r/aiwars 3h ago

Discussion What am I supposed to reply to that?

Post image

I don’t want to sound condescending, but I get the impression that a lot of anti-AI people treat computing like some kind of magic and developers like wizards. What I’m saying isn’t some niche topic. I’m a developer, but I don’t work in AI. I don’t see what’s so hard to understand: you can create a model with a program, and it isn’t a developer who wrote the model by hand, line by line.

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u/Maleficent_Sir_7562 2h ago

i remember another person saying its "code", here were my arguments:

"No not really, Image gen requires training, and outputs stochastic things. You can't just code in specific weights in the neural network, you don't know what number works and what doesn't. Algorithmic code is different."

"Yes, I think I do know what I'm talking about, considering I actually studied how these things work. Wouldn't be confident about you.

They are trained on data, they are not deterministic algorithms that work like a Python script. You can't "code in" neural network training. They get their weights after putting in data, using things like optimizers (which are stochastic, such as AdamW) and backpropagation, which let them get all these weight numbers at the end of training.

This is different from a script or code."

"first, its "code", not "a code".

It's a dataset, weights are a dataset that were obtained from training. Code is instructions to tell a computer to do something. Weights are just a bunch of numbers. An architecture (like diffusion or transformer) is then applied to said weights to make the model run. That part is the code.

My txt file of "2, -2, 0.7, 3, 0.6" is not code."

u/SnooCats5204 2h ago

Very good points, indeed. I'll share them with him and see what he has to say.

I realize that in my comment, I had confused deterministic with imperative. Oops.

u/Maleficent_Sir_7562 2h ago

I pasted it to them

u/Demenztor 2h ago

That txt file does suspiciously look like a code...

u/Heartlessaus 2h ago

for you drawing folk,
"its just code", is the same as 'your artwork is just a bunch of drawn lines"

u/Another-Ace-Alt-8270 2h ago

Or how your dearest relative is "just flesh". Not technically incorrect, but rather insultingly put.

u/Heartlessaus 2h ago

kinda weird.. but you do you.

u/Another-Ace-Alt-8270 2h ago

I was gonna go for "just atoms", but that applies to everything we know about. And like I said, it's not a good way to put it- it's weird, it's reductive, it's honestly a bit of an insult, and it's only "true" by technicality.

u/nextnode 1h ago

Technically not correct. E.g. an image is also stored on a computer and it is not code. Models are like that - data that is being loaded by a program.

The shared term for everything stored on a computer is 'data'.

u/ValPasch 2h ago edited 2h ago

this is like saying that an mp3 or a photo is just code. not every string is code. a model is an array of numbers. its data and the software that generates it is the code.

you can take a piece of code and actually read it and understand what that set of instructions does. you cant do that with a list of floating point numbers.

or actually to be more precise, because sometimes there are minified, compiled, obfuscated code, binaries etc you cant really read, the code is whats being executed, the data- whether its a model or an mp3 - is the thing that the code operates on

u/Scienceandpony 2h ago

It's "just code" in the same way that a dog is "just atoms". Technically not incorrect, but ludicrously reductive.

u/INxP 1h ago

Also conventionally "code" in the context of computers refers to some symbolic programming language, not just any bunch of data. But people often do be redefining established terms willy-nilly whenever it suits their purpose.

u/nextnode 1h ago

Technically not correct. E.g. an image is also stored on a computer and it is not code. Models are like that - data that is being loaded by a program.

The shared term for everything stored on a computer is 'data'.

u/snezna_kraljica 2h ago

As always arguing semantics which doesn't further either point and is pointless and causes confusion.

u/SnooCats5204 2h ago

This isn’t a debate about semantics. This is clearly a case of misunderstanding. What sits at the heart of AI isn’t code. It’s a matrix. A matrix isn’t code, it’s a sequence of values.

u/snezna_kraljica 2h ago

It's still semantics ... you're kinda using wrong or unclear terminology in regards to ML (ML can be just code, depends on what exactly which you later try to clear up "depends on which type of AI").

And if you dig deep at the end there is always a program. The LLM is running on code/a program as in a fixed set on instructions. The generation layer of the LLM (the inference) is non-deterministic and the sum of the function of the weights, in that regard you are right, it's not code/a program. But the framework the LLM is running in is.

So you two are just talking past each other as you're drawing the line about what you talk differently based on the terminology used.

Could have been cleared up easily, but communication is sometimes hard.

u/SnooCats5204 1h ago

u/snezna_kraljica 1h ago edited 1h ago

I can only go from what you've shared initially. It's a communications issue between you two.

I don't know what sense there is to analyse every interaction you have on reddit to help you to communicate to people. I can offer you a coaching if you want.

