John Naughton asks Claude

"'The irony,' wrote Claude, 'is that by calling LLMs artificial intelligence, we’re not just mischaracterising what these systems do; we’re also impoverishing our understanding of what human intelligence actually is.

"We’re essentially defining intelligence down to the narrow slice that current technology can simulate.' 

"And down to what Musk and Altman think it is.

"What this interaction brought to mind was the most perceptive metaphor for LLMs that has emerged so far: US psychologist Alison Gopnik’s idea that these things are a new cultural technology, which she defines as a tool that allows individuals to take advantage of collective knowledge, skills and information accumulated through human history. 

"She is a world expert on how children learn and has a low opinion of machines in that context. 

"So instead of asking futile questions about whether LLMs are intelligent, she thinks that we should be focusing on how effective they are at transmitting and making accessible the accumulated knowledge of human culture."