Tag: Emily Bender

Advanced High Precision Robot Arm inside Bright Electronics Factory. Electronic Devices Production Industry. Component Installation on Circuit Board. Fully Automated Modern PCB Assembly Line.

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post

Erik J. Larson
Date
September 4, 2025

Categorized
Artificial general intelligence (AGI), Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AI Con (book 2025), Alex Hanna, Automation, Elon Musk, Emily Bender, Kevin Kelly, Nick Bostrom, Ray Kurzweil, Superintelligence, Superintelligence (2014), Transformer architecture, What Technology Wants (2010), Wide AI}

Surprise: Artificial intelligence Is Still Just Automation

_{I wrote this in 2016. And it is still true in 2025. A reflection in three parts} _{Erik J. Larson
September 4, 2025

4

Artificial general intelligence (AGI), Artificial Intelligence}

When I first wrote this almost a decade ago, “AI” was already a cultural Rorschach test. To some, it was exciting and futuristic. To others, it was ominous, Orwellian, or just marketing spin. Automation, by contrast, was the unglamorous cousin that conjured images of soulless machines taking over the last shreds of human purpose. But from the start, my view was simple: what we call “AI” today is still just automation. And automation is not a mind. That argument has aged better than I expected. In the years since, we’ve seen an explosion of so-called AI — from self-driving cars to ChatGPT — yet the distinction between AI and automation remains almost universally misunderstood. Recently, computational linguist Emily Bender and Read More ›

Concept image to explain how AI hallucinations occur when an AI model generates false or illogical information that isn't based on real data or events, but is presented as fact.

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post

Erik J. Larson
Date
June 18, 2025

Categorized
Large Language Models (LLMs), Large Reasoning Models (LRMs)

Tagged
Ask Martin chatbot, Confabulation (AI), Emily Bender, Martin Seligman, Stochastic parrots concept}

Just When Human Reason is Most Productive — AI Makes Things Up

_{In Part 2, we see how the ability to handle only one type of truth limits AI. AI models are fundamentally untethered from reality} _{Erik J. Larson
June 18, 2025

5

Large Language Models (LLMs), Large Reasoning Models (LRMs)}

The gap between human and machine ways of knowing can be thought of as the correspondence horizon. When AI crosses that, it produces plausible bullshit. Read More ›

Concept of artificial general intelligence achieving human-level understanding

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post

Erik J. Larson
Date
November 22, 2024

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models (LLMs)

Tagged
Emily Bender, François Chollet, Gary Marcus, Melanie Mitchell}

Machine Intelligence and Reasoning: We Are Not on a Path to AGI

_{AI guru François Chollet’s Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus (ARC) proves we’re not on a path to AGI} _{Erik J. Larson
November 22, 2024

6

Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models (LLMs)}

A reality check for LLMs is inevitable, and with OpenAI, “Project Strawberry,” and the new hype cycle — thanks to Chollet and others — it’s already here. Read More ›

Man standing in a high place looking up in wonder to the Milky Way galaxy. Small silhouette of a man under the Milky Way and the magical starry sky. Concept of human smallness.

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post

News
Date
March 2, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AI, Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, Consciousness, Creativity, Emily Bender, OpenAI, Sam Altman}

Time for Artificial General Intelligence? Not So Fast, OpenAI

_{OpenAI CEO is ambitious about the company's direction, but are his hopes profoundly misguided?} _{News
March 2, 2023

2

Artificial Intelligence}

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is ambitious about his company’s future, promising the world that they are developing “artificial general intelligence” (AGI) that will supposedly compete with human intelligence, per a recent Futurism piece. However, the ambition is misguided. Or more than that, the ambition is simply delusional. AI is “not even close” to attaining the creativity and intelligence of human beings, and Altman shouldn’t be parading OpenAI products as if it is. Victor Tangermann writes, In reality, however, LLMs have a very long way to go until they’re able to compete with the intellect of a human being — which is why several experts are calling foul on Altman’s recent blog post, calling it meaningless and misleading. After all, AGI Read More ›

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post

News
Date
July 28, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Programming

Tagged
___longform, Emily Bender, GPT-3, Jonathan Bartlett, Kevin Lacker}

GPT-3 Is “Mindblowing” If You Don’t Question It Too Closely

_{AI analysts sound unusually cautious in pointing out that it doesn’t live up to a lot of the hype} _{News
July 28, 2020

7

Artificial Intelligence, Programming}

Last week, Jonathan Bartlett wrote about the somewhat misleading buzz around the new OpenAI third-generation software, GPT-3 (Generative Pretrained Transformer). And now—for a change—much of the industry has begun to seem socially distant, so to speak, from the reckless hype that has accompanied other releases. For example, one article starts off breathlessly: The artificial intelligence tool GPT-3 has been causing a stir online, due to its impressive ability to design websites, prescribe medication, and answer questions… Its predecessor, GPT-2, made headlines for being deemed “too dangerous to release” because of its ability to create text that is seemingly indistinguishable from those written by humans. While GPT-2 had 1.5 billion parameters which could be set, GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters. A Read More ›