You were the one throwing out ad hominems, dude.

Lol what? Ad hominems? Oh Jesus Christ you’re one of those… So I ignored your argument and said you didn’t know what you were talking about because you were a janitor? Or that you can’t possibly understand LLMs because you’re too old/young/uneducated?

No. Disagreeing is not an ad hominem. Claiming you don’t understand something is not an ad hominem. Misunderstanding is not an ad hominem. I even apologized for the misunderstanding. And if you can’t see how “I believe in X because I care about humanity,” doesn’t directly insinuate that not caring about X means you don’t care about humanity, then holy fuck communication was never going to work.

It’s a shame, because you had some good points, and I was hoping that apologizing would have reduced your hostility. But I can see now that your goal has been to “Win” the argument. I’ve literally never seen that ad hominem claim used incorrectly, by somebody trying to have an honest discussion.

Also. Nothing I said is ad hominem either. It’s direct commentary of events within this conversation, independent of what your profession is or who you are. Even the “You’re one of those,” comment is not ad hominem.

I’m done 👍.

Okay… You seem to get really upset when I directly quote you, and claim that I’m putting words in your mouth, so I’ll do what you do and cite your phrases exactly.

Why only assume? I cited Wikipedia. You cited nothing.

Because whether you or I are correct in the specific definition is what is means to be an LLM is irrelevant to my purpose in engaging in this conversation. I concede that I might have overreached in my confidence of whether or not it is an LLM, because Nature itself calls it:

“the largest-scale fully open language model[s] to date.”

And a lot of the other abstracts and comments on Evo draw the deep similarities to other LLMs. Again, this comes down to where the clean line between any given AI actually is. And my entire point behind this argument is that it doesn’t matter to anybody outside the lab.

My hate of LLMs is certainly not misinformed. It’s only tribe-based in that I care for humanity.

Stating you hate LLMs because you care for humanity directly supposes that those who do not hate LLMs, do not care for humanity.

“I’m against X because I care about protecting children,” is used ad nauseum to suggest that NOT being against X automatically means you don’t care about children. I’m not putting words in your mouth by interpreting your words in the way words are typically interpreted.

If I misunderstand your meanings, I apologize. But please stop assuming I’m intentionally misinterpreting you when I’m literally just reading your words and responding to them to the best of my ability.

…Except that it isn’t. It’s not a Generative Pre-Trained Transformer. It uses a Transformer-like architecture. You cannot use Evo’s architecture to make a chatbot. It’s a GLM.

Okay. Is that the defining feature of where your problem lies? Specifically in the capacity to use human language to interact with AI? Because that’s a specific issue that can be addressed, rather than the vague “I don’t like this technology because it has hurt people.”

Go ahead and train a StripedHyena2 model to be a chatbot, then. I’m sure that will work great.

Okay, second pass. So your issue is specifically with interacting with AI using natural human language?

For someone who’s such a stickler for making 100% correct and unambiguous statements, you’re sure keen on asserting equality where there is merely similarity.

Fair. I shouldn’t have confidently claimed they were identical in every way. The vast majority of the time, I’m talking to people that have very little understanding of the technology, and have just pure vibe-based fears about it. I apologize for the unjustified gross-comparison.

Nobody is claiming these technologies don’t share some (or even a lot of) DNA. Being upset that people correctly use the definition of LLMs as outlined by Wikipedia, where even Evo’s own Github page doesn’t claim it’s an LLM, is just derailing the conversation away from people’s righteous objections.

Again, my focus on the conversation was separating “This technology is universally bad,” from “This technology has been used to hurt people.” I wasn’t trying to derail the conversation, I was trying to focus it. I am far less interested in scientific definitions of what every single model technically classifies as, than I am in addressing the widespread blanket hate against a technology that has no say in how it is used. I don’t think dynamite is evil, nor do I think genetics is evil. Despite both being used for MASSIVE harm at various points in history.

That analogy doesn’t really hold up to the “Therefore.”

There are LOTS of things that taste worse than water, and yet are critical to cooking. Vanilla extract, oil, soy sauce, etc. I personally don’t like fish, but a little bit in the right context can be delicious.

I did not say all deep learning algorithms are LLMs, I said all LLMs are deep learning algorithms. It’s a nested hierarchy, that relationship only runs one way.

Yes. Evo was trained on text strings of genomic data. That’s what I was trying to say was the misunderstanding. LLMs do not require language as you and I would recognize it. If you think that calling them “Large Language Models,” is misleading, I kinda agree, but then we can start arguing semantics about why scientists name anything the way they do. Dark matter isn’t actually dark, and probably isn’t matter. Dark energy isn’t dark. There was no explosion during the big bang.

If you’re using colloquial word usage and demanding scientific advances follow your expectations, you’re going to have a bad time.

But let’s just say for the sake of argument that you’re 100% correct, and that Evo is not an LLM. Rather, it’s something extremely close, save for a few differences.

People are already angry at the researchers for “Using AI to develop super-bugs,” or saying the genuinely universal “AI has no uses!” And earnestly failing to differentiate between the shit-bot that makes deep-fakes, and the AI designed to identify cancers.

That is why I absolutely reject your disrespectful framing that by defending a technology, and NOT it’s worst uses, I’m somehow opposite to “care(ing) for humanity.”

