@ngaylinn@tech.lgbt If you stuck a human infant into the same "learning environment" as an LLM being trained, they would not learn English. This simple-minded thought experiment demonstrates to me that LLM-based AI, or really anything in machine learning that has this form of training, is not and cannot be a model of human intelligence. Pretending a computer is a human baby doesn't help either but that's another conversation!I too have been struck by the apparent lack of curiosity of our colleagues. One tentative conclusion I've come to is that there is a subspecies of STEM folks driven largely by impressive demos. I feel like this tendency reflects the perversities of short-termist economic thinking, but in any case the view is a splashy demo that makes it into Nature and the NYT but has shoddy science backing it is superior to excellent science that has no splashy demo. The field "progresses" from one impressive demo to the next. Pollack used to say things along these lines, but that's no surprise given that he founded the DEMO lab: it's right there in the name! I think that mindset is not uncommon, though. Even those who agree the science is important run up against the constraint that there's significantly more funding for flashy demos than for basic research.
