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.
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.
Speaking about AI, Stallman warned that “nowadays, people often use the term artificial intelligence for things that aren’t intelligent at all…”
Ah… Something just dawned on me.
Didn’t he … I think I’ll just quote Wackypedia for this:
In 1971, near the end of his first year at Harvard, he became a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory …
In 1971 there was nothing that was intelligent at all in the world of computing. (And, as is normal, in 99.44% of humanity. This is a constant. 😉) It’s almost as if the term “Artificial Intelligence” has never meant, you know, actual intelligence. And it goes on:
He pursued a doctorate in physics for one year, but left the program to focus on his programming at the MIT AI Laboratory.
[…] in September 1983. Since then, he had remained affiliated with MIT as an unpaid “visiting scientist” in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Until “around 1998”, he maintained an office at the Institute that doubled as his legal residence.
That’s an awful lot of “not intelligent at all” places he’s worked for or been affiliated with that use the term artificial intelligence…
Yeah “AI” was always a marketing term to drum up grant money and investor interest.
It was always and only meant to trick people into thinking that it meant “actual intelligence”
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.
Ive started solely referring to them as LLM
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).
I like LLMbeciles myself.
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.
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.
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 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.
“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
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