The actual technology behind Evo and ChatGPT is structurally the same. The methods of training a model on genomic data or weather patterns is indistinguishable from training it on stolen media. The difference is the uses, and targets.

This is my point. They are LLMs. That is not an opinion or a debatable point. They are categorically, definitionally, LLMs. You don’t understand what LLMs are, because LLMs ARE deep learning models, and instead of taking the time to actually learn about the technology you’re responding to my corrections with hostility.

You and I are on the same side. Chat-bots ARE harmful. But putting that label on a technology as a whole is purely tribe-based fear that is already causing the spread of unfounded fear and misinformation.

And the claim wasn’t “Don’t use AI as a source of information,” which I agree with. It was “Don’t use any AI,” which you clarified to mean LLMs. So this is very much pertinent.

Then you don’t actually understand what LLMs are, and you’re using the term as a short-hand to mean chat bots. I’m not trying to be rude, but you need to understand that is just a fact, if you think LLMs can only be chat-bots, and can only be corporate, and can only be trained unethically.

Would it surprise you to know that quite a lot of genuine advances have been made by using LLMs that don’t speak any language you’d recognize? Evo 1 and Evo 2 for example “Speak” genome sequences. There are other models that have been used to improve weather modeling, and animal behaviour analysis.

You’re right that AI is a very broad term, but so is LLM. The problem is that ignorant people see “AI” and automatically assume it’s bad because of the connotation with Chat-Bots.

By AI do you mean LLMs specifically? All LLMs, or just the corporate ones? Because I fully agree that ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. truly are awful. But this is also catching genuinely useful technological advances in with the wide net. AI isn’t just LLMs, LLMs aren’t just chat bots. And claiming a technologies worst implementations are indicative of the entire tech would see just about every single technology ever made fall in the same category.

Yes, I’m not arguing against this, but it’s irrelevant to my point, because it ignores the people who are statistically unlikely to need help, and yet still do. I understood the whole point to be “We need more shelters accepting of everyone,” because a HUGE number of shelters specify they are for women and children only. Which, simply put, is just saying, “No men above 18 allowed.”

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the reason. I’m very aware of the bear analogy. But that doesn’t make the lives of those excluded any easier

Well that’s good for you, but irrelevant to the point. Unless you’re saying all men are your equal in every way. Which is philosophically nice, but realistically wrong.

No, that’s not true. Universities have been making their own models. Private individuals have been making their own models. The most famous ones are, of course, purely corporate. But claiming that the tech is inseparable from the corporation is demonstrably incorrect.

Evo 2 was recently used in a revolutionary antibiotic research paper, which is entirely open source and trained and public data. Is that also corporate?

Good point. Splitting things in to 3rds is the most common function of everything. Why, just the other day I was building a box. I started by measuring the largest face of the backplate and subtracting the thickness of the side plates so I could figure out the internal volume. Most people would have done a simple equation like x-y but I prefer to do 3((x/3) - (y/3)). It’s a much cleaner method.

The same can be said about LITERALLY every technology ever made. Everything you listed is real, problems that need to be addressed, and the companies responsible for exacerbating them held accountable.

A technologies worst implementations are not representative of its usefulness.

Unless you want to ban the entire field of biology as well for the atrocities committed associated with it.

Only because the boundary has been set to include genuine adults. That boundary SHOULD be pushed.

Sure, I’m not against that at all. I hate advertisements and would take no issue with a universal ban. My problem was with the arbitrary moral outrage at this advertisement targeting “Children,” by virtue of the utterly meaningless phrase “Under Age,” which includes actual, legitimate adults, in the US.

Sure, but the primary complaint was against a 0% alcohol beer targeted at “Children” by nature of using the term “Under Age.” I have no complaints against wanting to remove advertising, in general, including drug advertisements.

Below drinking age, sure. I think the nonsense here is that the US considers you “Under age” until you’re 21. So you’re complaining about an ad targeting children, when the target is literally “Anybody under the age of 21.” Which is an unfair complaint to make.

Because using that same logic, “under age” porn is actually legal. Because at 18 you can get fucked in the ass by 3 dudes at once, but not buy a beer.

I hear you say “But there are different ages for X and Y.” Yeah, but it’s the exact same term used to mean the same idea with completely different ranges and neither has any justification beyond “Uh… Here’s the cut-off I guess?”

Would you take issue with 18yr olds having beer ads aimed at them? Because that’s technically “Under Age Beer!” And they’d be considered full adults here in Germany.

Except the US concept of underage also includes people 16 to 20, which this ad is undoubtedly target towards. If it was an ad for beer with bright colours and cartoon characters I would agree, but it is not.

So 19yr olds shouldn’t be advertised to? What’s the cut off?

I actually fully agree that all advertisement is awful and support removing it entirely.

But lacking that, I don’t see an issue with advertising universally. And if we’re going to restrict advertisement to children, target actual children. “Teenagers” includes people legally old enough to join the military and kill other humans.

I’m pretty sure young and impressionable children get used to the idea of drinking beer from friends and family. I think the bigger issue is that the drinking age is fucking 21. It’s absolutely nonsense. If you want to protect children from alcohol abuse, talk to them, teach them, let them have alcohol when they’re ready to try it, in safe settings.

Wow, that’s extremely offensive! How dare you steal my hometown’s unique and clever slogan?!