Inspired by a recent talk from Richard Stallman.
From Slashdot:
Speaking about AI, Stallman warned that “nowadays, people often use the term artificial intelligence for things that aren’t intelligent at all…” He makes a point of calling large language models “generators” because “They generate text and they don’t understand really what that text means.” (And they also make mistakes “without batting a virtual eyelash. So you can’t trust anything that they generate.”) Stallman says “Every time you call them AI, you are endorsing the claim that they are intelligent and they’re not. So let’s let’s refuse to do that.”
Sometimes I think that even though we are in a “FuckAI” community, we’re still helping the “AI” companies by tacitly agreeing that their LLMs and image generators are in fact “AI” when they’re not. It’s similar to how the people saying “AI will destroy humanity” give an outsized aura to LLMs that they don’t deserve.
Personally I like the term “generators” and will make an effort to use it, but I’m curious to hear everyone else’s thoughts.
I like calling them “Bullshit Generators”, because that’s what they actually are.
I like calling them regurgitative idiots, or artificial idiots, though really anything that makes fun of them works
No
Exhibit A people are beginning to describe empty, hollow mass produced corporate slop as AI, it has become an adjective to describe worthless trash and I love it.
AI has a very broad definition. Their products are AI.
But even so- surely you don’t believe that Generative AI programs and Hal 9000 are functionally identical? I just think it would be helpful to have a word that doesn’t lump those things together.
AI has a very broad definition.
Even more so… It has no definition. It’s fake. It’s a phony term used by grifters. It’s not helpful at all to encourage them and participate.
Nah, words actually don’t stop having definitions just because you are upset about them, and LLMs do appropriately fall within its real definition.
Perhaps educate yourself before commenting on things you do not understand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence The problem here is that you have confused AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) with AI (Artificial Intelligence).
Yes we say Fuck AI, but when we see it in the wild we call it slop, bot, clanker, or vibe coded, etc.
And starting splitting hairs about naming is very geeky but it doesn’t help, as 90% of people have very little concept about what AI or LLM’s are in the first place.
90% of people have very little concept about what AI or LLM’s are in the first place.
Yeah I mean I agree, I think that’s why there needs to be a term that describes them.
The term “Artificial Intelligence” has historically been used by computer scientists to refer to any “decision making” program of any complexity, even something extremely simple, like solving a maze by following the left wall.
This is why I call chatbots “LLMs” and refer to image and video generators as “slop generators”. It isn’t AI, a software can’t be intelligent.
That’s what I do, too. I’ve also taken to call the “bubble” a scam, because that’s what it really is.
“Slop Constructors” is what I call them. It’s good to remember that calling them “AI” helps with the fake hype.
I like slop constructors lol
I support Stallman’s take. I think just saying “Fuck AI” is going to have almost zero effect on the world. I think we need to add nuance, reasoning, be accurate… Tell people WHY that is, so we can educate them. Or convince them to do something… Understand how these things work and why that’s good or bad to form an opinion… “Fuck AI” alone isn’t going to do any of that.
There’s literally nothing you could possibly do from an internet forum to have an effect on the world. This is for fun.
Brother if you ain’t shaping discourse you’re being shaped by it
Hah, I love this. Stealing it.
Shaping online discourse doesn’t matter, not on the scale we can effect as individual users. Billionaires shape online discourse with their algorithms and bots, what the fuck are you going to do to fight that? If you even begin to possibly threaten them they just deplatform you. That’s why we’re all on a niche subforum on a niche website.
If you want to do something that matters you have to log off.
Billionaires shape online discourse with their algorithms and bots, what the fuck are you going to do to fight that?
Crazy idea… fight that? It really doesn’t seem like you’re having fun either though man, maybe take your own advice
I have fun getting really fucking mad.
At least I think I do. I keep doing it, after all.
There’s nothing no one person can do unless they’re very influential, but in aggregate, our real world thought patterns on a societal level are mostly dominated by online discourse.
I guess sometimes I’m wrong here. I’ll usually try to have a positive effect on the world. And do something about the things I perceive as wrong. Also it’s not really “fun” to me to discuss ludicrous RAM prices, burning of money, bad effects on the environment… I think that’s more a serious matter.
I get what you’re saying, though.
I think you’re doing great bud. Keep it up :)
Thx 🍻
Forums aren’t serious business, nothing important ever happens here.