No of your shared screenshots are in any way invalidating what I've said before.

u/SnooCats5204 1h ago

No, what you’re saying is factually wrong. I talked about deterministic AI to distinguish it from generative AI. When people talk about AI-generated images or AI-generated text, they’re talking about generative AI, not deterministic AI.

And if you say generative AI is “code,” that’s because you haven’t understood what AI is. Yes, you use code to write the program that creates the model and the program that reads it — but the AI itself was never coded. Saying it’s code implies that I, as a developer, wrote a giant pile of if/else statements so the machine would draw a bunch of lines that look like a dog when the user types the word “dog.” That’s not what happens.

Saying it’s code means you haven’t understood what machine learning is.

u/snezna_kraljica 1h ago

> And if you say generative AI is “code,” that’s because you haven’t understood what AI is.

Good thing I've didn't say that. Maybe I can give you a lesson in reading comprehension as well.

u/SnooCats5204 58m ago

You said it was just semantics to answer that it isn’t code. Sorry, but you’re the one with a comprehension problem here.

u/snezna_kraljica 40m ago

No that's not what I've said.

u/SnooCats5204 39m ago

Whatever...

u/SnooCats5204 1h ago

Saying AI is code because it needs software made of code to run is like saying the human body is air and water because it mainly needs air and water to function.

u/nins_ 37m ago

This can be clarified by simply saying that the model's learned weights are sets of numbers. Which by themselves would be meaningless.

And the learned weights are a function of the (massive) training data, training code and model architecture.

u/Bassed_Hummble 1h ago

Some do really think it's "just code", because they don't grasp what machine learning is.

They think that humans wrote some long, very convoluted bunch of "if/then/else" statements which draw from a big database of text or images somewhere. I have literally seen people on this sub say that.

Of course, this is just flat-out, plain, wrong in every way. The model contains no code, just trillions of inscrutable interconnected numbers that no human can ever interpret. There are no computer instructions in it, and there is no database of words or images anywhere. (To get an answer from that model, sure, you need about 20 lines of matrix multiplication math that a comp sci freshman could write, and no if/else statements or database at all.)

Others, however, think that the fact that it runs on a computer means it's not intelligent. In other words, they believe that human brain cells are magic. It makes them very uncomfortable to think that the lossy, low-quality stochastic predictive computation that happens in the brain is somehow "special" and that if a neuron gets excited by its inputs to exceed a threshold value, causing it to fire, that some wooo magical thinking soul thing happens - but not when the exact same computation is performed on silicon.

This is where philosophers just go "I'll need a stiff drink".

u/UtherPendragon_ 2h ago

These people could really do with just messing with local models to understand it - there is no code within AI, it is a big (8-130GB) table of decimal numbers, called the weights, which are organised into structures that mimic our brains neurons. You can open them up and look at the numbers and see there's no code there. You do need code to load them up and have them receive and output text, but that's only four lines of python - it's not the bit doing anything.

Somehow these decimal numbers contain information on everything, can draw art, and solve frontier math problems - almost like they are intelligence itself. They are Made of Weights

u/ThundagaYoMama 2h ago

I think he means to say it's just 'data'... If I'm understanding correctly.

u/DaveG28 2h ago

Yeah it's what I'd probably just call a software program. A database with coding to then actually do the actions (so the input / output of a chatbot etc).

u/Meatbot-v20 2h ago edited 2h ago

If you want to boil it all down, everything is code. We live in a deterministic universe. Well, insofar as we ignore the noise of quantum randomness. Brains receive sensory input, physics and chemistry happen in a deterministic way as they always do, and you get an output of some thought or action.

We are meatbots. I don't choose to get hungry or tired. I can't forget that embarrassing thing I said in 8th grade when I'm almost asleep and it wakes me up. It's just my operating system.

u/steve_ll 2h ago

Ai's are kinda like compilers tho, they code the first and the compilers is the most responsible in the process of making the others. One women made the first compiler when coding were physical, from that on it became easier to translate speach to machine

u/Malusorum 1h ago

You can respond with that if there were no code then the LLMs could never be restricted in their interactions, which they have, or lie, which Grok is.

u/binnedit2 2h ago

u/INxP 2h ago

False dichotomy. It's not a choice between "works exactly like human brain" or "is code".

u/binnedit2 2h ago

Ok, I'll rephrase. It's not a simulation. Also, it is code.

u/INxP 1h ago

I don't quite follow. No one has even mentioned simulation here. The post you linked to is from 2017 and doesn't seem particularly relevant or illuminating. This sounds more like one of those "AI art isn't art" type semantic fixations or maybe just confusing neural networks with symbolic artificial intelligence?

u/binnedit2 1h ago

u/INxP 1h ago

Okay, I still don't follow what you're actually trying to say here. What do you mean by "a simulation"? What is it not?

u/binnedit2 44m ago

For me, simulation is something mathematically modeled to closely resemble the thing it's simulating. According to MIT it's "Modeled loosely" This doesn't fit that definition.

