But debating whether the models are intelligent is slim to debating whether a car can walk.
You can offload to the model a lot of work that until recently we thought requires intelligence. The more and better of those tasks the model can do, it's fair to call it intelligence*
Some people have this strange idea that only "whatever humans do" counts as intelligence, despite the fact that a) we don't really have a clue what humans do, and b) "intelligence" is definitely not that strictly defined.
I think they're just trying to feel like they know some important truth that other people don't.
Agreed. I see this debate as an active discussion as to what intelligence is, not how it's currently (poorly) defined This is a philosophical discussion, and there is no correct answer, but IMO some answers will prove more useful than others. I would like to define intelligence as the ability to solve problems. Lots of other life forms have this ability, and its clear that LLMs also have this. Now, while they may not be poetic (in the literal sense of the word), or conscious, in that 'they' do not experience the world. I think there is a strong case for arguing they conform to a meaningful definition of intelligence. They solve problems.
