Mafs and Magic $$$

In my first blog about AI called, What is AI, I said that real General Artificial Intelligence (GAI), or Super AI was something genuinely more intelligent than humans in all respects.

In my second blog about AI called, Is Super AI Already Here? I considered whether GAI or Super AI already existed.  I believe that is does not exist.  So that leaves us to consider what the AI is that we are currently using.

What is ChatGPT, Apple AI, Copilot, Gemini and the rest?

The code in tools like chat GPT is just very very clever maths that makes predictive links between words we use and words the code has been given access to (the large data sets its given).  Its clever maths means its code can present back text which gives it a very human feel

That’s not to say that ChatGPT isn’t great. It’s quite impressive. Here is an example of a simple task I was doing using Microsofts AI (Copilot) which has the ability to surprise and certainly appears to be clever, or even give the appearance that its thinking for itself.

Thinking for Itself?

I had a list of numbers composed of 2 letters, 6 digits and a letter, so AA123456B. The same structure as a UK National Insurance Number (NINO).

I wanted a way of checking the list in Excel and finding the following:

• Combinations not in the above pattern.

• Duplicates.

I asked Copilot to give me a way of checking data in an Excel spreadsheet and highlighting these differences.  It did that and told me 3 methods of doing it, Excel formula, Excel Visual Basic, and Python coding.  Really clever. All three methods worked in practice and worked really well.

However, I noticed in the code that it was also checking the combinations of letters at the start.  I asked it why it was doing this.  The response was that earlier in the conversation I had mentioned UK National Insurance Numbers, so it had taken it upon itself to find out the UK Government rules on the combination of 2 letters that can be used in a NINO and it built that into the code as well even though I had not asked it to.

There are a number of things that are incredible about this.

Firstly is the fact that I described my interaction with it as a conversation,  that is how it felt to me. I was explaining the problem I was trying to deal with and Copilot was making inferences and assumptions from that conversation. Unlike traditional searches it didn’t treat each prompt as a new question with no linkage back to anything we’d spoken about earlier in the conversation.

Secondly, without being asked, it made its own decisions.  It had firstly realised that I was actually talking about. NINOs, which is correct, I was. So it then decided to go above and beyond my instructions and code for the government rules, which it knew, or had access to, and it it took it upon itself to add this into the code making the check I was performing even better than the one I asked for help with.

I did ask it why it had built this into the code even though I had not asked it to, it explained itself and then apologised!

So yeah, this is really clever, but its not real intelligence, its not Super AI, its still code, its still connecting words based on an algorithmic formula in a way that looks magic.

Magic AI

And thats the problem with current AI, its less intelligence and more magic trick.  But instead of the magician coming on stage and saying “I’m a performer of magic tricks, enjoy it” they say “I’m a real wizard and what I do is real”.  No one really minds that there is obviously a rabbit hidden in a secret trap door within the top hat, if the magician is good enough we’ll still be entertained, but if they tried claiming that they made the rabbit appear from thin air, then it becomes an unbelievable piece of rubbish.  So maybe we shouldn’t call it intelligence, its not.  Its more like a much improved search engine.

What is the magic trick?

This magicians version of AI is pure coding with training on large language models.  The coding is good for sure, it means the magic show is really believable and entertaining, but its still code, its not intelligence.  Its really clever code too, imagine trying to code the difference between these two lines:

The chicken didn’t cross the road because it was too tired.

The chicken didn’t cross the road because it was too wide.

For a human this use of language is easy.  Although I have to wait until the final word before knowing what ‘it’ is, I know it instantly and it all makes sense.  I know that in the first sentence, it is the chicken, and in the second, it is the road.  I don’t know this because we had lessons at school about chickens and roads, or because my parents ensured I was aware of tired chickens, I just know it.  Most humans who have learnt English know who ‘it’ is in these sentences.

But imagine coding this understanding.  Where do you even start?  Its incredibly difficult to code every piece of detail like this that arises within our language and communications but ChatGPT and the coding behind it is very clever (the diagram below shows the mathematical model used to reach a result):

Source: https://web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/slp3/9.pdf

This math and logic doesn’t tell the computer every little detail about language, but it allows the computer to look at billions of words in its data sets (also known as large language models) and it makes predictions on meaning and predictions on how to shape a response. Its really clever and we know the results look amazing, but its still coding and still maths.

And thats all we have right now.  Better algorithms, better search engines, but still computer code that says, If they ask a question, seek out all the possibilities of what they are talking about and calculate the likelihood of a response and shape that response into a clever human sounding way.  Its software code that generates a very well crafted set of words as a response.  This is not intelligence, this is good computer programing and computing power.

And to give you an idea of just how clever and valuable this code is, Lionel Messi, the star footballer, signed to Inter Miami for £60 million. Meta (FacebooK) has just signed its latest top AI talent for £70 million.