From 2025, unless you have another source showing they now use some other architecture that does simulate a brain...

When the transformer architecture was introduced in 2017

Brumby-14B-Base, is a retrained variant of Qwen3-14B-Base, one of the leading open-source transformer models.

https://venturebeat.com/ai/attention-isnt-all-you-need-new-qwen3-variant-brumby-14b-base-leverages

u/UtherPendragon_ 2h ago

No code in any of the AI models, you can download one locally and check. Just decimal numbers.

Neurons have many-to-many connections, and then different electrochemical weights which determine paths that are accessed frequently vs rarely. In models this is handled by the weights being decimals and organised into a tensor structure - and it works - a table full of numbers can talk, create art and invent frontier math.

u/DaveG28 2h ago

Sure but aren't you describing downloading a database.... But then you need code to actually make it do anything. What's the none code way of triggering the model to actual do an action? It doesn't spontaneously make art, it requires an input request.

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

the LLMs themselves are not code, they are weights and a blueprint of the architecture, you can do inference yourself using pen and paper, but to make it easier we use code, that doesn't mean that the LLMs are code, code is just a convenient infrastructure we build around them

u/binnedit2 1h ago

So, a more technically accurate description of the "code"?

You can open any exe too and guess what's inside them, binary, 0s and 1s. It's technically binary that was code, now compiled, but people know what you mean when you call it code.

It's semantics. It's an algorithm, transformer architecture, model, neural network, floating-points. We can call it "code" or pretend it's a simulation of a brain.

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago edited 1h ago

No, code is a formal language with a specification like C# or FORTRAN, these models contain no code in any programming language, just math.

u/binnedit2 1h ago

Neither does any software? code in that sense is only for us when writing it. As soon as it's running it's all binary instructions.

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

Plenty of software runs live code, such as scripting languages, but these models aren't written in assembly language, they're just math.

u/Certain-Cod-1404 2h ago

u/binnedit2 2h ago

What is this?

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

what is the entire section before it genius ? did you even read it ? or was it hard looking math you can't understand so you skipped it ?

The script below implements the calculations performed with the identity activation function.

Its literally just implementing the calculations done by hand up until iteration 2 so it can be done programmatically, the underlying calculations themselves used to train the model are not code and can be performed by hand, the code is just to optimize the process and automate it.
if i use krita to draw something, is the result "code" because I used software to make it ?
lock in

u/binnedit2 1h ago

is your argument it's not code because the code uses maths?
Yes, a jpg is code, code that tells the monitor how to display it.

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

no, my argument is that it's not code, because code has a specific meaning, a deep learning model is a series of matrix multiplication of learned matrices, there is no code involved here except for training them automatically, which is just done to accelerate the process, you can do the whole thing manually, you can also make analog neural networks, what code was involved there ? if you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, why do you insist on arguing?

Yes, a jpg is code, code that tells the monitor how to display it.

is a drawing made in krita and saved as a jpg "code" I mean the drawing itself, not the jpg export ? also jpg is not fucking code, its a file format, you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, why do you insist on so confidently arguing with people who do ?

u/binnedit2 1h ago

So when I give this model that isn't code some data what is instructing it to give an output if there is no code? The model itself isn't code like an array isn't code, but an array on its own doesn't do anything.

Before exporting it, the drawing is still just data and instructions on how to draw it on screen.
An obj is also a file format. What does this look like?

"mtllib cube.mtl cube.mtl" that's code for use the file "cube.mtl" for the materials.

# Blender v2.76 (sub 0) OBJ File: ''
# www.blender.org
mtllib cube.mtl
o Cube
v 1.000000 -1.000000 -1.000000
v 1.000000 -1.000000 1.000000
v -1.000000 -1.000000 1.000000
v -1.000000 -1.000000 -1.000000
v 1.000000 1.000000 -0.999999
v 0.999999 1.000000 1.000001
v -1.000000 1.000000 1.000000
v -1.000000 1.000000 -1.000000
vt 1.000000 0.333333
vt 1.000000 0.666667
vt 0.666667 0.666667
vt 0.666667 0.333333
vt 0.666667 0.000000
vt 0.000000 0.333333
vt 0.000000 0.000000
vt 0.333333 0.000000
vt 0.333333 1.000000
vt 0.000000 1.000000
vt 0.000000 0.666667
vt 0.333333 0.333333
vt 0.333333 0.666667
vt 1.000000 0.000000
vn 0.000000 -1.000000 0.000000
vn 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
vn 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
vn -0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
vn -1.000000 -0.000000 -0.000000
vn 0.000000 0.000000 -1.000000
usemtl Material
s off
f 2/1/1 3/2/1 4/3/1
f 8/1/2 7/4/2 6/5/2
f 5/6/3 6/7/3 2/8/3
f 6/8/4 7/5/4 3/4/4
f 3/9/5 7/10/5 8/11/5
f 1/12/6 4/13/6 8/11/6
f 1/4/1 2/1/1 4/3/1
f 5/14/2 8/1/2 6/5/2
f 1/12/3 5/6/3 2/8/3
f 2/12/4 6/8/4 3/4/4
f 4/13/5 3/9/5 8/11/5
f 5/6/6 1/12/6 8/11/6

