To me, it feels like the opposite: a useful tool that's been wrongly marketed as something more. LLMs are very helpful in many different contexts. Sure, you could also use them to discuss your intimate issues or make your decisions for you, but you could also do that with Eliza back in the day if you wanted to. Wasn't a good idea then, isn't a good idea now.
My brother in law has hunting dogs. They are not a tool, per se, because they have their own cognitive processes. But they sure are _useful_, trained, reinforced, and even bred for their purpose. They make hunting a lot easier.
My grandfather had horses. They are not a tool, per se, for the same reasons. But they sure were useful for certain jobs, at least until the widespread adoption of ATVs and such. AFAICT, they liked having a horse for the experience of riding the pasture w/ a horse vs an ATV.
I don't see such a distinction. I think domesticating things is a human inclination.
What's funny this time is that we might find the situation reversed, but I digress.
The "AI is a tool/is not a tool" pieces all rest very much on their definition of the word "tool".
This one rests on the definition of "herramienta". I don't have nearly good enough Spanish to understand if there are additional subtleties relating to how that word is used in that language.
(That said, it's pretty great that we can have a link to a Spanish thread from an English language forum and the language barrier is almost invisible.)
The Internet is also just a series of tubes... but there's emergent properties that come out of any sufficiently complex system.
I think the framing provided in this creative writing is quite disagreeable. But I can understand why it feels that way. The important thing is to comprehend that it's not actually that way. The Internet is just a series of tubes... even though sometimes I refer to the Internet as an entity that can do some really funny stuff...
> But beyond that, AI can change, improve itself, and even alter part of its nature. Tools don't do that.
I mean what do you call it when a package adds new functionality in v1.1 vs 1.0?
Improving itself is hard to see. I don’t as a developer using opus 5.5 see it improving itself. It’s great, and I expect the next opus to be better, but while I have this version it seems pretty much the same.
True, but things like GPT-5.6 are more than just LLMs.
However, it's good to keep perspective here. We don't know enough about what consciousness or reason (inside our own brains) really are to make claims that LLMs do those things.
5.6 and its ilk include a reasoning step; the output of the LLM is fed back through evaluation steps to determine if it's correct before emitting it, and these minimze some common issues with more naive LLM solutions (most notably the "confidently wrong" issue where it is over-fit on some lie and emits it).
One could argue that this is just more layers of LLM, but at the end of that argument is the observation that a 2-layer neural network with a nonlinear transform between the layers is a universal function; yes, but nobody does that because it's unrealistic to do so.
An expert system is a tool, and we've had expert systems in computing for ages now.
One could, perhaps, make the case that the inherent randomness in the LLM algorithm makes it a fundamentally different thing than an expert system.
... but we've had Monte Carlo analysis as a tool for ages too.
I'm not sure we promote the thing to "not a tool" by gluing a Monte Carlo algorithm onto an expert system.
To take a big step back from the LLM question and look at a similar space that perhaps sheds light on the question...
A lot of chip design these days involves a step where the desired circuit is described in a goals-and-constraints-oriented language and then fed to a layout algoirthm that is semi-deterministic and attempts to solve the optimization function based on specified goals (like fabrication cost, size, or power consumption).
The output of this process is a chip you can fab. The process is random (it's an important industry-standard step to capture the input seed, because if the chip ends up in something audited and the auditing firm needs to know how the chip was made, it's not good enough to shrug and say "Enh, we rolled some dice," they need the layout schema deterministically reproducible too).
I don't, generally, think anyone considers the fact we use these in the hardware space to be anything but using yet another tool. It's a tool that searches a solutions domain much faster than a human could doing something not too dissimilar from what a human would do (with perhaps a little human intuition thrown on the top to avoid obviously-pessimistic branches of exploration, but you can bake those shortcuts into the tool also).
sigh No, it doesn't have consciousness, nor have human thoughts, etc. We (humans) are just _really_ good at anthromorphizing and pattern-matching. We do it to our animals, assigning human feelings to their expressions, and so of course we'll do it to the tool that outputs in our language.
