'Stochastic parrot' called a cognitive virus that blinded AI watchers for years
andrewthesmart · x · 2026-09-20
Responding to Jack Clark, researcher andrewthesmart notes the irony that critics of 'stochastic parrots' talk about it far more than the paper's authors ever did — the concept 'lives rent free' in AI people's minds. Quoted context: Clark called it a mimetically-fit cognitive virus that spread from 2021-2025, temporarily blinding gifted people to the nature of AI progress and burning crucial years they could have spent thinking through the response.
More from AGI Musings
- Agents' bottleneck isn't intelligence but goal commitment — and that's good for alignment — mimi10v3 · 2026-11-12
- Google Cloud survey: 78% say legacy enterprise vendors may not lead the AI era — rseroter · 2026-11-12
- Safety researchers blast OpenAI/Anthropic plan: automating alignment research with possibly misaligned AI — trevposts · 2026-11-12
- NYT essay: resisting Big Tech and AI takes collective action, not willpower — TuhinChakr · 2026-11-12
- Ethan Mollick: 'talk to your documents' RAG solutions already feel dated — emollick · 2026-11-12
- Anthropic's pitch hasn't changed in 5 years: 'AI is winner-take-all, we will build god' — menhguin · 2026-11-12