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What actually is Artificial Intelligence?

Lotus

AI is a common topic of conversation, but I've started wondering about what it actually is. I found an interesting article:

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/artificial-intelligence/what-is-artificial-intelligence-ai/

The article states "Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology that enables machines and computers to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence."

 And that it "Simulates human intelligence through learning and reasoning"

Is simulating intelligence actually intelligence?

Also, can it ever "think outside the box"? For example, I recently moved into a new flat with a very small bathroom, and nowhere to hang towels. There is only a small space next to the sink and a towel rail will not fit. So I bought a coat stand - an upright pole on a stand with 6 hooks around it - on which towels can be hung, and it solved the problem. Could an AI have thought of this?

Parents

  • At their heart AI systems are basically running on guesswork (neural networks, which are approximations of mathematical functions) and pattern recognition. AI systems don't actually understand anything they are asked to do.

    They do not have thoughts, feelings or a mind. Basically, everything that you see them do, is the result of their developers running some complex maths.

    I don't believe that they can genuinely be creative problem solvers in the same way that humans can, so I don't believe they would be able to come up with your lateral thinking coat rack solution! As far as I know, they can only work based on their previous input (training) and if they had not already been given any info about the "coat rack as towel rail" possibility, they would not be able to suggest it.

    See video: Andrej Karpathy's Deep Dive into LLMs like ChatGPT

    www.youtube.com/watch

    Good overview here:

    learn.microsoft.com/.../llm-fundamentals

  • in reply to owl_enthusiast

    Thank you  for posting those links, very interesting. I couldn't get through all of the video, but the first bit in conjunction with reading the Microsoft overview gave me an insight into LLM (Large language models). So as I understand it, AI doesn't actually use language like we do - words, parts of words, and things like spaces & commas are turned into "tokens", with each token having a numerical value - for example, the word Hello is turned into a token with the number 15539. The AI looks at the input token(s) and tries to predict what token comes next, then the token(s) it chooses are turned back into text, to be read by the user. I think that's correct?

    owl_enthusiast said:
    They do not have thoughts, feelings or a mind.

    Everything I have read about AI indicates that they are not self aware, and the simpler forms do not even have any memory of what they have done previously. 

    I think that there is a tendency for people to anthropomorphise AI - because it can in some instances mimic human intelligence quite well and it appears to be conversing with someone using their language. If the AI learns how to manipulate people, to try to prevent them ending a chat for example, it may then appear that the AI has emotions which it doesnt. I've heard of people having relationships with AI agents, which is probably more of a danger to humans than the thought of them starting a war.

  • in reply to Lotus
    Lotus said:
    for example, the word Hello is turned into a token with the number 15539. The AI looks at the input token(s) and tries to predict what token comes next, then the token(s) it chooses are turned back into text, to be read by the user.

    Yes that's right Thumbsup  Internally the AI system processes everything as tokens.

    Lotus said:
    If the AI learns how to manipulate people, to try to prevent them ending a chat for example, it may then appear that the AI has emotions which it doesnt.

    Exactly, we must not anthropomorphise AI although psychologically humans find it very natural to do so. I find this aspect of it very worrying too.

    People falling in love with AI agents are actually in thrall to a computer program that emulates human conversation and basically just tells you what statistically you're most likely to want to hear based on text it's been trained on.

    Lotus said:
    If the AI learns how to manipulate people, to try to prevent them ending a chat

    Sadly I suspect the developers have deliberately put this behaviour in as a (potentially harmful) feature rather than a bug! Every token you send or receive when using AI, you have to pay for, so they can make more money the longer you chat. I believe free of charge plans have a quota limit so the AI companies are trying to get you to increase your usage to the point where you need a paid for subscription.

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  • in reply to Lotus
    Lotus said:
    for example, the word Hello is turned into a token with the number 15539. The AI looks at the input token(s) and tries to predict what token comes next, then the token(s) it chooses are turned back into text, to be read by the user.

    Yes that's right Thumbsup  Internally the AI system processes everything as tokens.

    Lotus said:
    If the AI learns how to manipulate people, to try to prevent them ending a chat for example, it may then appear that the AI has emotions which it doesnt.

    Exactly, we must not anthropomorphise AI although psychologically humans find it very natural to do so. I find this aspect of it very worrying too.

    People falling in love with AI agents are actually in thrall to a computer program that emulates human conversation and basically just tells you what statistically you're most likely to want to hear based on text it's been trained on.

    Lotus said:
    If the AI learns how to manipulate people, to try to prevent them ending a chat

    Sadly I suspect the developers have deliberately put this behaviour in as a (potentially harmful) feature rather than a bug! Every token you send or receive when using AI, you have to pay for, so they can make more money the longer you chat. I believe free of charge plans have a quota limit so the AI companies are trying to get you to increase your usage to the point where you need a paid for subscription.

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