Re: Dealing with LLMs in IETF discussions draft

Hi Stephen, Chong

> We just pushed a -01 version of the draft [1] that lists
> (most of) the arguments raised on the list as that may be
> a more useful starting point for a discussion on a new
> list. 

Thanks for this.

The one big thing the document does not tackle is the assertion that where the AI introduces something the human did not know about, then the human will inevitably trade off their own understanding of that for the acceleration of output that AIs enable.  


In addition, the hypothesis of section 4 of the document relies on two pillars that I think obscure the real issues:

1. The claim that only humans can create new knowledge, but not AIs, and that is what is being introduced by the human into the discourse:

> Genuine innovation --- the creation of new conceptual territory rather than more efficient mapping of existing terrain --- remains a human capacity.


> The symmetry is clean: humans originate, AI executes. Humans open new territory; AI operates efficiently within it.


I doubt very much if every message sent with the use of an AI is creating new knowledge rather than applying existing knowledge and would be surprised if it happens at all.  Engineering is, by definition, the application of existing knowledge to new problems.  It is more likely that authors who think this is happening are mistaking knowledge that is new to them as knowledge that is new to humanity.

We could always test it by asking an AI "is this message introducing any genuine innovation or is it just applying existing knowledge?" 

2.  The claim that the human being the decision maker somehow shapes what is said:

> the AI is functioning as a thinking partner within a bounded space, not as an originator. The human remains the decision-maker about what to accept and what to discard. What falls outside this paradigm is delegating the thinking itself: asking AI what position to take, what arguments to make, or what conclusions to draw

The key point that is being obscured there is that the AI will inevitably be introducing that human to concepts that are new to that human and if they are incorporated in any way, either directly or by linkage/comparison, then the AI is responsible for that innovation not the human.  This is exactly the same as if I were to sit down with an expert in a particular field and discuss my proposed email with them and then ask them to draft if for me.


This conversation has made it clear to me that this is about so much more than someone putting their name to the output and taking responsibility for it, because it seems as if the boundary between what the AI introduced and what the human introduced is hard for the human to self-identify.


Jay


-- 
Jay Daley
[email protected]
www.ietf.org