Yann LeCun

No text-trained language model, however powerful, will ever be able to say that an object on a table moves when the table is pushed.

“If you train a machine as powerful as could be…your GPT-5000, it's never gonna learn about this.”

Said on

22 January 2022 · Lex Fridman Podcast #258 (January 2022), as quoted by 80,000 Hours

Source

Will we have AGI by 2030? · 80,000 Hours

Should come true

No date given

How sure they sounded

never gonna (stated as fact)

Categories

AI

Importance

2 of 5 · A claim about the capability limits of text-only models, important to the AI research field.

Outcome

Inaccurate Happened 14 March 2023.

About a year after the claim, text-trained GPT-4 (released March 2023) correctly explained that an object on a pushed table moves with it, as 80,000 Hours documents. Because the claim was "never", one clear counterexample settles it.

Evidence:

• https://80000hours.org/ai/guide/when-will-agi-arrive/
• https://x.com/ben_j_todd/status/1844714425053315160