First, stay calm—it's unusual for a store to vanish overnight, but it could be due to closure, renovation, relocation, or even a mix-up with the address. Here's a step-by-step plan to handle it:

  ### Immediate Steps
  - **Double-check the location**: Use your phone's maps app (like Google Maps or Apple Maps) to search for the store's name or address. It might show if it's temporarily closed, has moved nearby, or if there's an error in navigation.
  - **Look for signs or info on-site**: If you're already there, check for any posted notices, construction signs, or talk to nearby people/businesses to ask what happened.

  ### Find Alternatives
  - **Locate nearby stores**: Search for other grocery stores in the area. Apps like Yelp, Google Maps, or store-specific apps (e.g., Walmart, Kroger) can show options with ratings, hours, and directions.
  - **Use delivery or online shopping**: If you're in a pinch, order groceries via services like Instacart, Amazon Fresh, DoorDash, or the apps of chains like Whole Foods or Target. Upload your list and get it delivered.
  - **Adapt your list if needed**: If certain items are unique to that store, prioritize essentials and substitute where possible (e.g., if it's a specialty ethnic store, find similar options elsewhere).

  ### Prevent Future Issues
  - **Diversify your options**: Add a couple of backup stores to your routine.
  - **Stay updated**: Follow local news or the store's social media/website for announcements about changes.

  If you provide more details like the store's name, location, or what might have happened (e.g., was it demolished?), I can help search for specifics or suggest exact alternatives.

If you want to know how an LLM would handle that situation, why don't you ask it?

a LLM cannot actually be intelligent if it cannot operate in a temporal context ;)

> a LLM cannot actually be intelligent if it cannot operate in a temporal context ;)

When I have a conversation with an LLM, that conversation happens in time. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The conversation can refer to earlier parts of the conversation. How is that not a "temporal context"?

Furthermore, can you explain why a temporal context is necessary for intelligence? For example, if a human being could download their entire brain into a computer and exist there, as if they were an LLM, would they cease to be intelligent, in your view?

This is not what I mean for a few reasons:

1. This context literally has limits; we'll get back to the grocery store 2. This is a point-in-time conversation

On the latter point, that is, you can have the same conversation tomorrow. The LLM has not "learned" anything, it has not adapted in any way. Yes, you are experiencing time, and the conversation is happening over time, but the LLM is not experiencing nor aware of time and is not intelligently adapting to it. Yes, they get trained and "updated" in that way, it's not the same thing.

If you don't respond for an hour, then do, the LLM is not aware of that unless its system injects a "datetime.now()" somewhere in the prompt. Point of this being: an LLM is not an adaptable system. Now you can play the "What if?" game ad ininfinitum -- make it aware of the current time, current location, etc. etc.

Hence my grocery store example. If I go out into the real world, I experience real things, and I make intelligence decisions based off those experiences. An LLM cannot do that, just full stop. And again, you can go "well what if I put the LLM in a robot body, and give it a system, then it can go grocery shopping". And only at this point are we kinda-sorta-close to having a discussion about intelligence. If this mythical creature can go to the grocery store, notice it's not there, look up what happened, maybe ask some friends who live in the same city if they know, maybe make some connection months later to some news article...a LLM or system we build on an LLM cannot do this. It cannot go into the store and think "ya know, if I buy all this ice cream and eat it, that could be bad" and connect it to the million other things a real person is doing and considering in their day to day life

The actual world is practically infinitely complex. Talking about "a LLM writing a list is planning and that shows intelligence" is a frighening attenuation of intelligence in the world world to anthropomorphization to a very high degree. Reframing as "intelligence needs to be able to adapt to the world around it over time" is a much better starting point IMO

They do learn, OpenAI has a memory feature. I just opened up a chat, asked "What do you know about me?" and got a long list of things specific to me that it certainly did not infer from the chat so far. It's a bit unsettling really, someone at OpenAI would probably have little difficulty matching my OpenAI account to my HN one, it looks like they have quite a few bits of information to work with. Privacy is a hard thing to maintain.

I really don't see the "LLMs don't learn" position as a defensible one long term given the appalling limitations of human memory and the strengths computers have at it. Given the improvements in RAG and large context windows it actually seems pretty likely that LLMs will be quite a lot better at humans when it comes to memory, they have SSDs. We just don't build LLMs with memory right yet for whatever reason.

adding text to storage and searching over it is not memory. “knowing” those things about you is not learning. and guess what, context still fills up. trying putting that LLM again in the real world, facing real human challenges, with all the real sensory input around you. it’s nonsensical

and it’s not about “limits” of humans. machines can do math and many things better, that’s been apparent for decades. yes, they can “remember” 8k video streams much better than us. that’s not “memory” in the human sense and machines don’t “learn” from it in the human sense

(your IP address is much easier to link your accounts than your text)

Why not? If humans store data in their brains, isn't that learning? Of course data can include skills and connections, for both humans and AIs.

> and guess what, context still fills up.

Human memory also has limits.

Sorry, but I really don't see how the distinctions you're trying to make even exist, much less qualify as markers of intelligence.

No. We’re back to my earlier point of you and I have fundamentally different understanding of cognition, intelligence, and learning. And genuinely not trying to be condescending, but I suspect you don’t have a good grounding in the technology we’re discussing

Yeah, that definitely came off as condescending. Especially on HN, where pretty much everyone here has a grounding in the technology we're discussing. In any case, your arguments have not dealt with technology at all, but on hand-wavy distinctions like "temporality."

Anyway, to the larger point: I agree that "you and I have fundamentally different understanding of cognition, intelligence, and learning" but your inability to explain your own understanding of these terms and why they are relevant is why your arguments are unpersuasive.