Use forums to learn and be exposed to new ideas, to socialize, to obtain skills, to be informed, but remember that nothing you say on the internet really matters that much. If you aren’t doing this for fun, what’s even the point? You’re just wasting time.
nothing important ever happens here
Unrelated but here is list of things I find to be some of the most important activities I can think of:
learn be exposed to new ideas socialize obtain skills be informed
Idk. The internet is a tool, I guess? I use forums to get my computer problems solved. Help other people with their woes… I talk to random strangers and learn something about their perspective on the world. Or what it’s like in a remote place… Talk about relationship issues. In the old days I’d use them to coordinate activities, projects. Sell used stuff or buy old hardware…
I mean you’re probably right, With social media, a lot of places lost meaning and it’s more memes and random noise. But I’d argue that’s not what the internet is about. Specifically internet forums.
But we’re all free to use them however we like. I’m not the Grinch, having fun is a perfectly valid thing to do, and should be part of the equation 😉
Ultimately I like to think I’m not just confined to armchair activism. I’ll mix online activities, real-world activism. I’ll do projects. Our hacker groups helped avoid Chatcontrol and their online actividies have an impact on people’s lives… Stallman changed the world… It’s a thing people can do if they like.
I like LLMbeciles myself.
Standard disclaimer: I do not want to grow up to be like Stallman.
That said, every time I have thought that Stallman was too pedantic about terminology and the risks involved, I have been wrong, so far.
He’s a good barometer to check in with and guage how far we’ve strayed from a lot of the idealism of the 1980s. Someone has to keep the flame alive.
I think it’s AI. The artificial part is key. There’s no real intelligence there, just like there’s no real grass in an artificial lawn.
Historically the “artificial” part of “AI” implied the intelligence was real, but “constructed” or “not naturally evolved”.
Spicy autocorrect
I disagree with this post and with Stallman.
LLMs are AI. What people are actually confused about is what AI is and what the difference between AI and AGI is.
There is no universal definition for AI, but multiple definitions which are mostly very similar: AI is the ability of a software system to perform tasks that typically would involve human intelligence like learning, problem solving, decision making, etc. Since the basic idea is basically that artificial intelligence imitates human intelligence, we would need a universal definition of human intelligence - which we don’t have.
Since this definition is rather broad, there is an additional classification: ANI, artificial narrow intelligence, or weak AI, is an intelligence inferior to human intelligence, which operates purely rule-based and for specific, narrow use cases. This is what LLMs, self-driving cars, assistants like Siri or Alexa fall into. AGI, artificial general intelligence, or strong AI, is an intelligence equal to or comparable to human intelligence, which operates autonomously, based on its perception and knowledge. It can transfer past knowledge to new situations, and learn. It’s a theoretical construct, that we have not achieved yet, and no one knows when or if we will even achieve that, and unfortunately also one of the first things people think about when AI is mentioned. ASI, artificial super intelligence, is basically an AGI but with an intelligence that is superior to a human in all aspects. It’s basically the apex predator of all AI, it’s better, smarter, faster in anything than a human could ever be. Even more theoretical.
Saying LLMs are not AI is plain wrong, and if our goal is a realistic, proper way of working with AI, we shouldn’t be doing the same as the tech bros.
If I’m reading correctly it sounds like you do agree with Stallman’s main point that a casual distinction is needed, you just disagree on the word itself (“ANI” vs “generator”).
No, I think the distinction is already made and there are words for that. Adding additional terms like “generators” or “pretend intelligence” does not help in creating clarity. In my opinion, the current definitions/classifications are enough. I get Stallman’s point, and his definition of intelligence seems to be different from how I would define intelligence, which is probably the main disagreement.
I definitely would call a LLM intelligent. Even though it does not understand the context like a human could do, it is intelligent enough to create an answer that is correct. Doing this by basically pure stochastics is pretty intelligent in my books. My car’s driving assistant, even if it’s not fully self driving, is pretty damn intelligent and understands the situation I’m in, adapting speed, understanding signs, reacting to what other drivers do. I definitely would call that intelligent. Is it human-like intelligence? Absolutely not. But for this specific, narrow use-case it does work pretty damn good.
His main point seems to be breaking the hype, but I do not think that it will or can be achieved like that. This will not convince the tech bros or investors. People who are simply uninformed, will not understand an even more abstract concept.
In my opinion, we should educate people more on where the hype is actually coming from: NVIDIA. Personally, I hate Jensen Huang, but he’s been doing a terrific job as a CEO for NVIDIA, unfortunately. They’ve positioned themselves as a hardware supplier and infrastructure layer for the core component for AI, and are investing/partnering widely into AI providers, hyperscalers, other component suppliers in a circle of cashflow. Any investment they do, they get back multiplied, which also boosts all other related entities. The only thing that went “10x” as promised by AI is NVIDIA stock. They are bringing capex to a whole new level currently.
