Gary Marcus

Rank 22 of 47
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Score 52
6/28/2025, 9:06:15 PM
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In reply to:
Lawrence Chan
@justanotherlaw
·
54d
@GaryMarcus @ohabryka But I suspect many people would read your examples and conclude that LLMs won’t have real-world economic impact. Certainly, several very senior professors (who’ve since changed their mind) around me did.
Lawrence Chan
@justanotherlaw
·
54d
@GaryMarcus @ohabryka I don’t think you intended readers to take away this claim! I think your point is that we can’t easily get >0.999999 reliability via scaling due to how the transformer architecture (and more broadly, modern deep learning) works. Thus, each failure is evidence that we’re not at
Lawrence Chan
@justanotherlaw
·
54d
@GaryMarcus @ohabryka Yes, I agree that under a careful narrow reading, you were correct. GPT-2 probably doesn’t have a world model by any reasonable use of the word, and GPT-3 fails basic physics questions without careful prompting. But under a more cursory reading, the claims that these failings
Gary Marcus
@GaryMarcus
·
54d
@justanotherlaw @ohabryka rather, instead, i highlighted specific problems that have not in fact yet been solved.
Lawrence Chan
@justanotherlaw
·
54d
@GaryMarcus @ohabryka While I think your specific predictions have been above average, I do think people would’ve been quite wrong about how AI in 2025 was like if they internalized your general mood of “AI won’t work” in 2019-20. Oli is probably referring to that.
Gary Marcus
@GaryMarcus
·
54d
@justanotherlaw @ohabryka it was completely unfair, and his nitpicking exercise didn’t change that.

The statement is part of a broader discussion on the economic impact of large language models (LLMs) and their productivity implications. It engages with public issues related to technology and economics, thus constituting public discourse. The tone is analytical and seeks clarification on the impact of LLMs on productivity and GDP.

  1. Principle 1:
    I will strive to do no harm with my words and actions.
    The statement does not use harmful language and maintains a neutral tone, adhering to the principle of doing no harm with words. [+1]
  2. Principle 3:
    I will use my words and actions to promote understanding, empathy, and compassion.
    The statement seeks to promote understanding by asking for convincing productivity statistics, which aligns with promoting understanding and empathy. [+1]
  3. Principle 4:
    I will engage in constructive criticism and dialogue with those in disagreement and will not engage in personal attacks or ad hominem arguments.
    The statement engages in constructive dialogue by addressing the topic without personal attacks, adhering to the principle of constructive criticism. [+1]