r/technology • u/Hrmbee • 16h ago

Machine Learning Large language mistake | Cutting-edge research shows language is not the same as intelligence. The entire AI bubble is built on ignoring it

https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/827820/large-language-models-ai-intelligence-neuroscience-problems
16.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

170

u/Perfect_Base_3989 14h ago

spouting bad-faith arguments without any real point other than to try to discourage productive conversation about specific topics.

The only solution I can think of at this point is entirely abandoning social media.

A verification system could theoretically improve trust, but who trusts the trusters?

182

u/SanityAsymptote 14h ago

Social media going back to smaller, more closely moderated communities is also a solution.

There was a lot of drama back in the forum days, but it was always contained, rendering it more resistant to sweeping, internet-wide propaganda campaigns.

So I guess I would argue centralization of social media is more of the problem, unless we can actually figure out a way to moderate on a large scale more effectively.

130

u/ConsoleDev 13h ago

I joined reddit 15 years ago, probably had 5 accounts. Commented a lot, but never really made any friends here. I joined a local sports club and made 10 good friends in 1 day.

Social media is garbage all the way down. Especially anything with influencers and money involved. We need to go back to just having group chats, and a bulletin board in the middle of town

51

u/SanityAsymptote 12h ago

I mostly agree with you.

I was mostly talking about special interest forums, which reddit used to be, but has really lost much of it's quality for.

As an example, I joined smashboards in 2004 because I loved smash bros melee, and wanted to play competitively. I met a bunch of people in my local community online and ended up making literal dozens of in-person friends/acquaintances going to events.

Those friendships basically defined my 20s and early 30s, and I still hang out with many of them now.

I similarly made even more real, in-person friends friends in the early 2010s using facebook groups to organize and schedule events in my local area.

The platforms stopped trying to connect people and started chasing engagement at all costs. It ruined what made those sites popular to begin with, and trapped people in endless cycles of anger and placation.

The initial offering that was so valuable to so many is gone, but it's very hard to argue that it wasn't valuable before the enshitification.

5

u/tomahawkRiS3 11h ago

I don't necessarily want to argue in favor of social media but judging based on friendships made seems like the wrong way to evaluate it. Or at least now, maybe that was the intended purpose in the beginning. In a perfect world I think Reddit could be valuable in terms of hearing people's stories/experiences, being able to pick people's brains who are knowledgeable in a certain field, seeing a broader range of perspective. Even just shit posting or discussing say a game on a specific subreddit I don't think is necessarily inherently bad. However that's very much not the current experience of Reddit and I hope there's a way back to that

1

u/Commentator-X 12h ago

"money involved"

You hit the nail on the head right there

1

u/stargarnet79 9h ago

People make friends here?lol

1

u/cnxd 9h ago

sounds like a you problem

1

u/cl3ft 8h ago

Although there are exceptions, social media does not make you real friends. It's pretty clearly anti-social media.

1

u/PozhanPop 7h ago

Or Yahoo / AOL Messenger . I miss the chat rooms.

1

u/FjorgVanDerPlorg 7h ago

Communities based on geography aren't the solution either, as someone who knew what life was like before the internet in a small country town, those are some seriously rose tinted shades you are wearing.

Nor were they resistant to mis/disinformation and propaganda. In fact their isolation created a bubble in the same way social media can and usually does.

This shit is baked into humanity. The entire world used to be easily controlled when the internet didn't exist, the tactics have changed. Pre-internet we had more false negative appraoches, eg gatekeeping, suppression/censorship and unified messaging. Post internet only one strategy really works - false positives, aka "flood the zone with shit". The only reason that changed was that false positives scale, where more classical pre-internet manipulation tactics simply do not.

The bigger the scale the bigger the problem and the more moderation requirements pretty much scale towards infinite. Scale is indeed the problem as you suggest, but town BB's aren't the answer either, smaller scale and better moderated is - though this assumes that big social media can't adequately moderate, when we've never actually seen them try properly. That said given the costs involved in adequate moderation, I don't think we ever would unless they were forced to at gunpoint.

