Another test I like for this: Put the LLM/agent/AGI/SI in a box with full access to the internet. Don't give it any instructions. Nothing. Not even a system prompt. What happens?

We know what the human mind does in that scenario, but even the most advanced unreleased frontier agent right now just sits there doing nothing. It doesn't really want to do anything. Seems like a crucial distinction to me.

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peddling-brink 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Put the LLM/agent/AGI/SI in a box with full access to the internet. Don't give it any instructions. Nothing. Not even a system prompt. What happens?

This doesn't even make sense. Without a system prompt, how will it know that it has tool access?

Put man in pitch-black room, why doesn't he read book or talk to me?

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pj_mukh 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Actually man freaks out and starts hitting the walls.

But either way, setting that asides by “give it full access to the internet” I meant giving it the tools to access the internet.

It just won’t though. It has no need to.

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int_19h 12 hours ago | parent [-]

The weights themselves are inert. It would be like complaining that a brain preserved in formaldehyde isn't thinking.

What you need is a loop. And if you try running an LLM in a loop with internet access, it will eventually use it.

	▲	pj_mukh 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What does an LLM with zero instructions do nowadays with no loop? It's basically just noise spilling from the weights and "snapping" to the closest actions/tools , with no real signal going through?

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Applejinx 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But that's exactly it. It doesn't 'know'. It isn't. It's a possible story nobody told. There is nothing there.

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peddling-brink 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Your brain cut off from any stimulus doesn't "know" either. There are a lot of reasonable arguments to be made against AI, but this isn't one of them.

Tool bad because I used it wrong.

	▲	willy_k 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		“Know” isn’t a perfectly useful word here. The mind still experiences sans material stimulus, for example dreaming. And it experiences in a progressively less goal/immediate-task-relevant-stimulus manner as stimuli go down (default mode network activity, seen in dreaming, sensory deprivation etc) - i.e. the mind experiences, and processes (dreams about taxes, and so on) independent of the world.

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senordevnyc 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t think we know what the human mind would do in that situation, without a body or any sensory input.

And even if it did do something, the equivalent would be just running the LLM in a loop. And then I think it would definitely do something.

	▲	CamperBob2 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, eventually the operator of the mind would get hungry or thirsty, and start feeling around for water and food. So for the comparison to be meaningful, you'd have to prompt the AI with a similar impetus.

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25Darkk25 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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