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"Next Year's News This Week" languAge models: A mirror, not a window By Mark Anderson _____ Why Read: Today, the tech world is torn between those who think such a thing as advanced general intelligence (AGI) even exists and those who think it's a massive con job; between those enchanted with deepfakes and parlor tricks and those who see zero chance of the AI industry showing a real return on investment. In other words: between those who think we're looking out a magnificent new window onto the AI-driven future and those who believe we are entranced with seeing nothing more than humanity in a fancy new, chat-enabled mirror. It turns out that which one is true matters. - mra _____ Today, we live in a world in which the truth of the value of AI is represented by different and obvious parameters. In favor of showing a high value are: rocketing platform valuations ($500B this week, as Sam Altman continues his global fundraising tour); tens of thousands of workers laid off while either being replaced by AI or perhaps AI being used as the excuse for recovering from over-hiring; and ongoing technical benchmark achievements purportedly showing improvements in AI. On the other hand, each of these parameters could be inverse proxies for the opposite being true, with value being low or nonexistent: platform values are based on paying each other in made-up future deals; workers laid off were either over-hires or doing jobs that are easily automated; and benchmarks are nothing more than that - metrics created to measure a race that has little or nothing to do with real-life problems and values. No wonder the techniverse is confused. But even more interesting: what if both sides are right? What if what we thought was a window was just a higher-dimensional mirror, telling us more about ourselves and little or nothing about the real world?
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