Ability to solve long-horizon tasks correlates with wanting things in the behaviorist sense

Status: Vague, sorry. The point seems almost tautological to me, and yet also seems like the correct answer to the people going around saying “LLMs turned out to be not very want-y, when are the people who expected 'agents' going to update?”, so, here we are.

Okay, so you know how AI today isn't great at certain... let's say "long-horizon" tasks? Like novel large-scale engineering projects, or writing a long book series with lots of foreshadowing?

(Modulo the fact that it can play chess pretty well, which is longer-horizon than some things; this distinction is quantitative rather than qualitative and it's being eroded, etc.)

And you know how the AI doesn't seem to have all that much "want"- or "desire"-like behavior?

(Modulo, e.g., the fact that it can play chess pretty well, which indicates a [...]

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First published:
November 24th, 2023

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AWoZBzxdm4DoGgiSj/ability-to-solve-long-horizon-tasks-correlates-with-wanting

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