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

the model itself is not code, I never claimed that there was no code involved in running inference on computers, lock in, those are 2 completely different statements.

A deep learning model is a chain of learned matrices,affine transformations and non linear activation functions. these are fundamentally not code, they can be trained manually, without any code, you can run inference manually without any code.

to make it easier, more accessible and more optimized, we use code to train the models and run inference, but the underlying model itself is still the same exact model that can be derived by hand, its still just a set of matrices and affine transformations

an array on its own doesn't do anything.

are you familiar with what matrix multiplication is ? you can matrix multiply the weights yourself and get an output, the model itself does nothing, its just literally just a file of matrices and a blueprint of the model's architecture, that's it.

inference engines built around the model like llama cpp are the "code", and its just to make it faster and more accessible and run on computers, thats it

u/binnedit2 42m ago

When yellow in the oop say LLMs are code. Do you think he means the matrices or chatGPT?

Or anyone on a sub called aiwars?

u/Certain-Cod-1404 21m ago

When yellow in the oop say LLMs are code. Do you think he means the matrices or chatGPT?

the LLM itself IS a bunch of matrices, chat GPT is a product built around those matrices I dont care what they meant, they clearly said AI, LLMs and were responding to someone saying machine learning models, and you yourself keep arguing "it's code"

I doubt your problem with chatgpt is the harness around it, your problem is with the generative transformer based decoder model

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u/LuddieRope 2h ago edited 2h ago

Just tell them to get a job and block. Antis are liars at their core. They don't care if what they say is wrong. They say it because they want others to believe it's true, regardless of whether it's true or not. You're not that person's therapist: you can't convince a liar to stop lying.

u/vitek6 2h ago

I think you should stop discussing as you don't understand that either.

u/Clankerbot9000 3h ago

I usually reply with an image of an ogre

u/vote4bort 2h ago

you can create a model with a program, and it isn't a developer who wrote the model by hand, line by line.

And what's that program made out of? Is it perhaps code?

Your impression is the opposite actually, no anti thinks that AI is magic. They think it's just code which is what they said in that reply.

u/BlackDope420 2h ago

No one is disputing that training is done via a program made out of code. The issue here is that the model itself isn't code in any traditional sense. A model is just a lot of numbers, there is not a single line of code from any programming language in it.

u/vote4bort 1h ago

People don't care about that though. That doesn't mean anything to the average person. And like why should it? When people respond with something like "it's just code" they're not making a technical assessment. That's not the point they're making.

u/UtherPendragon_ 2h ago edited 2h ago

The models aren't code based at all - if they were we'd understand them, but they're a black box because they're just dozens of layers of decimal numbers being multiplied together and producing art and frontier math discoveries somehow.

u/vote4bort 2h ago

If we don't understand them, how do you think they were made?

Those numbers, where did they come from? What makes them multiply and how?

u/UtherPendragon_ 2h ago edited 2h ago

Knowing how to make them is not the same as knowing how they work - that's not exactly an uncommon thing, there are plenty of industrial processes where we know the recipe to do them consistently, but have no understanding of how the reaction actually work in terms of physics or chemistry. There's a bunch mentioned in the "list of unsolved problems in science" page on Wikipedia.

We know more than we do in 2022 when ChatGPT launched, but back then we really knew nothing about AI models or how they worked.

Those numbers, where did they come from? What makes them multiply and how?

You feed in lots of information and the numbers update from that, just inherently, like they want to learn.

It's basically the neural structure encoding information as memories, and the multiplications are them retrieving them as memories - but we had no idea how memory worked in the brain before, or where in the brain memories were located, so this was all new discoveries (turns out it's spread across the neuron weights rather than in a dedicated structure like the amygdala).

u/vote4bort 2h ago

Like what? What other thing do we do but don't understand?

So we know how to make them, with what? What's being used to make them?

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago edited 1h ago

Like what? What other thing do we do but don't understand?

We still don't understand how the iron catalyst works in the Haber-Bosch process which produces fertiliser and is required to keep 6 billion people fed, yet it sustains civilisation!

