分享一段最近关于 AI 对经济影响的有趣讨论。 AI 常被拿来与历史上的各种先例相比:电力、工业革命等等。但我认为最有力的类比,是把 AI 视为一种新的计算范式(Software 2.0),因为两者本质上都是在自动化数字信息处理。 如果你在 1980 年代预测计算机对就业市场的影响,最关键的判断指标是:某个任务/工作里的“算法”是否固定。也就是说,它是否只是按照机械、易于明确描述的规则来处理信息(例如打字、记账、人工计算等)。在那个时代,这种类型的任务恰好就是计算机能力允许我们“手写程序”自动化的部分。 如今随着 AI 的出现,我们能够“写出”以前根本无法通过手写代码实现的程序。我们通过设定目标(例如分类准确率、奖励函数),然后通过梯度下降在“程序空间”中搜索,使神经网络在这些目标上表现良好。这就是我之前写的 Software 2.0 博文所讲的内容。 在这种新的编程范式下,最具预测性的指标变成了 可验证性(verifiability)。如果一个任务/工作能够被验证,那么它就可以被直接优化,或通过强化学习优化,神经网络可以被训练得非常好。关键在于 AI 能否“练习”这个任务。为此,环境必须能够重置(可以重新尝试)、高效(可以进行大量尝试),并且能够奖励(要有自动化的方式对每次尝试给予反馈)。 一个任务/工作越 可验证,它就越容易在新的编程范式中被自动化。如果它不可验证,那就只能依赖神经网络的泛化魔法(祈祷好运),或依靠模仿等更弱的方式。这也正是推动 LLM 发展呈现“锯齿状前沿”现象的原因。 那些 可验证的任务 进展迅速,甚至可能超过顶尖专家(例如数学、代码、长视频分析、任何有明确正确答案的谜题类任务)。而其他任务则落后许多(创造性、策略性、需要结合现实世界知识、状态、上下文与常识的任务)。 总结如下: Software 1.0:轻松自动化你能够“明确描述”的任务。 Software 2.0:轻松自动化你能够“验证结果”的任务。 Sharing an interesting recent conversation on AI's impact on the economy. AI has been compared to various historical precedents: electricity, industrial revolution, etc., I think the strongest analogy is that of AI as a new computing paradigm (Software 2.0) because both are fundamentally about the automation of digital information processing. If you were to forecast the impact of computing on the job market in ~1980s, the most predictive feature of a task/job you'd look at is to what extent the algorithm of it is fixed, i.e. are you just mechanically transforming information according to rote, easy to specify rules (e.g. typing, bookkeeping, human calculators, etc.)? Back then, this was the class of programs that the computing capability of that era allowed us to write (by hand, manually). With AI now, we are able to write new programs that we could never hope to write by hand before. We do it by specifying objectives (e.g. classification accuracy, reward functions), and we search the program space via gradient descent to find neural networks that work well against that objective. This is my Software 2.0 blog post from a while ago. In this new programming paradigm then, the new most predictive feature to look at is verifiability. If a task/job is verifiable, then it is optimizable directly or via reinforcement learning, and a neural net can be trained to work extremely well. It's about to what extent an AI can "practice" something. The environment has to be resettable (you can start a new attempt), efficient (a lot attempts can be made), and rewardable (there is some automated process to reward any specific attempt that was made). The more a task/job is verifiable, the more amenable it is to automation in the new programming paradigm. If it is not verifiable, it has to fall out from neural net magic of generalization fingers crossed, or via weaker means like imitation. This is what's driving the "jagged" frontier of progress in LLMs. Tasks that are verifiable progress rapidly, including possibly beyond the ability of top experts (e.g. math, code, amount of time spent watching videos, anything that looks like puzzles with correct answers), while many others lag by comparison (creative, strategic, tasks that combine real-world knowledge, state, context and common sense). Software 1.0 easily automates what you can specify. Software 2.0 easily automates what you can verify.

