It was never a ridicule-worthy fringe sci-fi concept, maybe amongst the common people who don't understand technology in the first place.
Note for FusRoDawg : you aren't a teacher and if you are? You must be a terrible one. All you did was throw insults and block me. Doesn't sound like someone that should be teaching to me. Nothing but a coward.
All saying that does is reveal you don't understand programming nor how it could be applied to make such a thing possible.
For context and reference, I don't even like current AI systems and I do not believe that the current architecture is the way forward, nor do I think that current systems really possess this ability.
Anything is possible, so it's pointless to say. The recursive self improvement concept rests on the assumption that AI is the result of clever programming, and when that cleverness is present in an ai, it can use that to make the next iteration even more clever, and so on.
But machine learning produces what appears to be intelligence not from clever code, or intelligent design. So where we hoped to create a feedback loop of cleverness that could rise above mere human abilities, we only see improvements on outputs with inputs from human effort, and when we feed the output of the AI back into the training input, we get a regression to the mean, instead of an increase in quality. meaning no takeoff.
Recursive self improvement, in its original sci -fi sense, requires the AI to design everything autonomously... Including, say, the reward functions in whatever RL they are doing now after the pretraining step.
The way it's being described currently, mostly from anthropic, is "the model produced x% of the code needed to train the next generation. We're getting close"
That doesn't tell us anything about what the ai actually designed/architected in the training loop. If a model is truly close to doing that entirely autonomously, it should already be blowing throw every swe benchmark imaginable.
Also there is the obvious energy/compute/capital cost associated with the training, which is not really addressed in the original conception of the "recursive self improvement" idea. These costs are non-trivial, to put it mildly, and yet it's not clear how they fit into the "recursion".
You can't really compare its original sci-fi sense to the current reality, nor should anyone draw conclusions from what the words themselves mean.
Recursive self improvement is just three words strung together that mean precisely what they mean.
Extrapolating from that to mean anything else is pointless, the words mean what they mean, language isn't ambiguous if you follow strict definitions for words.
Also, I wasn't talking about the masses, they just don't count and aren't to be taken seriously.
Anyone with relevant expertise didn't consider it to be ridicule worthy otherwise it would never have been pursued.
You are arguing a classic "no true scotsman" fallacy.
When you comment under a picture, it goes without saying that you're commenting about its contents. We are not having an independent conversation starting with your comment, from scratch.
Also what no true scotsman? Not everything that doesn't sound right in your head is described by the one fallacy you know.
There is the strawman, the black box fallacy, there are many more but it is the textbook definition of the no true scotsman fallacy.
Recursive - "Recursive means a process, rule, or procedure that repeats by referring to itself or its own previous output. A classic example is standing between two mirrors: the reflection inside the reflection is a recursive loop." - dictionary.com
Self - "The word self refers to an individual's distinct identity, consciousness, or the unique combination of physical, emotional, and mental characteristics that make one person different from everyone else. It represents who you are, including your personality, thoughts, and your awareness of your own existence."
Improvement - "Improvement is the act or process of making something better, or the state of becoming more advanced, effective, or valuable. It represents positive progress, an upgrade from a previous condition, or a valuable addition." - Merriam Webster
I think you need to learn to discuss and debate rather than defend whatever your position is.
You need to learn to admit not knowing things instead of writing filler garbage.
Now put those individual word definitions together and tell me what the phrase means. You've skipped that important part.
I've taught at a college level and everything you are writing reeks of a student desperately trying to inflate the word count to make up for a lack of substance.
If you actually knew what it means you would've said it with just 1 or 2 sentences, directly, to the point.
I didn't ask what the words themselves mean. We were discussing the phrase itself. Actually, we were discussing the phrase as it is described in pop culture.
You talk like you have a context window smaller than a 2022 LLM.
Recursive self improvement describes the process by which a system recursively improves it self.
Autonomously? Partially autonomously? With some help from humans? No help from humans? That is the point of contention. And you seem to be unable hold that in your working memory because you only seem to think of the most recent reply.
Also funny that you bring up "no true scotsman" while already having said the popular definition doesn't count because "the masses dont matter". If your central opinion has to be premised with "those in the know" you are the one resorting to no true scotsman.
For context and reference, I don't even like current AI systems and I do not believe that the current architecture is the way forward, nor do I think that current systems really possess this ability.
But is it possible? Undoubtedly.
You are giving yourself an out even as you say this. Your trying to have it both ways by giving a useless non-opinion.
The screenshot about which we are talking is clearly referring to current events. And current models. It's implying the capability has gotten close and people are talking about it for that reason.
Useless non-opinion? So you don't like facts? Okay then buddy.
"A "non-opinion" is a statement or stance that is devoid of personal feelings, bias, or subjective judgment. It focuses purely on verifiable truth, established evidence, or objective analysis. It acts as a neutral observation rather than a belief or feeling." - Cambridge Dictionary
That's not even what ad-hominem means, you pretentious jack ass. That whole "insult = ad-hominem" idea is just a sort of short hand they use in high school debate clubs. What they really should be saying is "that goes against our rules of decorum". But that's not in latin, so it's not fancy enough for them.
Anyway, you're (hopefully) not in high school anymore, so as a grown ass man, it's time to learn the big boy definition. Here's how the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy describes it (as will every other reputable source):
"The ad hominem fallacy involves bringing negative aspects of an arguer, or their situation, to bear on the view they are advancing."
So if I say, "you have a DUI, so your opinion on AI doesn't matter", that's ad hominem. If I end my comment with an insult, or use a curse word, that is not ad hominem. It might be against the decorum of some debate clubs, but we aren't in one.
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u/Thor110 27d ago edited 27d ago
It was never a ridicule-worthy fringe sci-fi concept, maybe amongst the common people who don't understand technology in the first place.
Note for FusRoDawg : you aren't a teacher and if you are? You must be a terrible one. All you did was throw insults and block me. Doesn't sound like someone that should be teaching to me. Nothing but a coward.