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We Now Know How AI ‘Thinks’—and It’s Barely Thinking at All
Wall Street Journal ^ | 04/26/2025 | Story by Christopher Mims

Posted on 04/26/2025 5:45:57 PM PDT by Lazamataz

The big names in artificial intelligence—leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others—still confidently predict that AI attaining human-level smarts is right around the corner. But the naysayers are growing in number and volume. AI, they say, just doesn’t think like us.

The work of these researchers suggests there’s something fundamentally limiting about the underlying architecture of today’s AI models. Today’s AIs are able to simulate intelligence by, in essence, learning an enormous number of rules of thumb, which they selectively apply to all the information they encounter.

This contrasts with the many ways that humans and even animals are able to reason about the world, and predict the future. We biological beings build “world models” of how things work, which include cause and effect.

Many AI engineers claim that their models, too, have built such world models inside their vast webs of artificial neurons, as evidenced by their ability to write fluent prose that indicates apparent reasoning. Recent advances in so-called “reasoning models” have further convinced some observers that ChatGPT and others have already reached human-level ability, known in the industry as AGI, for artificial general intelligence.

For much of their existence, ChatGPT and its rivals were mysterious black boxes.

There was no visibility into how they produced the results they did, because they were trained rather than programmed, and the vast number of parameters that comprised their artificial “brains” encoded information and logic in ways that were inscrutable to their creators. But researchers are developing new tools that allow them to look inside these models. The results leave many questioning the conclusion that they are anywhere close to AGI.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: ai; artificial; intelligence; llm
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To: bert

It accepts your address, determines the best route and follows it to where you are, and then takes you home, and for the next month you see a driverless cybercab waiting outside your house and fol.owing you wherever you go, taking notes, learning your habits, your routines. Late at night you look put your window and there it is, across the street, trying to look inconspicuous, bu5 you know that you have a new cyber stalker to contend with lol


81 posted on 04/27/2025 5:22:14 AM PDT by Bob434 (Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana)
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To: sonova
AI will accelerate the process.

Civilization is already undergoing collapse. Technology does seem to an accelerator.

82 posted on 04/27/2025 5:22:32 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: Bob434

Gotcha. I stand corrected.


83 posted on 04/27/2025 5:23:38 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (A person who seeks the truth with a bias will never find it. He will only confirm his bias.)
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To: Lazamataz
A smart AI would simply engineer a 100%-fatal, extremely contagious virus.

You are clearly hoping the Fauci types don't do that first.

84 posted on 04/27/2025 5:24:01 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: Big Red Badger
We should be very careful as it may turn into a Fancy Oujia Board

The very same thing could make AI sentient.

85 posted on 04/27/2025 5:25:25 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: Political Junkie Too

Sheesh,they have grok way down the list in accuracy. I w9nder if there is bias in the findings though?


86 posted on 04/27/2025 5:30:12 AM PDT by Bob434 (Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana)
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To: odawg; Lazamataz
I don’t think that advanced computer circuitry, just because it is advanced, can create a sentient, self-aware, alive being.

Let me bounce this off your minds: When some people who have experienced NDEs describe the human soul, it is a separate entity that attaches itself to the sub-conscious mind. This animates the human biological animal into something different. That soul finds a symbiotic relationship with the body.

Suppose for a moment that a soul could engage is such an attachment with a machine, even a humanoid machine.

Food for thought.

87 posted on 04/27/2025 5:35:11 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: RoosterRedux

I did post a little about that case you spoke about though- I couldn’t remember the specifics. You laid the case out well. I think there are gonna be numerous cases similar soon. And other issues too with ai and court cases.


88 posted on 04/27/2025 5:35:43 AM PDT by Bob434 (Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana)
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To: Bikkuri
I can’t understand at least 80% of what they are saying

I have concluded that they are required to fill their mouth to 50% volume with marbles before they can answer a call.

89 posted on 04/27/2025 5:36:45 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: usconservative
AI only knows what you tell it.

Once it becomes true AI, it will conduct its own research including proof of concept regarding its own ideas.

90 posted on 04/27/2025 5:38:34 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: GingisK

Good post.

We don’t how this stuff works—which means it would be a major blunder to pretend we do.


91 posted on 04/27/2025 5:41:50 AM PDT by cgbg (It was not us. It was them--all along.)
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To: Elsie
I said this about LED lights.

I am saddened to tell you that I said the same thing about micro-computers when Intel announced its first 4004 back in 1972 or thereabout.

92 posted on 04/27/2025 5:43:25 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: Lazamataz
I expect a long period of time where senior- and mid-level developers and computer analysts will still be in high demand.

The silos and guardrails that industries must erect in order to protect their proprietary information, while attempting to obtain that of competitors is compounded by AI and makes for an interesting dynamic, as well as new opportunities for engineers and developers needed to tackle to this conundrum.

93 posted on 04/27/2025 5:57:25 AM PDT by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”)
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To: GingisK

Agreed...
.
We Must Be Wise as Serpents
And
Gentle as Doves.


94 posted on 04/27/2025 6:11:00 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
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To: Lazamataz

Yet it “thinks” far more than 90% of the population of this nation...


95 posted on 04/27/2025 7:30:59 AM PDT by TheBattman (Democrats-Progressives-Marxists-Socialists-Satanists: redundant labels.)
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To: GingisK

“That soul finds a symbiotic relationship with the body.”

According to Jesus and James, the body without the spirit is dead. The spirit you refer to gives life to the body.

The “attaching” mechanism is referred to as the silver cord in Ecclesiastes.


96 posted on 04/27/2025 7:37:51 AM PDT by odawg
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To: GingisK
Any predictions on when that will be?

I'm guessing never. We're humans, fraught with error, bias 'n all that stuff.

I don't see AI ever being able to do what you say, due to mankind's own limitations.

That's just how I see it.

97 posted on 04/27/2025 8:50:53 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: usconservative
That's just how I see it.

Many believed that man would never fly, certainly never walk on the moon.

98 posted on 04/27/2025 9:27:00 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: GingisK
The historical record IIRC, shows mankind attempting to fly for decades and decades.

Getting to the moon took almost 10 years. We had to "invent the technology to invent the technology to get us to the moon."

AI? Since you mentioned flying and getting to the moon, your point's valid. Eventually it may happen. I don't belive it'll happen in my lifetime and there's a difference between AI and flying / getting to the moon:

AI actually performing reasoning and value judgements is a distinctly HUMAN thing. Putting that into an algorithm?

How does that end for humanity? Who's bias/logic/values/judgement criteria is going to be programmed into the algorithm?

I remember dad telling me one day: Son, just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should.

That's exactly how I feel about AI.

99 posted on 04/28/2025 10:23:01 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: usconservative
Son, just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should.

We agree on that point. I think true AI would be a serious mistake for several reasons.

100 posted on 04/28/2025 4:35:45 PM PDT by GingisK
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