from Investopia and go line-by-line:

• A Ponzi scheme relies on a growing stream of new investors to create an illusion of profit.
  
• Some of the new money is used to pay earlier investors, making the scam look legitimate and highly profitable.
  

These first two lines go hand-in-hand. See how OpenAI employees have managed to cash out by changing rules and selling their shares to later investors...

OpenAI is a Ponzi scam operation

David Hsing

Sadly the following is behind a paywall but even in three paragraphs you can get the argument IMO:

Is OpenAI A Ponzi Scheme?

Will Lockett

...Now, the only reason the company is being valued so highly is because more institutions are pouring in more investment into OpenAI. They see a hype train and want a one-way ticket. They want the same return as Microsoft and blatantly ignore the rotten fundamentals at the core of OpenAI.

This mirrors a Ponzi scheme in the way that investors like Microsoft can only get their money back from their OpenAI investment by others investing more into OpenAI (despite the fact the company shouldn’t be invested in this much), as this is the only way to both keep OpenAI afloat, given that someone has to pay for the losses, and grow the valuation of the business. One investor is paying off another, just like in a Ponzi scheme.

This is only possible thanks to Sam Altman’s unfounded over-exaggeration. In a way, he effectively kicked off and grew the OpenAI hype train, constantly giving it fuel in the form of false predictions and dog whistle worries. Until recently, he had no real way to benefit from these Ponzi scheme-like dynamics. But this shift to for-profit and his gaining a 7% ownership of this new for-profit structure, he can...

So, to me, OpenAI is at least Ponzi scheme-adjacent.

AI Agents: Hype versus Reality, redux

The contrast couldn’t be starker

The funny thing is, this time I think the hype is right — at least in the long term.

I do genuinely think we will all have our own AI agents, and companies will have armies of them. And they will be worth trillions, since eventually (no time soon) they will do a huge fraction of all human knowledge work, and maybe physical labor too.

But not this year (or next, or the one after that, and probably not this decade, except in narrow use cases). 

All that we will have this year are demos.

And those demos won’t work all that reliably...Already, in fact we are hearing reports that these agents are “extremely brittle”, fouled up by the pesky details of reality. Here’s one of the first reports, h/t
Arvind Narayanan:

Large language models not fit for real-world use, scientists warn — even slight changes cause their world models to collapse

Roland Moore-Colyer

When tasked with providing turn-by-turn driving directions in New York City, for example, LLMs delivered them with near-100% accuracy. But the underlying maps used were full of non-existent streets and routes when the scientists extracted them.

The researchers found that when unexpected changes were added to a directive (such as detours and closed streets), the accuracy of directions the LLMs gave plummeted. In some cases, it resulted in total failure. As such, it raises concerns that AI systems deployed in a real-world situation, say in a driverless car, could malfunction when presented with dynamic environments or tasks.

"I was surprised by how quickly the performance deteriorated as soon as we added a detour. If we close just 1 percent of the possible streets, accuracy immediately plummets from nearly 100 percent to just 67 percent," added Vafa.

=-=-=

Recalls something Nagel said:

"Eventually, I believe, current attempts to understand the mind by analogy with man-made computers that can perform superbly some of the same external tasks as conscious beings will be recognized as a gigantic waste of time."

I don’t completely agree but I do think it pays to be wary of a documented historical tendency to see a new mechanistic marvel and hope that somehow it will explain consciousness rather than be just another machine akin to Leibniz’s Mill.

[Laird]

Did anybody here lose on NVidia stocks?