Can you provide links, sources, anything? I genuinely would engage with it, but it's unhelpful to just essentially say "go read the thing I've read and stop being dumb"
I don't do this anymore. The information is easy to find, and bothering to find it is part of learning. I don't mind if you stay dumb; just don't spread it around.
Edit: because what is compelling isn't an article here and a study there. It's a slowly-growing consensus among researchers. It would take over an hour for me to compile enough evidence to convince someone "this is real". If you care, you have to do it yourself. My time is too valuable to do that for someone who is probably unserious. Hell, a two-sentence prompt to a good AI would get you started.
Aside from your groundbreaking research that we're learning about for the first time, the science has held that we have no idea what is and isn't conscious, or if consciousness is even a thing. Humans tend to like to think they are, but it is philosophically accepted that it could be an illusion. So it is astounding that you aren't gushing with details. Maybe you don't understand the magnitude of your findings?
I would engage with this if it wasn't written so rudely. I have thoughts on the subject and would like to discuss them in good-faith, but this is not it.
My original comment may have been a bit sarcastic, I admit, but this comment seems to serve no purpose other than to jab and try to dunk on me, so I won't engage.
> I would engage with this if it wasn't written so rudely.
No you wouldn't. Intellectual thought isn't swayed by meaningless human emotion. Let's be honest, you won't engage because you can't prepare a coherent response. We see this same diatribe in response to every other reply in this discussion. The pattern is clear.
> My original comment may have been a bit sarcastic
Yet you leave no affordances for that also being true of the earlier comment? A curious double standard. Confirms your true intention. What were you hoping to gain by trying to give us a thinly veiled lie? It's not like anyone cares about you posting something stupid on the internet. We don't even know who you are.
olivierestsage 1 day ago
4m1rk 1 day ago
anventuri 1 day ago
shadowgovt 1 day ago
skeledrew 1 day ago
And this is where I exit.
jvanderbot 1 day ago
My grandfather had horses. They are not a tool, per se, for the same reasons. But they sure were useful for certain jobs, at least until the widespread adoption of ATVs and such. AFAICT, they liked having a horse for the experience of riding the pasture w/ a horse vs an ATV.
I don't see such a distinction. I think domesticating things is a human inclination.
What's funny this time is that we might find the situation reversed, but I digress.
simonw 1 day ago
This one rests on the definition of "herramienta". I don't have nearly good enough Spanish to understand if there are additional subtleties relating to how that word is used in that language.
(That said, it's pretty great that we can have a link to a Spanish thread from an English language forum and the language barrier is almost invisible.)
Waterluvian 1 day ago
I think the framing provided in this creative writing is quite disagreeable. But I can understand why it feels that way. The important thing is to comprehend that it's not actually that way. The Internet is just a series of tubes... even though sometimes I refer to the Internet as an entity that can do some really funny stuff...
bigcat12345678 1 day ago
AI is a tool for sure.
cadamsdotcom 1 day ago
And despite apparently not being a tool it can use tools, and can even build tools for it to use, or for you to use.
So it's everywhere in the tool hierarchy.
But wait - what if the tools it builds call other AIs? Are those other AIs not tools??
Hmm
Seems like a tool to me
guybedo 1 day ago
A corporation is basically human tools organized in hierarchical layers, each layer is human tools for the layer above to carry some tasks.
graovic 1 day ago
mglvsky 1 day ago
Nocerg 1 day ago
skeledrew 1 day ago
willio58 1 day ago
I mean what do you call it when a package adds new functionality in v1.1 vs 1.0?