And that’s what we should be discussing more, instead of clinging to words. Every word that any company claims about AI should automatically be assumed to be a lie, especially for any AI claim from any hyperscaler, AI provider, hardware supplier, and especially-especially from NVIDIA. Every single claim they do directly relates to revenue. Every positive claim is revenue. Every negative word is loss. In this circle of money they are running - we’re talking about thousands of billions USD. People have done way worse, for way less money.
Can you share the prompt you gave to ChatGPT to get this, I have questions and I want to cut out the middle man.
Feel free to ask your questions, I’ll gladly answer them. Before making stupid and smug claims, maybe you should’ve ran my post through literally any AI text detector before embarrassing yourself.
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Just like “atom” means “that you cannot cut”, but turns out you can actually split them into protons, neutrons and electrons. We just called them that way and although the meaning of the name doesn’t match reality, we stick to the term.
Yeah but reasonable people will readily agree that atoms are not “atomic” in the sense of being indivisible.
On the other hand grifters are really out here saying that computers are “intelligent”.
It’s also worth pointing out that people really did think atoms were indivisible but they updated their model based on new evidence. Meanwhile grifters never had any basis for their claims of “intelligence” and they will never change their grift despite overwhelming evidence.
But in your example the scientists didn’t stick to the term “atoms”. New terms were created (“Protons”, “Neutrons” etc) to describe the new thing.
They didn’t abandon the term “atom”, they kept it’s definition and created new words for things that didn’t meet that definition.
A proton, neutron, and orbiting electron is still referred to as a hydrogen atom. The term “atom” was never abandoned.
the meaning doesn’t really matter as long as everybody has the same agreement on what we’re talking about.
But we don’t agree. Tech companies are using the same term to describe ChatGPT and Data from Star Trek when they’re not the same thing.
One of those things can get fucked, the other is a sentient being who (as we all know) does the fucking. Not to mention data was an AI before OpenAI ever existed!
It’s annoying and messy but language evolves and changes.
Hell, there’s a whole category of words that are their own opposite called contronyms. So AI can mean both things and I’d argue makes it a contronym (meaning slop or artificial intelligence depending on context).
If you want to fix it then you need to tackle English as a whole and fix English (which hey I’m right there with you, give me Welsh any day instead).
Intelligence also means the opposite of intelligence? I must not be intelligent enough for this brain wizardry.
“Language evolves and changes” describes evolving and changing language, not keeping it the same. Language evolves into more specific definitions, not less specific.
For example: you might say “LLMs are one form of intelligence”, I don’t agree with that, but it makes logical sense. But claiming “LLMs are the same thing as intelligence” changes the definition of “intelligence” to a much broader umbrella. If you want to change that definition then you also need to invent a new word that means “non-LLM intelligence”.
the meaning doesn’t really matter as long as everybody has the same agreement on what we’re talking about.
There is absolutely no agreement. It’s grifters versus the truthful.
The term “AI” has been used for decades to refer to a broad spectrum of things, often times including algorithms that had nothing to do with machine learning or inference.
Technically, what most of us have a problem with isn’t “AI” as a whole, but just LLMs and how companies are trying to replace people with them. I agree that people should be specific, as there’s a lot of practical application for machine learning and AI that has nothing to do with LLMs.
But you’re not going to get anywhere by trying to change the words people use for these things. We saw a similar thing happen with “smart” home automation devices, and before that it was people complaining about “smartphones” not being actually “smart”. But both of those terms are still in common use.
I don’t think you’ll convince anyone by trying to police the terminology for technical accuracy. The focus should be on the specific problems and harmful effects of how the technology is being used
It changes the argument away from the objective of ethics and safety, and towards the words being used. One can use the inaccurate wording while debating its characteristics and problems. It’s far too late to control what marketing and public ignorance have set. I wasn’t a fan of the AI slop" term, as it’s morphed into a general word or use for dismissing something that’s not liked or agreed on, nowhere near the original narrow meaning. But it’s a word that is now used all the time, and that’s how words are created and become authentic, by usage.
The issue of ethics is still important, even though fixing it is far in the past. We still have to have the discussion. The issue of safety in general for AI is something that has been shelved by both sides, and even though it’s primarily an AGI topic, it still applies to even non-intelligence LLMs and other systems. If we don’t focus on it, it’s a dead end for us. It doesn’t have to be Terminator-like to be bad for civilization, it doesn’t even have to be aware. “Dumb” AI is maybe even worse for us, and yet it’s been embraced as something more.
But if the argument is about what we call it and not what’s actually happening, nothing will be solved. One can refer to it as AI in a discussion and also talk about its actual defining functions (LLM and so forth). It might even make the point stronger instead of deflecting to what it’s called.
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But both of those terms are still in common use… by lying grifters, their collaborators, and their victims.
Personally I don’t use either of these bullshit terms in earnest. I’m not a bullshitter.
