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Richard Sutton – Father of RL thinks LLMs are a dead end

In a thought-provoking conversation, Richard Sutton, a pioneer of reinforcement learning and recipient of the 2024 Turing Award, challenges the prevailing trajectory of AI development, particularly the dominance of large language models. He argues that true intelligence must emerge from experience-driven learning rather than static imitation.
Sutton contends that LLMs are fundamentally limited because they lack the ability to learn from real-world feedback and operate without clear goals. Unlike humans and animals, which continuously adapt through interaction, LLMs rely on fixed datasets and cannot generalize effectively beyond their training distribution. He advocates for a shift toward reinforcement learning systems that learn on-the-fly, grounded in dynamic environments with intrinsic reward mechanisms. Such agents would possess architectures integrating policy, value functions, perception, and environmental modeling, enabling continual adaptation. While current models excel in narrow tasks, they fail at open-ended learning. Sutton believes scalable computation and experiential learning will ultimately surpass human-designed solutions, aligning with his 'Bitter Lesson.' The discussion also touches on post-AGI futures, where AI self-replication and knowledge transfer could redefine progress, emphasizing the need for ethical guidance over control, akin to parenting.
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