So we know how to make them, with what? What's being used to make them?

I mean this came from academic research - they wanted to create a digital mind, so looking at the one we had made sense, which gave us the 'neural net' architecture in the 1940s. We didn't have the compute or centralised data to really train them back then, but if you time travelled a datacentre back to WW2 they'd figure it out.

Key breakthrough was the transformer in 2016, which let this stuff be run efficiently on consumer hardware (graphics cards), plus we had the internet which was a ready source of data.

You train them by writing four lines of python code and feeding them your datasets (training), but the python is only really handling the IO, it's not doing anything in the model - you can do this on your own PC, they really are these strange alien minds that your just kind of 'mount' like a network drive to interact with, not like a program at all.

u/vote4bort 1h ago

So its numbers that need code to make outputs happen yeah? How is that not a program? And I don't mean in the very technical sense I mean in most people's understanding of what a program is which is mostly "computer code that makes things happen".

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

So its numbers that need code to make outputs happen yeah? How is that not a program?

The code is just required to interface with the model, like letting it access what's written on the keyboard and write back to the terminal, it's not actually doing anything in the model.

It's possible we might not even need those four lines of code in future - we've gone from models accessing APIs and MCPs to controlling programs directly with keyboard and mouse, those four lines of code could similarly just go away in future with the model figuring out its environment itself.

u/vote4bort 3m ago

So what happens when you take the code away? What does the model do without the code?

u/UtherPendragon_ 0m ago

It's basically in storage form - you need to be on hardware with tensor units to run, in the same way your 'weights' of your neurons need to run on your grey matter and not vegetables or granite.

u/Certain-Cod-1404 2h ago

you can literally manually derive an ANN, its not code, its just matrix multiplication and backpropagation, its not software

u/vote4bort 2h ago

So when it's not manual, what's used to control that? What's used to make that happen? Is it perhaps... Software?

u/Certain-Cod-1404 2h ago

u/vote4bort 1h ago

Did you miss the first sentence? "when it's not manual"

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

if I use krita to draw something that I can draw by hand, is the end result "code"? its a fucking jpg, by your definition its code right ?

u/vote4bort 6m ago

What's a JPG made out of? Certainly not paper... It's on a computer screen yes? Which uses what to make the image appear?

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

if I can arrive at the same destination, which is a trained model manually by hand and automatically via code, why would the end result be code ? if I arrive at the same exact matrices, what is the difference?

is a linear regression model code ? if so what code is it, it's literally ax + b, a straight fucking line, what code is there ? you can literally solve it analytically or via back propagation, if at the end you get the same fucking line, why is it a line when solved analytically but code when solved via sklearn or pytorch ?

u/vote4bort 4m ago

The difference is the thing that's doing it. What does a computer use to do that process? Not a pencil that's for sure.

A linear regression run on a computer yes uses code to do that process. What else do you think it would use?

It's code when it's you know, a computer using code to do it.

u/Certain-Cod-1404 2m ago

so you concede that the model itself is not code, but code is used to train it faster and easier ?

u/Godslayer326 2h ago

Its still code

u/Certain-Cod-1404 2h ago

Genuinely, and with all due respect, do you know what an artificial neural network is, have you ever implemented one yourself, if not where in the actual fuck do you get the confidence to argue with people on their expertise / field?

u/Godslayer326 2h ago

I dont generally assume losers on reddit are experts. And yes i do actually have some base experience implementing neural networks

u/Certain-Cod-1404 2h ago

lovely, then what is an ANN and how do you get a trained model?

u/Godslayer326 1h ago

Im not taking a test here. Why the fuck do you assume i lack basic tech knowledge because i said ai models use code? Just because you can download one as a big table of vectors(which is also code at its core) doesnt mean that using or training one is somehow not related to code. Wtf are you guys on

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

Im not taking a test here.

its a pretty basic fucking question, especially if you're going to argue dl models are "code"

Just because you can download one as a big table of vectors(which is also code at its core)

is this code ? are you in your right mind ?

doesnt mean that using or training one is somehow not related to code. Wtf are you guys on

1 - I'm going to need you to lock in, put on your big boy pants and exercice your reading comprehension skills, up untill 5. General expressions of gradient for the identity activation function
what software/code was used ? https://medium.com/@soudanik/building-a-deep-learning-model-by-hand-bd51feccdfc7

2 - you can draw using krita, does that mean that the result is code ? you display pngs and jpgs using software, you make it using software, does that mean that the end result itself is "code".

Wtf are you guys on

this is what you're on : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

u/Godslayer326 1h ago

The image of the table and the article you sent describe the underlying mathematics that show how ai models work. I would genuinely love to see you try to get that all to work on a computer without using any code.

