This post was rejected for the following reason(s):
Insufficient Quality for AI Content. There’ve been a lot of new users coming to LessWrong recently interested in AI. To keep the site’s quality high and ensure stuff posted is interesting to the site’s users, we’re currently only accepting posts that meets a pretty high bar.
If you want to try again, I recommend writing something short and to the point, focusing on your strongest argument, rather than a long, comprehensive essay. (This is fairly different from common academic norms). We get lots of AI essays/papers every day and sadly most of them don't make very clear arguments, and we don't have time to review them all thoroughly.
We look for good reasoning, making a new and interesting point, bringing new evidence, and/or building upon prior discussion. If you were rejected for this reason, possibly a good thing to do is read more existing material. The AI Intro Material wiki-tag is a good place, for example.
As AI continues to evolve, I’ve been following the development of Liquid Neural Networks (LNNs) with particular interest. These networks dynamically adapt like biological neurons, making them a promising area of research for increasing AI’s flexibility and efficiency. However, I believe there’s a key point that often gets overlooked in the AI community: while LNNs might improve the fluidity of AI, they do not take us any closer to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
Liquid Neural Networks and Their Potential
LNNs are a significant breakthrough because they allow AI models to adjust in real-time to new data, making them far more adaptable than traditional neural networks. But even with this flexibility, LNNs still face one major issue: reasoning. They might improve performance in specific tasks, but the deeper, more complex understanding required for AGI is still missing.
The Hype Around AGI
We’ve seen similar overhype in the past with models like GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. There was a widespread belief that these models represented a major step toward AGI, but they were ultimately just more sophisticated forms of pattern recognition. I believe that LNNs will face the same fate—they’ll be overhyped as the next leap toward AGI, but in reality, they will only make AI more convincing, not truly intelligent.
Where Do We Stand on AGI?
AGI, in my view, remains far off. Neural networks are inspired by the brain, but we still don’t understand how human reasoning works at a fundamental level. Without breakthroughs in areas like quantum computing or neuroscience, I don’t see AGI emerging anytime soon. Instead, AI will likely evolve in directions like human-AI hybrid systems, such as Neuralink, rather than standalone, general-purpose intelligence.
The Future of AI
In conclusion, while LNNs represent a significant step forward in AI’s adaptability, we shouldn’t mistake them for the key to AGI. The future of AI isn’t just about scaling up models or adding more flexibility; it’s about understanding intelligence itself—what makes us truly “intelligent” and how we can replicate that.
I would love to hear others' thoughts on this and whether you think the hype surrounding LNNs is justified, or if we are still missing something crucial in our pursuit of AGI.