DeepSummary
In this podcast episode, Sean Carroll talks with Francois Chollet, a deep learning researcher at Google and the creator of the Keras software library. Chollet argues that while large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can mimic human intelligence remarkably well, they are not truly intelligent in the conventional sense. LLMs operate by memorizing and interpolating between vast amounts of data, but they lack the ability to truly reason and generalize beyond their training data.
Chollet explains that LLMs are essentially pattern matching engines that can fetch and apply solutions they have memorized, but cannot synthesize new solutions for novel problems. He contrasts this with human intelligence, which involves the ability to adapt to new situations and learn new skills from just a few examples. Chollet has created the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus (ARC) challenge to incentivize the development of AI systems that can demonstrate true intelligence by solving novel reasoning problems.
While acknowledging the usefulness of LLMs for certain tasks, Chollet emphasizes that they are not on the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI). He argues that the idea of superintelligent AI posing an existential threat is based on misconceptions about the nature of intelligence, which is simply a tool for accomplishing goals and does not necessarily imply autonomous goal-setting or values.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are not truly intelligent, as they operate by memorizing and interpolating data rather than reasoning and generalizing.
- LLMs are essentially pattern matching engines that can fetch and apply solutions they have memorized, but cannot synthesize new solutions for novel problems.
- Francois Chollet has created the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus (ARC) challenge to incentivize the development of AI systems that can demonstrate true intelligence by solving novel reasoning problems.
- While acknowledging the usefulness of LLMs for certain tasks, Chollet argues that they are not on the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI).
- Chollet challenges the notion of superintelligent AI as an existential threat, arguing that intelligence alone is simply a tool for accomplishing goals and does not necessarily imply autonomous goal-setting or values.
- Human intelligence involves the ability to adapt to new situations and learn new skills from just a few examples, which current LLMs lack.
- Chollet argues that the idea of LLMs becoming superintelligent by scaling up is flawed, as they are limited to interpolating within their training data and cannot truly generalize beyond it.
- LLMs have non-zero intelligence, but it is extremely low compared to human intelligence, according to Chollet.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Intelligence is this ability to look at a novel problem, something you've not seen before, and come up with the solution.“ by Francois Chollet
- “And the reason why is really because curve fitting is extremely data inefficient. It's a very, very low intelligence type of learning.“ by Francois Chollet
- “Like, I have a 3 year old kid who's very good at generalizing from just a few examples to build things with legos that he's never seen before in a way that modern LLMs are not able to do.“ by Francois Chollet
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Episode Information
Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
Sean Carroll | Wondery
6/24/24
Which is more intelligent, ChatGPT or a 3-year old? Of course this depends on what we mean by "intelligence." A modern LLM is certainly able to answer all sorts of questions that require knowledge far past the capacity of a 3-year old, and even to perform synthetic tasks that seem remarkable to many human grown-ups. But is that really intelligence? François Chollet argues that it is not, and that LLMs are not ever going to be truly "intelligent" in the usual sense -- although other approaches to AI might get there.
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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/06/24/280-francois-chollet-on-deep-learning-and-the-meaning-of-intelligence/
François Chollet received his Diplôme d'Ingénieur from École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées, Paris. He is currently a Senior Staff Engineer at Google. He has been awarded the Global Swiss AI award for breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. He is the author of Deep Learning with Python, and developer of the Keras software library for neural networks. He is the creator of the ARC (Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus) Challenge.
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