I have actually used these principles to program a model before, and i can personally assure you i used code to do it, in case you're still unconvinced

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

The image of the table

you have no idea what you're talking about, if you had the slightest inkling, you wouldn't call a matrix a fucking table

I would genuinely love to see you try to get that all to work on a computer without using any code.

to use it inside of a computer you need to use code, but the model itself is not code, I have an image i've drawn myself, if I want to use it in my computer I need to scan it and use software to display it on my screen, is the image itself code ? lock in

I have actually used these principles to program a model before, and i can personally assure you i used code to do it, in case you're still unconvinced

I know YOU did, because you don't know what a fucking matrix is, I've manually derived small ANNs myself, you just dont know how to do it.
the person in the article I linked is fucking doing it https://medium.com/@soudanik/building-a-deep-learning-model-by-hand-bd51feccdfc7 you just have to repeat it a couple more times

what code was used here genuis : https://arxiv.org/html/2310.15872v3

u/Godslayer326 1h ago

You know, i was actually going to call it a matrix but rephrased a part of what i wrote.

To use a model in a computer, you need to use code, in your words. Thats pretty much all i was arguing in the first place so calm down. The model isnt code in theory, but the matrices arent stored on clay tablets now are they. Computers use code to store and display data including tables, and yes images. No the image itself in theory isnt code, but since its being displayed on a computer, yes it is. You can look at the way the image is encrypted, and guess what, its code.

And the existance of one person making a physical neural network with a couple layers of like ten neurons is an exception not the rule. I was never arguing it isnt theoretically physically possible to build an llm without running any code.

u/Certain-Cod-1404 24m ago

To use a model in a computer, you need to use code, in your words. Thats pretty much all i was arguing in the first place so calm down

no, thats not what you were arguing

The model isnt code in theory

not just in theory, in real life

but the matrices arent stored on clay tablets now are they

do you understand the difference between code and a file format/data ? if I draw a matrix on pen and paper, and then I save the same matrix in a .npz file, is the matrix itself code ? or is it just stored numerically on my computer as data in a specific file format?

what is the difference between this

def update(self, state):
  if state == "hurt":
    self.health -= 1
  elif state == "healing":
    state.health +=1
player.update(state)

and this ?

n_features, n_samples, n_units, n_outputs = 1, 10, 512, 1
x = np.random.rand(n_samples, n_features)
W1 = np.random.rand(n_features, n_units )
b1 = np.random.rand(n_units,)
W2 = np.random.rand(n_units, n_outputs)
b2 = np.random.rand(n_outputs,)
z1 = x @ W1 + b1
a1 = 1 / (1 + np.exp(-z1))
z2 = a1 @ W2 + b2
y_hat = 1 / (1 + np.exp(-z2))

these are both blocks of code, but do you not notice a difference between the 2 ?

my guy, this has been such a monumental waste of time, genuinely, congratulations.

u/Strict-Broccoli-8877 1h ago

Yes, I am sure you have programmed a model before. You did it in space, in the rocket that you built.

u/Godslayer326 1h ago

They teach this shit at high school and university, genius.

u/Strict-Broccoli-8877 17m ago

Obviously they don't! Are you proud that somebody failed to teach you this shit in high school? And with how long AI is around - nah man, either you are barely out of high school or this is just a huge pile of bullshit.

And I am sorry, but I do this for a living after learning it - at a university, where this was taught way before 2021 - and I am telling you that you are embarrassing yourself.

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u/UtherPendragon_ 2h ago

No code in any of the AI models, download one and check. It's just tables of decimal numbers.

u/DaveG28 2h ago

You're just describing the database.

The code actually then makes it do something (the input / output end) doesn't it?

When I type a prompt out I think there's code happening somewhere there in that process?

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago edited 1h ago

There's four lines of python to 'mount' the AI and let it start receiving input and producing output from the computer, but none of that can affect anything inside the model, the code isn't really doing anything, the model is doing everything.

This is why downloading local models is incredibly safe, there's no way they can contain malware or anything because there's no code in them.

u/Godslayer326 2h ago

And do those tables do anything without code?

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago edited 1h ago

The code is just there to act as a bridge between the model and the computer environment, it doesn't actually do anything in the model and it can't.

Potentially it could at some point - get them running in a robot without the need to go via firmware, just controlling the body natively in the same way we do through the nervous system?

u/Godslayer326 1h ago

To get something like that to work, a representation of a digital neural network without running any code, you'd have to build a physical representation of the network (and the robots entire body with no programmable components), something which is currently not being done and is in no way an efficient or worthwhile endeavor. For one thing that would mean that you wouldnt be able to reprogram the robot easily. So yes, ai and robots are going to stay as code for the forseeable future

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

I don't think you need to build anything, the model could just do it.