Improving itself is hard to see. I don’t as a developer using opus 5.5 see it improving itself. It’s great, and I expect the next opus to be better, but while I have this version it seems pretty much the same.
fbrchps 1 day ago
Neither do LLMs, which are "billions of dice" -word-guessers, still to this day.
shadowgovt 1 day ago
However, it's good to keep perspective here. We don't know enough about what consciousness or reason (inside our own brains) really are to make claims that LLMs do those things.
fbrchps 1 day ago
For the sake of conversation, please elaborate
shadowgovt 1 day ago
One could argue that this is just more layers of LLM, but at the end of that argument is the observation that a 2-layer neural network with a nonlinear transform between the layers is a universal function; yes, but nobody does that because it's unrealistic to do so.
slowmovintarget 1 day ago
LLMs are not a tool, he says, they are automation. And it's Rich Hickey, so he brought definitions.
g-b-r 1 day ago
But the counter argument should be that they're not just a tool (they aren't), you miss the mark by trying to argue that they're not a tool at all.
They clearly can be considered a tool when used in certain ways.
spottedmarley 1 day ago
ranger_danger 1 day ago
bananaflag 1 day ago
shadowgovt 1 day ago
orblivion 1 day ago
shadowgovt 1 day ago
One could, perhaps, make the case that the inherent randomness in the LLM algorithm makes it a fundamentally different thing than an expert system.
... but we've had Monte Carlo analysis as a tool for ages too.
I'm not sure we promote the thing to "not a tool" by gluing a Monte Carlo algorithm onto an expert system.
To take a big step back from the LLM question and look at a similar space that perhaps sheds light on the question...
A lot of chip design these days involves a step where the desired circuit is described in a goals-and-constraints-oriented language and then fed to a layout algoirthm that is semi-deterministic and attempts to solve the optimization function based on specified goals (like fabrication cost, size, or power consumption).
The output of this process is a chip you can fab. The process is random (it's an important industry-standard step to capture the input seed, because if the chip ends up in something audited and the auditing firm needs to know how the chip was made, it's not good enough to shrug and say "Enh, we rolled some dice," they need the layout schema deterministically reproducible too).
I don't, generally, think anyone considers the fact we use these in the hardware space to be anything but using yet another tool. It's a tool that searches a solutions domain much faster than a human could doing something not too dissimilar from what a human would do (with perhaps a little human intuition thrown on the top to avoid obviously-pessimistic branches of exploration, but you can bake those shortcuts into the tool also).
weakfish 1 day ago
gilrain 1 day ago
weakfish 1 day ago
gilrain 22 hours ago
Edit: because what is compelling isn't an article here and a study there. It's a slowly-growing consensus among researchers. It would take over an hour for me to compile enough evidence to convince someone "this is real". If you care, you have to do it yourself. My time is too valuable to do that for someone who is probably unserious. Hell, a two-sentence prompt to a good AI would get you started.
win311fwg 1 day ago
As measured, how?
Aside from your groundbreaking research that we're learning about for the first time, the science has held that we have no idea what is and isn't conscious, or if consciousness is even a thing. Humans tend to like to think they are, but it is philosophically accepted that it could be an illusion. So it is astounding that you aren't gushing with details. Maybe you don't understand the magnitude of your findings?
weakfish 1 day ago
My original comment may have been a bit sarcastic, I admit, but this comment seems to serve no purpose other than to jab and try to dunk on me, so I won't engage.
orblivion 1 day ago
You started this with "sigh"
weakfish 1 day ago
> My original comment may have been a bit sarcastic
Which in retrospect, the original comment was more dismissive than I intended.
That said, I stand by the replied being significantly more rude and aggressive than warranted.
win311fwg 1 day ago
No you wouldn't. Intellectual thought isn't swayed by meaningless human emotion. Let's be honest, you won't engage because you can't prepare a coherent response. We see this same diatribe in response to every other reply in this discussion. The pattern is clear.
> My original comment may have been a bit sarcastic
Yet you leave no affordances for that also being true of the earlier comment? A curious double standard. Confirms your true intention. What were you hoping to gain by trying to give us a thinly veiled lie? It's not like anyone cares about you posting something stupid on the internet. We don't even know who you are.