zlacker

>>mef+(OP)
The level of intellectual engagement with Chomsky's ideas in the comments here is shockingly low. Surely, we are capable of holding these two thoughts: one, that the facility of LLMs is fantastic and useful, and two, that the major breakthroughs of AI this decade have not, at least so far, substantially deepened our understanding of our own intelligence and its constitution.

That may change, particularly if the intelligence of LLMs proves to be analogous to our own in some deep way—a point that is still very much undecided. However, if the similarities are there, so is the potential for knowledge. We have a complete mechanical understanding of LLMs and can pry apart their structure, which we cannot yet do with the brain. And some of the smartest people in the world are engaged in making LLMs smaller and more efficient; it seems possible that the push for miniaturization will rediscover some tricks also discovered by the blind watchmaker. But these things are not a given.

>>atdt+SZ
> not, at least so far, substantially deepened our understanding of our own intelligence

Science progresses in a manner that when you see it happen in front of you it doesn't seem substantial at all, because we typically don't understand implications of new discoveries.

So far, in the last few years, we have discovered the importance of the role of language behind intelligence. We have also discovered quantitative ways to describe how close one concept is from another. More recently, from the new reasoning AI models, we have discovered something counterintuitive that's also seemingly true for human reasoning--incorrect/incomplete reasoning can often reach the correct conclusion.