It's like how models used to have to interface with programs through APIs or MCP, now Astra can just use mouse and keyboard and vision.

Accessing firmware and sending commands to the motors is the 'APIs or MCPs', but a more naturalistic approach may be possible once they get more advanced.

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

u/Godslayer326 1h ago

Actually quite interesting

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

it is, the original perceptron if i'm not wrong was also analog, a deep learning model is not code.

u/Bomaruto 1h ago

Ai models are code. It's one big function with inputs and outputs. Just instead of op codes, the code consist is a series of matrix multiplications. 

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

That's not code though, that's just math.

Code is an actual formal computing language like C# or FORTRAN, AI models are none of those.

u/Strict-Broccoli-8877 1h ago

Maybe, just maybe, you should leave this discussion to people who know the first line of the definition of what code is.

Ask me how I know that you have never written code before.

u/Strict-Broccoli-8877 2h ago

Ask me how I know that you don't work in IT.

u/Bomaruto 3h ago

Leave the discussion as you're not explaining your case well either.

u/SnooCats5204 2h ago

I just replied to an anti-AI person who thinks AI is a bank of image data, and he’s calling me a liar.

u/Unlikely_Account_728 2h ago

then ask him what is machine learning? why does it exist? why do universities teach us AI?

u/DaveG28 2h ago

Then your answer didn't make much sense - why not just point out the model doesn't have "images" in it, like most databases it has values (1's and 0"s right?)

u/Bomaruto 2h ago

Your explanation is really bad, seems like you're misusing the word code and modern AI models doesn't really simulate neurons. 

u/SnooCats5204 1h ago

That's not really my area of expertise, though. If you want a clear explanation, there's a guy who works in that field who answered the question.

u/Another-Ace-Alt-8270 2h ago

Thing is, he's technically not wrong. There is solely code here. "Just code" is reductive and can be insulting if used wrong, but it's not incorrect. As he put it, there's no muscle, no powder, no nerves, that ordeal.

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

No, there is no code in the AI models, just big tables of decimal numbers.

u/Another-Ace-Alt-8270 1h ago

Hm. Ya learn something new every day.

u/Live_Fall3452 1h ago

Soft disagree. There’s a pile of data but the data does absolutely nothing without inference code, and wouldn’t exist at all without scraping, training, and post processing code. Arguably, the most interesting and ingenious part of the whole pipeline that produces the output is the code powering the training process - that’s certainly the part that AI scientists spend the most time talking about.

Most computer programs consist of code and data, AI isn’t magic, it’s code and data like any other program.

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

Soft disagree. There’s a pile of data but the data does absolutely nothing without inference code, and wouldn’t exist at all without scraping, training, and post processing code.

Soft disagree, you can avoid all of the scraping, training and post processing by just randomising the weights - what you get is an AI model that's still smart and can solve problems, but can't reel off trivia from the internet (like a smart person who hasn't had any formal schooling), they're worse than trained models so no one creates them, but a number of AI startups in 2024 collapsed after it was pointed out that an untrained model was literally better than their trained ones. There's something in the neural net structure that is just inherently intelligent.

And there's nothing for inference other than four lines of Python, which are just letting it interface with the terminal for text input and output. As former OpenAI researcher Ilya Sutskever put it, "the models just want to learn."

u/Live_Fall3452 1h ago

Randomizing all the weights will result in gibberish. Feel free to try it on any local model.

Why four? You could put the four in a single wrapper function and call it one. Does not mean that what is being done is simple in terms of the amount of code actually called, as each of those four lines can themselves call hundreds or thousands of lines of code.

u/nextnode 1h ago

An image file does nothing without a program to render it. It does not make an image code.

The training program was written by humans and we understand its behavior.

The model data is not written by humans and we do not understand its behavior.

u/nextnode 1h ago

Technically wrong. E.g. an image is also stored on a computer and it is not code. Models are like that - data that is being loaded by a program.

The shared term for everything stored on a computer is 'data'.

u/tigerthetabbyy 1h ago

It kinda is code though. If you put in something and get something out weather it is gen ai or a dumb python script that does basic math it's still code. You put in data, a set of instructions (code) runs, you get out put. Neural pathways on a computer? Code. "Someone made the code" yeah so did the person who writes the python scripts "oh but it's an algorithm" yeah? So are if and else statements

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

No, there's no code in any programming language in any AI model, they're just tables of numbers.

u/tigerthetabbyy 1h ago

Put a bunch of numbers in a table. Is that gonna generate you pictures? Cherry picker those numbers. Still no pictures? Well shit ai doesn't exist everyone go home