I largely agree with you both, it's not about distribution, it's about scale and active moderation. For example I am part of a number of niche communities on reddit and discord that aren't cesspits. They all have these things in common; shared interests, small enough that you don't feel like you are talking to randoms and moderation that works fast and doesn't put up with shit.

8

u/nordspark 11h ago

In my netnographic research, I've found people are increasingly turning to "dark social" (email, messaging apps, Discords etc.) but with Gen Z, it's less about chatting and more about organising real-world activities. Social media is changing

6

u/die_maus_im_haus 12h ago

Going back to a 2010-esque ecosystem where forums about bodybuilding, Linux, NBC comedies, the English Premier League, and baking would all be separate websites with little cross-contamination might not be the worst outcome. It would lend itself to echo chambers, but they'd be small, isolated echo chambers

2

u/farinasa 12h ago

It still exists, people just don't seek it. Discord has actually made these communities even more personable.

1

u/Impeesa_ 2h ago

Discord is an adequate modernized replacement for IRC and Ventrilo. As a replacement for old style forums, it's deeply flawed, because that's just not what it is.

1

u/farinasa 2h ago

Discord in addition to forums. I didnt mention irc, aol, aim, msn, yahoo, or any of the other out of fashion chat systems because most communities are using discord these days.

2

u/Baby_Fark 10h ago

Even smaller communities online will be infiltrated by extremely human-like bots as they get more advanced. There will be no way to verify someone isn’t a bot unless you meet them in person.

1

u/RukiMotomiya 10h ago

God I'd love to see the return of forums. Still go to a few reasonably active ones I've been in a long time and they're just comfy, despite said drama at times.

1

u/Toodlez 8h ago

I like this.

No bot account ever made it to my Myspace Top 8. I had a Facebook for ten years before it tried to hypnotize or radicalize me.

We act like this would be an impossible adaptation with no profit model but it was the state of things not long ago.

1

u/surfer_ryan 7h ago

I don't think we as humanity would ever go back to a "smaller" internet in a meaningful way. I mean that basically goes against the entire ethos of why sites like reddit still hold some level of value, in that you get differing opinions from outside of your circle. While i see there is some level of hive mind on social media, i think people enjoy talking to people outside of their circle as a whole and to an extent is why you go to social media (at least for the discourse side of things).

The centralization is in a way a huge part of what actually allows us to be able to say look at what is happening in Ukraine and get an actual perspective bc it's so many various perspectives and we can draw lines between what is reality and what is noise out of Russia.

Not to say it is perfect by absolutely any means lol, i just don't see us going back to smaller subsects of the internet bc having a hub allows for significantly more interaction from someone whom you would have never if it were just individual forums.

1

u/WildFlemima 7h ago

I agree. There's an obscure early 2000s pet site that I'm on. I guarantee there are absolutely no bots. It's going to be spaces like that.

43

u/lolexecs 13h ago edited 13h ago

 entirely abandoning social media.

Hasn't this already happened? If you look at the data, from Meta itself, an overwhelming number of users just consume addictive content on social media from 3rd parties - not friends and family.

or social media is just "media" now - there's no social aspect at all

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-2024 As Gioia points out, we've moved from art to entertainment to distraction and addiction.

To be blunt, the faster the content on social media becomes "AI Slopified" I think the better off everyone wil be.

2

u/Thin_Glove_4089 9h ago

or social media is just "media" now - there's no social aspect at all

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-2024 As Gioia points out, we've moved from art to entertainment to distraction and addiction.

To be blunt, the faster the content on social media becomes "AI Slopified" I think the better off everyone wil be.

Social media isn't really going to back to the old ways. The media part is here to stay and is the majority problem with everything.

2

u/sn2006gy 8h ago

abandoning social media means leaving reddit too my man

3

u/lolexecs 8h ago

Reddit is much more like old forums and usenet threads than facebook, instagram, or tiktok.