Andrej KarpathyFounder, Eureka Labs AI

观点原文

分享一段最近关于 AI 对经济影响的有趣讨论。

AI 常被拿来与历史上的各种先例相比:电力、工业革命等等。但我认为最有力的类比,是把 AI 视为一种新的计算范式(Software 2.0),因为两者本质上都是在自动化数字信息处理。

如果你在 1980 年代预测计算机对就业市场的影响,最关键的判断指标是:某个任务/工作里的“算法”是否固定。也就是说,它是否只是按照机械、易于明确描述的规则来处理信息(例如打字、记账、人工计算等)。在那个时代,这种类型的任务恰好就是计算机能力允许我们“手写程序”自动化的部分。

如今随着 AI 的出现,我们能够“写出”以前根本无法通过手写代码实现的程序。我们通过设定目标(例如分类准确率、奖励函数),然后通过梯度下降在“程序空间”中搜索,使神经网络在这些目标上表现良好。这就是我之前写的 Software 2.0 博文所讲的内容。

在这种新的编程范式下,最具预测性的指标变成了 可验证性(verifiability)。如果一个任务/工作能够被验证,那么它就可以被直接优化,或通过强化学习优化,神经网络可以被训练得非常好。关键在于 AI 能否“练习”这个任务。为此,环境必须能够重置(可以重新尝试)、高效(可以进行大量尝试),并且能够奖励(要有自动化的方式对每次尝试给予反馈)。

一个任务/工作越 可验证,它就越容易在新的编程范式中被自动化。如果它不可验证,那就只能依赖神经网络的泛化魔法(祈祷好运),或依靠模仿等更弱的方式。这也正是推动 LLM 发展呈现“锯齿状前沿”现象的原因。

那些 可验证的任务 进展迅速,甚至可能超过顶尖专家(例如数学、代码、长视频分析、任何有明确正确答案的谜题类任务)。而其他任务则落后许多(创造性、策略性、需要结合现实世界知识、状态、上下文与常识的任务)。

总结如下:

Software 1.0:轻松自动化你能够“明确描述”的任务。

Software 2.0:轻松自动化你能够“验证结果”的任务。

Sharing an interesting recent conversation on AI's impact on the economy.

AI has been compared to various historical precedents: electricity, industrial revolution, etc., I think the strongest analogy is that of AI as a new computing paradigm (Software 2.0) because both are fundamentally about the automation of digital information processing.

If you were to forecast the impact of computing on the job market in ~1980s, the most predictive feature of a task/job you'd look at is to what extent the algorithm of it is fixed, i.e. are you just mechanically transforming information according to rote, easy to specify rules (e.g. typing, bookkeeping, human calculators, etc.)? Back then, this was the class of programs that the computing capability of that era allowed us to write (by hand, manually).

With AI now, we are able to write new programs that we could never hope to write by hand before. We do it by specifying objectives (e.g. classification accuracy, reward functions), and we search the program space via gradient descent to find neural networks that work well against that objective. This is my Software 2.0 blog post from a while ago. In this new programming paradigm then, the new most predictive feature to look at is verifiability. If a task/job is verifiable, then it is optimizable directly or via reinforcement learning, and a neural net can be trained to work extremely well. It's about to what extent an AI can "practice" something. The environment has to be resettable (you can start a new attempt), efficient (a lot attempts can be made), and rewardable (there is some automated process to reward any specific attempt that was made).

The more a task/job is verifiable, the more amenable it is to automation in the new programming paradigm. If it is not verifiable, it has to fall out from neural net magic of generalization fingers crossed, or via weaker means like imitation. This is what's driving the "jagged" frontier of progress in LLMs. Tasks that are verifiable progress rapidly, including possibly beyond the ability of top experts (e.g. math, code, amount of time spent watching videos, anything that looks like puzzles with correct answers), while many others lag by comparison (creative, strategic, tasks that combine real-world knowledge, state, context and common sense).

Software 1.0 easily automates what you can specify.

Software 2.0 easily automates what you can verify.

AI

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