DougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)Jan 10

RE: https://mastodon.social/@bruces/115869158915213819

"Intelligence is not a ladder, with steps along one dimension; it is multidimensional, a radiation. The space of possible intelligences is very large, even vast, with human intelligence occupying a tiny spot at the edge of this galaxy of possible minds. Every other possible mind is alien, and we have begun the very long process of populating this space with thousands of other species of possible minds."

Show threadlemgandiJan 10

@dougmerritt

Human intelligence is also multidimensional.

CF: _The Mismeasure of Man_ ( Stephen J Gould, Norton, 1981 )

Show threadMartin RuskovJan 10
@lemgandi @dougmerritt whereas GenAI is not so much, unless you consider matrix/tensor dimensions
Show threadDougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)Jan 10
@mapto @lemgandi
There are people fusing e.g. expert systems with LLMs. So then they have two dimensions. That's progress. 🙄
Show threadMartin RuskovJan 10
@dougmerritt @lemgandi that's extremely powerful actually, but I don't think anyone has developed a strong argument yet that expert systems and LLMs are different dimensions of intelligence. As a speculation, I'd rather see the former as the discrete version and the latter as the continuous one.
Show threadDougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)

@mapto @lemgandi
> strong argument yet that... are different dimensions of intelligence

Quite true; I was being snarky about the combination achieving two dimnsions.

> that's extremely powerful actually

Agreed, and I think that is *partially* not just a good direction to take things, but possibly an essential path.

Speaking more precisely, the latent semantic space developed by LLMs can have an arbitrarily high number of dimensions, and currently appears to be in the millions and sometimes billions. (If it's more than that, it's news to me.)

But they are definitely largely not the same dimensions as in human minds, even though our understanding of the latter is poor.

And the fusion with expert systems mostly won't achieve more of the human dimensions. That will require further elements.

Jan 10 at 6:49pmWeb