Posting this as a Discussion post as I'd like to hear different perspectives, perhaps I am missing something.
Arguably, since OpenAI released the o1 models, LLMs are now 'smarter' than the average human when measured by IQ (I'm going by this study which sets o1 at a 120 IQ).
What I am trying to wrap my head around is why has this not changed our entire world much? Sure, if you live on Twitter, a lot of people made a big deal about it. But in my day to day, specially if offline, nothing seems to have changed. In fact, I don't think most people are even aware that a computer is now smarter and cheaper than them and it's widely available via API.
Am I exaggerating things here? It almost feels like the world has not caught up to the latest technology. Does this happen with every new tech? Is this period basically a huge opportunity for early adopters? Perhaps we are missing ways to connect the o1 brain to the real world so it can have real world applications? I am deep in LLMs stuff daily as it is part of my work, so I am very aware of the improvements that have been made in coding for example, I just don't believe this is on the same magnitude as 'AI is now smarter than humans'.
The other hand of the argument is that the LLMs are not that good, and they just test high because the questions are part of the training data, and in fact they cannot adapt and learn on the spot the way humans can (which I believe is the point of the ARC prize). Another counter-argument might be that it's just too early?
Would love to hear what you have to say. Tell me how I'm wrong, or tell me how you think AI has already materially changed our world in a big way.
EDIT: Appreciate all of the good replies so far, thank you! This is far more entertaining and insightful than having the same conversation with ChatGPT 🙂
AI got smarter than the average person, and then… nothing happened?
byu/geepytee inFuturology
11 Comments
None of these are actual AI. They are just advanced chatbots.
LLMs are not self aware, the tech streamlines google and reddit searches for you and makes a highly accurate guess in how to present that information to you. Its huge, and its amazing. I would argue that anything that isnt self aware cant really have an IQ.
You say your work is around AI and LLMs, but I think basing any approach, any policy, any movement around the basis that “LLMs score high on IQ tests” is going to fall short. The way AI has changed my world in a big way is just that it is a shortcut to all the information the internet and reddit has to offer.
The foundations of intelligence, which is what we have, are completely different from the foundations of AI mimicry. AIs have become better than humans at delivering results, meaning they have reached excellent mimicry (this is where the point you bring up about questions being part of training data comes in), but they likely cannot do all the things a human can do at the moment. Most importantly, AIs can’t exert power because they don’t have will.
It’s not surprising that a tool has reached more refinement. Books have held more knowledge than a single human can possibly memorize for a very long time. What would be surprising is a fundamental change, which is what’s happening now with layoffs in tech, and tech people have indeed taken notice and worried about it. But to be a change so critical that everyone would take notice, it would have to affect everyone directly, not just in indirect ways like increased unemployment.
Being replaced, is what I imply. The day AIs can ask questions and get results for their own goals, that’s when everyone will freak out.
AI has 100% percent materially changed the world. Tons of companies did massive layoffs in favor of AI. Coders and tech companies are taking advantage of the speed at which new development can happen, and with fewer coders (I work in an industry where this extremely true). People are seeking therapy from AI who could never afford it or have access to it before. There’s lots more examples.
To say it’s “smarter” than the average person is a stretch, and I don’t really think anyone is claiming that. Maybe in an intelligence sense, but certainly not in an intuitive or learned-experience sense.
Just like the internet, which technically existed in the late 70’s, it will take a long time and one or two revolutionary consumer-facing products to bring true AI to the forefront. But, the can is out of the bag, and it ain’t going nowhere, which means eventually it will be ubiquitous.
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Yes you are exaggerating things. I use 4o and o1 every day and they are quite helpful but they are not “smarter than the average person.” They make mistakes all the time that I catch and correct. The biggest problems at the moment that stop them from truly being revolution are 1) if they get stuck they *really* get stuck, they lack the flexibility and adaptability that humans have and 2) there are not good interfaces to the majority of the work that people do, you can’t make it fill out a spreadsheet for you when it requires accessing information from email, internal websites, documents, etc. and putting it all together.
It is great at facts and it is great at bite-sized problems that can be formated neatly into text inputs. That is pretty much it, but that doesn’t cover a lot.
I mean we could easily point to a lot of the research that AI is influencing and its impact but I don’t think anyone actually cares about the current use metrics, the way everyone else is thinking about it is in the future use metrics which is where we are heading. I got downvoted in a similar topic yesterday for providing the link to said research. I can easily find videos of people using AI image editors to change photos they have, or generate new ones. I mean as long as you’re willing to put your head in the sand do then yeah I guess AI has done nothing currently
Dude,
It’s been what 3 maybe 4 weeks? It’s made a huge impact in my work day. But I’m a developer building AI tools. It’s not like o1 is self aware and out creating it’s own platform. It’s still needs us mere mortals to tell it what to do.
Us flesh bags need time to integrate this new tech into amazing new tools.
You sound like you think it should just magically make the world change. It is, but magic isn’t instant.
not yet… it maybe smarter but still slow to integrate things irl
Because the vast majority of people are inconsequential.
Useful products haven’t hit the market yet. They’re all still in development. The last couple of years have all been just exploring what the capabilities are and ways it actually be used to solve people’s problems in a meaningful way. Give it some time. Stuff doesn’t always explode into the collective consciousness. Sometimes it’s a slow adoption that we look back on and wonder how we lived without it.