So, I'm at my in-laws house this weekend
on Sunday, and you know, there's food,
there's family, there's a child who I am
told is mine, two of them, if I recall
correctly. And I'm sitting there in the
corner like an [ __ ] swiping
furiously on my phone, sweating because
at 2:00 a.m. the night before, I had a
thought, which I should not have had,
which is, what if AGI is possible? I
posted a membersonly video the other day
confessing that I had accidentally
wandered into a sketchy part of my brain
where I entertained the idea that AGI
could be possible in theory and is an
engineering problem that could be solved
in a couple hundred years or so. And
from the moment I woke up yesterday to
about the time I went to sleep, I was
reading reading about AGI and
intelligence and what other scientists
and authors believe. and I've decided
that I'm [ __ ] out. I dipped one foot
into the cult of AGI by accident and now
I'm noping the [ __ ] back out. I mean,
I'm absolutely flabbergasted to find out
that David Deutsch, the father of
quantum computing and the author of the
book The Beginning of Infinity, doesn't
even believe animals are intelligent or
conscious. Like I'm sitting here trying
to determine if a Python script can be
generally intelligent and this man is
like dogs aren't even alive. At that
point I was like, "Okay, you know what?
I'm out." Like if that's where the line
is right now, if there are cases being
made that animals aren't intelligent,
then how the [ __ ] are we even having a
conversation about whether computers are
intelligent or what the [ __ ] it would
mean for them to be generally
intelligent? There are no definitions
for any of these terms that we are
claiming exists or is even possible.
There is [ __ ] nothing. AGI is some
sort of materialists propaganda wet
dream [ __ ] I am absolutely livid
because I spent 12 hours reading up on
this [ __ ] yesterday and I'm absolutely
exhausted. My wife was like, "Honey, can
you put down your phone and acknowledge
my mother?" And I was like, "Not now,
babe. I've got to figure out whether
intelligence is possible." The worst
part is that it's not even clear what
problem AGI would solve. Like why would
you need AGI to do a coding task? Why
would you need a general intelligence to
do that? What does that offer on top of
current generation LLMs? In fact, for
things like coding, you don't want
generality. You want the opposite. You
want specialization. The mid-level
engineer on your team who's been working
in your codebase for 10 years writes a
lot better code than a PhD level
engineer who you just hired who isn't
familiar with your code. It's about
carrying the whole thing in your head
for many, many years. It's about
specializing in that specific code base.
The problem with LLMs today, the reason
they suck balls at coding is they can't
hold a damn thing in its tiny ass head.
And the whole thing not even being the
codebase itself, but the codebase in all
the intangibles and the whole business
context and the politics and the reason
your stuckup designer will literally
quit if you change the color of the
button. It's [ __ ] impossible. LLMs by
definition are doomed to fail in a
codebase. And what the [ __ ] problem
would AGI solve here? It's a [ __ ]
context problem. It's a [ __ ]
understanding problem. It's a being
engrossed problem. soaking yourself in
the universe of the problem you're
trying to solve. An AI cannot do that.
An AI cannot understand or feel or soak
or engross. David Deutsch argues that
because they seem to have arrived in a
package at once in the form of a human
that it doesn't even make sense to
separate intelligence from consciousness
and personhood. And from now on, I'm
going to stop pontificating about the
future. I'm going to stop giving the
technology the benefit of the doubt and
the benefit of progress and
extrapolation. I'm going to take the
present state of LLM and I'm going to
treat that as the only fact that exists.
Period. I will behave as though there is
no such thing as progress. There's no
such thing as the future. There's no
such thing as 12 to 18 months from now.
There is only [ __ ] now. And right
[ __ ] now, LLMs are a trick. They are
not AI. They trick us to believing they
are intelligent. The mechanism matters.
The mechanism absolutely matters. David
Deutsch talks about this in his book. He
says that the touring test isn't just
about passing AI through some glory hole
and determining if the other person
thinks it tastes good or not. On the
other end, if you could pass the Turing
test by tricking people, then what the
[ __ ] is the point of the Turing test?
You can polish a lie forever and it
never becomes the truth. You can put a
billion more parameters on the lie and
it's a bigger lie now. Like,
congratulations. LLMs are an elaborate
trick. There is no theory in there. It's
brute forcing statistics to trick people
for long durations, long enough for you
to be tricked into forcing your entire
company to think this is intelligent and
that they have to use this tool to
maximize productivity. The real turing
test is whether the human on the other
end is [ __ ] stupid enough to replace
their entire labor pool with this
statistical ass tool that builds in
inside the distribution demo and thinks
it could build anything. The bot doesn't
have to be intelligent. It just has to
be more convincing than the median CEO
is skeptical. Oh, but how do you know
the human brain isn't just dumb
statistics, too? Go [ __ ] yourself. Go
[ __ ] yourself. [ __ ] you. I will never
again extrapolate. I will never again
speak of progress. I will never again
give this technology the benefit of the
doubt. I will take the present and
evaluate that on its own merit. Just
like we judge literally everything else
we buy, nothing else matters. Everything
else is [ __ ] fear, confusion,
uncertainty, doubt, and propaganda.
Thank you for [ __ ] watching.