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

it depends on what the numbers themselves are, if they came about as the result of optimization of a model for that specific task, then yes they will generate images, the underlying principles of deep learning models and training them are just linear algebra, optimization and probability, programming is just a bonus to optimize / speed up the process, it is not strictly necessary, you can do the whole thing manually yourself, its just very very very time consuming and difficult

u/tigerthetabbyy 1h ago

According to the original comment it is only those numbers in the table nothing that it gets put through (like code and or an algorithm) how does it know what linear algebra to use? Instructions (kinda exactly what code is)

u/Certain-Cod-1404 1h ago

1 : do you know what code is
2 : what's the difference between code and instructions
3 : are all instructions code ?
4 : is a linear regression model solved analytically "code"
5 : is a linear regression model solved via backpropagation by hand "code"

6 : is a linear regression model solved via backpropagation by sklearn "code"

7: what is a statistical model

8: if I implement the steps to run inference on a statistical model on a computer, does that make the model itself code ?
9 : if I implement the steps to fit/train statistical model on a computer, does that make the model itself code ?

10: if I use krita to draw something, does that make the drawing itself code ?

11 : do you have any experience in tech, do you know how to code, have you ever implemented an ML model yourself, are you familiar with linear alegbra?

u/tigerthetabbyy 36m ago

1: Yes I would hope the stuff I am going to school for I would know. 2: I simply use "instructions" as it is the simplest way I know of to explain what code is (a set of instructions, rules and guidelines that a computer uses to give an outcome)  3: are all instructions code? Yes and no. For computers pretty much (I wouldn't count the promt as an instruction or code as it is an input into the program)  4: the instructions to solve it analytically? I would say so. If you just put it in and the computer doesn't know what to do with it? No 5: It is data that code can use 6: ditto for last one 7: a way of showing connections between data points. 8: it makes it data that is used by code 9: the model uses the data to train itself, how it trains itself is the code aspect. 10: nope it makes it data but if we go deep enough the computer needs code to understand where to put and color those pixels 11: I have experience with technology yes, I know how to code yes (in the process of learning c++ so still relatively new), I have not and finally I am semi familiar. 

Please note that I do not know everything and do not claim to I am simply putting in my personal experience.

u/Certain-Cod-1404 9m ago

4 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_regression#Least-squares_estimation_and_related_techniques:~:text=Setting%20the%20gradient%20to%20zero%20produces%20the%20optimum%20parameter

where is the code here ?
5 : do you know what back propagation is ?
6 : how is the line ax + b code ? are the estimators themselves code ? or is the process to get to them code ?
8 : correct therefore the model itself is not code
9 : correct therefore the model itself is not code

10: correct therefore the model is not code

11: that's cool, c++ is a really cool language, and I appreciate your humility, it has been extremely frustrating arguing with layman about my area of slight expertise.

LLMs are not not code, they are built around code, to make it easier and faster to train, and run inference on, but the models themselves are just a chain of matrices, affine transformations and non linear activation functions, you can literally do it by hand : https://medium.com/@soudanik/building-a-deep-learning-model-by-hand-bd51feccdfc7

this does not take away from valid criticism of the way LLMs are trained and copy right infringement and all that stuff, you can criticize LLMs for those reasons without arguing from ignorance with people who know their stuff (not talking about you, but others on this sub)

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

If you put them in that specific tensor structure it will generate you pictures, yeah.

You don't even need to train on the internet, you can just randomise the weights (which would be akin to a smart person who never went under any formal education) and it can still solve problems, including novel problems, just obviously not as well as someone who was educated.

u/tigerthetabbyy 1h ago

That tensor structure a bunch of data right? Basically a big set of multi dimensional data points they act as a set of instructions do they not? Making them code and if I have misunderstood what the tensor structure does then how do they get the computers to actually use that data? If it's randomly picked how is it randomly picked?

u/UtherPendragon_ 1h ago

The tensor structure is just a mathematical structure for the numbers that lets them have many-to-many connections, also the numbers must have high cardinality, like one row but billions of columns on an Excel spreadsheet.

Basically you input data asking a question, let's say the capital of France, the model multiplies numbers from different 'columns' together to look up the answer, the information is just encoded across all the numbers somehow, with different combinations of numbers representing different concepts (so one number might be associated with french style things, and one might be associated with political capitals). But it basically doesn't search for any of these numbers, it just goes straight to them, like it's remembering.

We still don't really understand everything about how they do this stuff and it's certainly not us doing it - we understood nothing when ChatGPT launched, all of the above is stuff we figured out in the last three years.

Notably this has implications for the understanding of the human brain, because where memories were stored was a longstanding mystery - if our neural network model is accurate they're now similarly encoded in the electrochemical weights of neurons, spread out across the whole brain, rather than being in a dedicated brain region like the amygdala.

u/tigerthetabbyy 33m ago

Every interesting thank you. :)