
推特圈被 Anthropic 最新的博客文章搞得群情激动。
这篇博客展示了其系统在编写代码能力上的显著进步,很有意思,并且提出了一个应当被认真考虑的主张:放缓 AI 研究。
但它也应该附带一则警示。以下是他们忘了加上的警示:
AGI 比“递归自我改进”[RSI] *更难*
AGI:机器能够自主完成人类能做的任何事情。这一点尚未实现]
RSI(下文所用含义):AI 是一种人类可以利用的有用编程工具[已实现];它擅长(某些)代码优化
博客中的结果关乎的是 RSI,而非 AGI。
要实现 AGI 需要新的思路,而不仅仅是新的代码优化。
所以我们现在还不需要恐慌。
在某种程度上,Anthropic 的这篇新博客是一种诱饵调包:Anthropic 试图在每个人心中制造恐惧(“完全的递归自我改进也可能增加人类失去对 AI 系统控制的风险”),但他们真正展示的不过是更快的编程——完全处于人类控制之下。
更快的编程工具大概不会终结世界。
更多好消息。真正是天大的好消息。
我之前在一篇题为《这一个古怪的小花招可能让你的退休基金损失数十亿》的文章中写过,标普 500 当时正在考虑修改规则,这些修改将允许 SpaceX 比以往更快、以更少的限制被纳入标普 500,而我认为,鉴于许多(并非全部)旁观者都认为其初始股价离谱,这一想法对投资指数基金的散户投资者和退休人员来说可能是灾难性的。
令我极为欣喜的是,标普并没有修改规则!
你可以点击上方链接阅读完整推理,但归根结底,马斯克那个定价可疑的 SpaceX 发行不会在没有延迟的情况下被立即硬塞进指数基金。
相反,SpaceX 必须靠自身实力证明价值;指数基金最终仍可能将其纳入指数,但只有在市场有一年时间来评估其价值之后。
这对公平而言是个好消息。欢呼吧!
附言:一些评论者将 Anthropic 博客中的编码提速结果解读为表明 AI 或深度学习并未撞墙。实际上,这证明了前者,而非后者。进步是真实的,但这并非纯粹 scaling 本身的胜利,而是 harness 与符号工具的胜利,它们属于神经符号系统。纯粹的深度学习在很大程度上已经撞墙;神经符号 AI 正在拯救它。(换一种说法,也更个人化地说,我自己的主张从来不是 AI 会撞墙,也不是深度学习应当被放弃,而是我们需要用神经符号 AI 来补充深度学习,以解决纯粹 scaling 的局限性。而这正是实际发生的情况。)

The twitterverse is all verklempt with Anthropic’s latest blog.
The blog, which shows considerable advances in the ability of their systems to write code, is interesting, and make an argument for slowing down AI research that should be considered.
But it should also carry an advisory. Here’s the advisory they forgot to include:
AGI is *harder* than “recursive self improvement” [RSI]
AGI: machine can do anything human can do, autonomously. That has not achieved]
RSI (as used below): AI is a useful coding tool that humans can leverage [achieved]; it’s great at (some) code optimizations
The results in the blog are about RSI, not AGI.
Getting to AGI will require new ideas, not just new code optimizations.
So we don’t need to panic yet.
To some degree, the new Anthropic blog is a bait and switch: Anthropic is trying to strike terror into everyone’s hearts (“full recursive self-improvement also might increase the risks of humans losing control over AI systems”) but all they have really shown is just faster coding — entirely under human control.
A faster coding tool will probably not end the world.
More good news. Terrific news, really.
I had written before in an essay called “This one weird trick might cost your retirement fund billions” that the S&P 500 was considering rules changes that would have allowed SpaceX to be included in the S&P 500 faster and with fewer restrictions than ever before, an idea that I thought could prove horrific for retail investors and retirees investing in index funds, given that many (thought not quite all) onlookers find the initial share price to be loopy.
To my great joy S&P did NOT change the rules!
You can click the above to read the full reasoning, but the bottom line is that Musk’s dubiously-priced SpaceX offer will NOT be immediately jammed down index funds without delay.
Instead, SpaceX will have to earn its keep; index funds may still wind up indexing it, but only after the market has had a year to evaluate its worth.
That is great news for fairness. Rejoice!
P.S. Some commentators have interpreted the coding speed up results in the Anthropic blog as showing that AI or deep learning are not hitting a wall. It actually shows the former but not the latter. The progress is real, but this isn’t a victory for pure scaling per se, it’s victory for harnesses and symbolic tools, which are neurosymbolic systems. Pure deep learning has largely hit a wall; neurosymbolic AI is rescuing it. (Put differently and more personally, my own claim was never that AI would hit a wall, or that deep learning should be abandoned, but that we would need to supplement deep learning with neurosymbolic AI, in order to address the limitation of pure scaling. And that’s exactly what happened.)