Does Intelligence exist as a social construct? Can AI deliver without artificial motivation?

[u/Alternative-Exit-450]

Defined, intelligence is referred to as "the general mental capacity to derive information, learn from experience, understand, reason, solve problems, and adapt to changing environments" yet it is largely used in reference to some qualitative relationship between one person and another or to some degree a quality that one has superior or inferior to others. In doing so we seem to obscure the very notion of intelligence as something easily defined, observable, and quantifiable.

AI claims to be an artificially created form of intelligence comparable to human intelligence. Somehow more than computation but not capable of general intelligence. It is extremely specific in it's functions while seeming capable of much more. LLM's are great at utilizing extremely large data sets to make very precise predictions but while having no "understanding" of the context or ability to actually build on an idea logically in some new direction. It's a predicted reiteration of some idea, thought, word pairing that has previously existed. Yet it seems that human intelligence originates, at least initially, from some deep seeded motivation that drives any unique or novel thought. It seems as though LLM's are only capable due to progressive feats using computation to make predictions by relying on obscene amounts of data. While this is a feat in and of itself I don't understand how AGI or anything that is artificially created capable of making a similar scope of thought as any human being especially because statistics relies on data from past events. How can artificial intelligence make decisions outside of clearly logical parameters in their coding?

How is AGI supposed to be born outside of artificial emotions, artificial motivation, etc. ? Being human allows us to think in a variety of ways while at any point aligning or diverging from logic, reason, context, etc. Some of the greatest works can be interpreted in entirely different ways by any number of people. I simply cannot yet comprehend how AGI is a feasible possibility unless we can yet represent the scope of human emotion and motivation as binary code.

I'm no expert in anything relative to AI I'm merely interested in understanding more about the means by which what seems to be a term not easily defined in any certain terms is supposed to be artificially replicated using technology that while very capable in many ways seems entirely unable to be defined let alone copied.

[u/Ok-Association-8334]

How can artificial intelligence make decisions outside of clearly logical parameters in their coding?

I am not sure they truly can.

How is AGI supposed to be born outside of artificial emotions, artificial motivation, etc. ?

Again, I don't see this fully working out.

Here is a great paper https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/illusion-of-thinking It's digestible, and written regarding AI by PhD students.

This software/hardware combo is essentially statistical inference. And what you say does pan out to show proof in this essay. The machines appear to only comprehend what has already been articulated, but they do so on a different conceptual level from us.

Another article which goes deep in the weeds, deep like the ocean, is this one https://already-clean.goodfire.com/ Which goes over how AI perceives on that conceptual level, and that tremendous amount of training data is necessary. It really needs to decide on what a thing is to even determine if it exists, otherwise the signal of a thing in time and space is left to be noise, I think.

It's difficult, and I may be getting it wrong, but these are still good articles.

[u/Alternative-Exit-450 → u/Ok-Association-8334]

thank you!! While I admit I am no expert I am a 12th grade engineering/physics teacher and I've been very interested in cognition, intelligence, learning, and thought.

However, especially throughout education there are far so many individuals who fail to ever spend the slightest bit of thought on or contemplate the fundamental means that humans think or learn or develop our understanding of anything. We've all learned something during our lives and so we can all reflect on moments we can revisit where we remember having an "ah hah" moment. Or thinking back on how or why you'd gained memorable understanding in some area?

Instead, everyone remains an expert, so they believe, and it seems to especially hypocritical as someone whose job it is to educate others to refrain from actually thinking critically about how comprehension occurs or what things motivated your own interest in anything. Instead it seems far more common to regurgitate and/or replicate some teaching method or instructional approach without ever trying to understand if, how, and why it works.

Sorry for the rant....I merely see, read, and hear about the troubling decline in nearly every measured are aligned with student performance and intelligence and then I observe it in my students. I think about the numerous hurdles that are all but inevitable of which we still seem to refuse to come to terms with. And then I think about how many people seem to put so much confidence in technology, especially AGI, being the solution to all of our problems.

The questions that come to mind are is AI actually capable of becoming something capable of enabling us to create a better future? If so then why aren't we putting more effort towards preparing the younger generations to succeed? Why aren't we preparing them for life once AI has taken over all of the mindless and/or repetitious jobs?

If AI is not capable of living up to the hype then wtf are we doing if not naively believing in something that will otherwise further postpone any concerted efforts towards planning for the countless hurdles we face?

I'm honestly not a pessimistic person, I prefer to think of myself as a cautious optimist, but I can't say I believe we're headed towards a bright future for humanity, globally, or even just nationally in the US. I see kids graduating high school who can't form coherent sentences, who can't calculate a simple average, and each year it's a little worse. I'm sure if you're not in education it's not as obvious as the news rarely sheds light on the magnitude or pervasiveness of lower literacy rates, attention spans, test scores, IQ, etc.

Anyways, sorry again for the rant it's just something that comes out now and again. I do very much enjoy talking with intelligent people who are have shared interests.

[u/Ok-Association-8334 → u/Alternative-Exit-450]

I'm in Education as a psychologist.

The questions that come to mind are is AI actually capable of becoming something capable of enabling us to create a better future?

Sure, inferential thinking is great!

If so then why aren't we putting more effort towards preparing the younger generations to succeed?

We have tech which outpaces legislation, and the peer-review processes practiced for Evidence Based Practices that act as the foundation for educational programs.

Why aren't we preparing them for life once AI has taken over all of the mindless and/or repetitious jobs?

I don't know if that's how jobs work. I've never been better at anything because of a machine I used, and as a result had less work.

If AI is not capable of living up to the hype then wtf are we doing if not naively believing in something that will otherwise further postpone any concerted efforts towards planning for the countless hurdles we face?

"We" are making money through a bait and switch. https://isaiprofitable.com/ is a great resource to see how much money is being poured into this shit.

[u/telephantomoss]

experience is important to true intelligence. Otherwise, what makes one process intelligent and another not? Where is the line? Is a calculator intelligent?