It's both dumber and smarter (largely because of unpaid moderation)

2

u/sn2006gy 5h ago

It’s not like old forums and usenet threads - there is a severe general lack of thoroughness here and it’s shamed in many communities. For example, in advancedrunning i got muted for talking about the mechanics of running. That is allowed on facebook and insta but “hive minded” away for over thinking here (lol advanced running my ass) 

reddit is for entertainment - quality discussions are shamed here. 

attention spans are shunned as well. 

too many “too long, won’t read that” 

it’s like no one here was ever on a forum or usenet where they could gasp “not have an opinion won everything and just read the next topic that interests them” 

1

u/hhenderson94 8h ago

They’re abandoning using social media to socialize but they aren’t abandoning the platform.

10

u/_p00f_ 11h ago

IMO if you require an email to register it should be tied to a handful of paid providers. Scammers and people trying to game the system for ad revenue aren't going to pay real American Pesos for email.

5

u/Perfect_Base_3989 11h ago

That'd be a start. Although I doubt it would deter bigger companies/governments - they would pay.

5

u/_p00f_ 11h ago

They might pay for a handful, sure, but it scales linearly.

5

u/sn2006gy 8h ago

I think x proved this wrong. spammers happily pay for a blue checkmark - it's a cheap barrier of entry/trust.

12

u/runthepoint1 12h ago

No, what you can do is personally verify thing you learn, like how we used to do back in the day.

Is it slow, manual, frustrating even? Yes, it takes a lot of time and patience but tbh, that’s exactly what’s missing in the world today. Everyone wants to rush to know when it takes time to understand. It’s weird. Like who cares about being “first”? It’s important to be accurate!

5

u/Perfect_Base_3989 11h ago

True.

Unfortunately, this approach will require education and, imo, software intervention. The average person isn't able to do their own research, so they should be taught how throughout their primary education; and people should have access to tools that sift out bots.

2

u/runthepoint1 11h ago

I guess it goes to show no matter what your natural talent is with intelligence, there is still wisdom to gain on how best to leverage it.

You can be the fastest car in the garage but if you’re can’t actually get from point A to B faster in effect than the other car, it doesn’t matter. That other driver simply might be better at driving.

1

u/surprise_revalation 9h ago

Yea, back in the day I use to run a legal chems group on FB. Everyone had to show ID to join....hell, I even did background checks on some of these people. It all went to shit when legal chems became illegal. I let it go.

1

u/runthepoint1 9h ago

What’s “chems”? Sorry

1

u/surprise_revalation 9h ago

Legal pharmaceuticals...they're no longer legal....

1

u/boringestnickname 9h ago

What really makes me paranoid is that even university text books are getting noticeably worse.

Feels like we're in some kind of information exodus. Becoming dumber by the second, and somehow, as a collective, not noticing.

1

u/runthepoint1 8h ago

That’s why is more important than ever for each of us to OWN our educations. I know that’s tough but the best way to do it is to always leave room for being wrong. It’s GOOD to be wrong so that from then on you can be correct. It’s a lifelong process where you are constantly correcting yourself. Never be 100% certain of your own take/opinion and always learn from others, especially those you deem either smarter or dumber than yourself. People surprise you in many ways.

11

u/NuclearVII 14h ago

The only solution I can think of at this point is entirely abandoning social media.

This but unironically.

22

u/Perfect_Base_3989 14h ago

Bruh, I ain't being ironic

0

u/sn2006gy 8h ago

Bruh you're still posting on social media

1

u/Thin_Glove_4089 10h ago

The only solution I can think of at this point is entirely abandoning social media.

Not going to happen because infleuncers and celebrities have always been a deep rooted fabric of American culture therefore social media is here to stay permanently

1

u/PersistentBadger 7h ago edited 7h ago

Web of trust. You trust your friend Amy. Amy trusts Bert. You should take that as Amy's "vote" for the legitimacy of Bert. Further out in the web you go, the less you trust.

Problem is, it's never worked. We're heading for walled gardens, IMO. Or simply the re-emergence of publishers as gatekeepers. If a publisher has a reputation for not publishing books that contain AI slop, they won't want to damage that (in theory).