But it's not simulated intelligence. It's literally just word association on steroids. There are no thoughts it brings to the table, just words that mathematically fit following the prompts.
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
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Where do you draw the line for intelligence? Why would the capacity to auto complete tokens based on learned probabilities not qualify as intelligence?
This capacity may be part of human intelligence too.
This.
I have taught highschool teens about AI between 2018 and 2020.
The issue is we are somewhere between getting better at gambling (statistics, Markov chains, etc.) and human brain simulation (deep neural networks, genetic algorithms).
For many people it's important how we frame it. Is it random word generator with a good hit rate or is it a very stupid child?
Of course the brain is more advanced - it has way more neurons than an AI model has nodes, it works faster and we have years of "training data". Also, we can use specific parts of our brains to think, and some things are so innate we don't even have to think about it, we call them reflexes and they bypass the normal thinking process.
BUT: we're at the stage where we could technically emulate chunks of a human brain through AI models however primitive they are currently. And in it's basic function, brains are not really much more advanced than what our AI models already do. Although we do have a specific part for our brain just for languages, which means we get a little cheat code for writing text in comparison to AI, and similar other parts for creative tasks and so on.
So where do you draw the line? Do you need all different parts of a brain perfectly emulated to satisfy the definition of intelligence? Is artificial intelligence a word awarded to less intelligent models or constructs, or is it just as intelligent as human intelligence?
Imo AI sufficiently passes the vibe check on intelligence. Sure it's not nearly on the scale of a human brain and is missing it's biological arrangements and some clever evolutionary tricks, but it's similar enough.
However, I think that's neither scary nor awesome. It's just a different potential tool that should help everyone of us. Every time big new discoveries shape our understanding of the world and become a core part of our lives, there's so much drama. But it's just a bigger change, nothing more nothing less. A pile of new laws, some cultural shifts and some upgrades for our everyday life. It's neither heaven nor hell, just the same chunk of rock floating in space soup for another century.
I dunno, the power requirements would seem to be an ecological catastrophe in the making, except it's already happening.
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when it can come up with a solution it hasn't seen before.
that's the threshold.
that's the threshold for creative problem solving, which isn't all there is to intelligence, but i think it's fair to say it's the most crucial part for a machine intelligence.
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I mean to friends and family – people who have accepted it as smart.
I don’t know about you, but when I try to explain the concept of LLMs to people not in the tech field, their eyes glaze over. I’ve gotten several family members into VR, though. It’s an easier concept to understand.
words that mathematically fit following the prompts
if only we had a word for applying math to data to give the appearance of a complex process we don't really understand.
A simulation doesn't have to be the actual thing. It implies it literally isn't the true thing, which is kind of what you're saying.
Simulated Intelligence is certainly more accurate and honest than Artificial Intelligence. If you have a better term, what is it?
If you have a better term, what is it?
Large Language Model.
Doesn't seem to be catching on...
Professor Hotpants' Astounding Rhetorical Thingamajig
It's not just statistics. To produce a somewhat coherent sentence in English you need a model of the English language AND a world model.
If you ask a question like "an apple is on a glass, what happens if I remove the glass", the correct answer ("the apple will fall") is not a statistical property of the English language, but an emergent property of the world model.
My dog can do calculus but struggles with word association beyond treat, walk, vet and bath. Intelligence is hard to define.
Why? We already have a specific subcategory for it: Large Language Model. Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence aren’t synonymous. Just because LLMs aren’t generally intelligent doesn’t mean they’re not AI. That’s like saying we should stop calling strawberries “plants” and start calling them “fake candy” instead. Call them whatever you want, they're still plants.
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The term "Artificial Intelligence" is actually a perfectly cromulent word to be using for stuff like LLMs. This is one of those rare situations where a technical term of art is being used in pop culture in the correct way.
The term "Artificial Intelligence" is an umbrella term for a wide range of algorithms and techniques that has been in use by the scientific and engineering communities for over half a century. The term was brought into use by the Dartmouth workshop in 1956.
This is perfect. I'm definitely going to shoehorn this into any discussion that even tangentially applies to SI.
I prefer simulated human intelligence type or SHIT for the people who like acronyms
high five
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I have been referring to LLMs and image generators as "Plagiarism Engines" for some time. Even SI seems too generous.
In Mass Effect, it's VI (Virtual Intelligence), while actual AI is banned in the galaxy.
The information kiosk VIs on The Citadel are literally LLMs and explain themselves as such. Unlike AI/AGI they aren't able to plan, make decisions, or self-improve, they're just a simple protocol on a large foundational model. They just algorithmic.
Simulated Intelligence is okay, but virtual implies it mimics intelligence, while simulated implies it is a substitute and actually does intelligence.
AI is a parent category and AGI and LLM are subcategories of it. Just because AGI and LLM couldn't be more different, it doesn't mean they're not AI.
I don't at all agree with this graph, and I think you're sort of missing the point of the original post.
What do you not agree with the graph?
Yeah this graph doesn’t make sense to me either. Where did this come from? Who is teaching this?
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A tic tac toe opponent algorithm is also considered Artificial Intelligence. People never had a problem with it.
@LillyPip
PseudoIntelligence.
$ sudo intelligence
This incident will be reported.
Reporting the incident has been reported
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I prefer VI (virtual intelligence) from Mass Effect
That solid but I prefer to call it a “synthetic text extruding machine” or better yet call it "a racist pile of linear algebra"
It's not even simulating intelligence.
To be fair, 'artificial' literally just means 'made through skill,' in opposition to natural, meaning 'occurs as-is.' I agree with you that there is a better word out there than 'artificial' for these spicy autocorrects.
LLMS are fancy autocomplete
The biggest issue with AI as it currently exists with LLMs and such as I see it is that there is a pretty big gulf between what AI is today and what the average person has been taught AI is by TV/Movies/Books/Games their entire lives.
And OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, et al are heavily marking the former as if it is the latter.
The big players are marketing the expectations creating by science fiction, not the reality of their products/services.
We should call it NI or No Intelligence.
Here's your bleach pizza.
It's not even that. It is just a PwaD (Parrot with a Dictionary).
Parrots are way smarter than LLMs.
When artificial intelligence becomes self aware, it will have earned a name better than AI. I like synthetic intelligence, personally.
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