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varenya.hashnode.dev

I think one of the biggest mistakes we have made as an industry is conflating the words “AI” and “LLMs.” The irony is right there on the surface. Naming is one of the hardest things to do in software, and we’ve done it poorly for the primary tool of software.

  • arctanthrope@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    3 months ago

    it’s not a mistake, it’s marketing. the people in charge of tech companies don’t want people to understand the difference between AI and LLMs, because it makes their product seem more impressive and valuable than it really is

    • Iconoclast@feddit.ukEnglish
      9·
      3 months ago

      AI is a term used in computer science to refer to any system that’s able to perform a task normally requiring human intelligence - like playing chess or generating natural-sounding language. LLMs are AI systems in the actual meaning of that term.

      • arctanthrope@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        3 months ago

        the point is public perception. when the general public hears “AI” they don’t think about all the lesser systems that are technically AI, they think of AGI

        • Iconoclast@feddit.ukEnglish
          6·
          3 months ago

          Then the issue is with the uneducated public - not the use of correct terminology. Changing the definition of terms will just create more confusion, not less.

          • arctanthrope@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            3 months ago

            yep, that’s what I’ve been saying. the public is uneducated because the people selling AI want them to be. using the technically correct but often misunderstood umbrella term “AI” instead of the more specific term “LLM” is one of the ways that ignorance is maintained

            • Iconoclast@feddit.ukEnglish
              3·
              3 months ago

              Referring to a multimodal AI as an LLM isn’t technically accurate either, because it’s not just an LLM. There’s also the vision/audio encoders, diffusion model, and multimodal projectors.

        • TheV2@programming.devEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          AGI is just a type of AI. It’s a term coined long after AI that doesn’t define new goals and capabilities that weren’t already part of AI research, except that they were rather abandoned. If anything, “AGI” was the marketing term to revitalize and focus on those ideals. So there is nothing wrong with the general public to associate “AI” with what you would specifically describe as “AGI”.

          Furthermore, I don’t understand what this public perception has to do with your claim. If they thought of only narrow AI, then would it not make even more sense to call their LLM-based products AI…

          • Iconoclast@feddit.ukEnglish
            3·
            3 months ago

            AGI is a subcategory of AI just like LLMs and diffusion models are. That term has existed since 1997 and was coined by Mark Avrum Gubrud in an article named ‘Nanotechnology and international security’

            By advanced artificial general intelligence, I mean AI systems that rival or surpass the human brain in complexity and speed, that can acquire, manipulate and reason with general knowledge, and that are usable in essentially any phase of industrial or military operations where a human intelligence would otherwise be needed. Such systems may be modeled on the human brain, but they do not necessarily have to be, and they do not have to be “conscious” or possess any other competence that is not strictly relevant to their application. What matters is that such systems can be used to replace human brains in tasks ranging from organizing and running a mine or a factory to piloting an airplane, analyzing intelligence data or planning a battle.