Jack Clark @jackclarkSF
— reply from @andrewth... — saved image
Jack Clark @jackclarkSF · 2h "stochastic parrot" was a mimetically-fit cognitive virus that spread from 2021-2025; it temporarily blinded many gifted people to the nature of AI progress, burning up crucial years in which they could have helped think through the response to the situation. 108 replies · 191 reposts · 1.2K likes · 72K views Where the Tweets have... @andrewth... · 2h fwiw it seems like critics of stochastic parrots talk about stochastic parrots a lot more than the authors of stochastic parrots. it seems to live rent free in AI people's minds, so in that sense i agree it's an effective concept. but if it's so wrong why not ignore it? 6 replies · 22 likes · 4.1K views Jack Clark @jackclarkSF · 2h because I constantly run into people who discount the capabilities of AI systems on the basis that they're stochastic parrots or next-token predictors, and the use of this frame causes people to materially underestimate what AI systems can/can't do 6 replies · 129 likes · 5.4K views ASM reposted Jack Clark @jackclarkSF you run into really smart people who are broadly incapable of seeing contemporary AI systems for what they are, which means they don't allocate their prodigious capabilities to helping civilization deal with AI progress and instead set on the sidelines. it's a big waste
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A four-post thread on X: Jack Clark calls the 'stochastic parrot' frame a mimetically-fit cognitive virus, a reply questions why critics of the concept talk about it so much, and Clark replies that the frame leads people to underestimate AI capabilities, followed by a repost of his further post about smart people sitting on the sidelines.
stochastic parrotsai capabilitiesjack clarkai discoursenext-token prediction