ChatGPT-like AI bots are more stupid than people realise, says AI Expert Rodney Brooks, a robotics researcher and AI expert. He believes that AI bots are good with language and some reasoning, but are unable to infer proper meaning, making it impossble for them to surpass humans.
Rodney Brooks, a robotics researcher and AI expert, believes that our perception of OpenAI’s large language models, such as the popular chatbot ChatGPT, has been greatly exaggerated.
In an interview with IEEE Spectrum, Brooks argues that these tools are much less intelligent than commonly believed and are far from being able to rival human intellect in any task. He suggests that we have made numerous misjudgments in predicting the future capabilities of AI.
Great with some logic, and language, that’s it
The interview essentially revolved around, if artificial general intelligence (AGI) on the verge of achieving a comparable level of intellectual prowess to humans. “No,” responds Brooks to the publication’s question. “It doesn’t have any connection to the world. It has different correlations between languages.”
Brooks’ comments serve as an important reminder of the current limitations plaguing AI technology and the ease with which we attribute meaning to their outputs, even though they were primarily designed to sound human-like rather than reason-like humans.
“When we observe a person’s actions, we quickly assess their broader capabilities and make judgments. However, our methods of generalizing from performance to competence do not apply to AI systems,” Brooks explains to IEEE Spectrum.
An illusion of meaning
In other words, existing language models cannot logically infer meaning despite creating an illusion of doing so, leading to potential user confusion.
Brooks emphasizes, “What large language models excel at is producing answers that sound correct, which is different from actually being correct.”
The researcher acknowledges his own experiments with large language models to assist him with intricate coding tasks but encountered significant difficulties. “It provides an answer with unwavering confidence, and I tend to trust it,” Brooks confesses to IEEE Spectrum. “However, half the time, it is completely wrong. I spend two or three hours following that hint, only to realize it didn’t work, and then it suggests an entirely different approach.”
He adds, “Now, that is not intelligence. It is not interaction. It is simply looking up information.”
If that is indeed the case, we’re in trouble
Now, if Brooks is correct in his opinion that AI bots of today are not as intelligent and clever as they are hyped up to be, then we are in big, big trouble. Just the news that AI can do most jobs, especially entry-level and certain high-level jobs, has caused the tech industry to actually implode in on itself and terminate people by the thousands.
Assuming that Brooks is correct, all that we are experiencing about AI, especially generative AI – euphoria, fear or any other feeling for that matter – is nothing but mass hysteria, in an unprecedented level.
If what Brooks is saying ends up being true, one can only imagine the devastation AI will cause as it gets closer to singularity.
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.