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I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

maximumeffort.substack.com

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Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#71

Post by fpgaminer »

dvt wrote: post #37

I know everyone's (as usual) "amazed" by this, but here are a few stark observations: (1) a linguist could do this (come up with a toy language, conjugations, and sentence structure, probably the Python code too) in like 30 minutes, (2) it's disappointing that the AI constantly messes up very simple grammar rules (rules a grade-schooler could understand)—I'm actually very surprised it doesn't have hardcoded grammar r…

I'm not a linguist, but wanted to invent a basic language for use in an escape room I'm building. Tools like this are a great help to people like me; hence the amazement.

(I had to use GPT-3 and NovelAI, since this was two weeks ago)

Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#72

Post by mkmk3 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #49
dvt wrote: post #37

I know everyone's (as usual) "amazed" by this, but here are a few stark observations: (1) a linguist could do this (come up with a toy language, conjugations, and sentence structure, probably the Python code too) in like 30 minutes, (2) it's disappointing that the AI constantly messes up very simple grammar rules (rules a grade-schooler could understand)—I'm actually very surprised it doesn't have hardcoded grammar r…

I find it amazing from the point of view that this is not a linguist or a grade schooler, but a general purpose computer program. Have you seen a computer program that can do these things, especially one that wasn’t written to do these things but can also turn itself into a plausible linux box, translate python to rust, and all sorts of other wacky party tricks? That’s the amazing thing - not that the feats themselve…

I'm still super into this as it is, without considering real growth on the tech side. It's dumb but I think it's still useful.

It'll be crazy when it replaces us but for the moment I've been using it to learn and explore (C, some linux tools, game dev in lisp) and the results are surprising - and we're looking at the newest tech demo, as you say what will it look like in a few years? Even just give some app devs some years with it and I'm excited to see the results

Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#73

Post by Oxidation »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #49
dvt wrote: post #37

I know everyone's (as usual) "amazed" by this, but here are a few stark observations: (1) a linguist could do this (come up with a toy language, conjugations, and sentence structure, probably the Python code too) in like 30 minutes, (2) it's disappointing that the AI constantly messes up very simple grammar rules (rules a grade-schooler could understand)—I'm actually very surprised it doesn't have hardcoded grammar r…

I find it amazing from the point of view that this is not a linguist or a grade schooler, but a general purpose computer program. Have you seen a computer program that can do these things, especially one that wasn’t written to do these things but can also turn itself into a plausible linux box, translate python to rust, and all sorts of other wacky party tricks? That’s the amazing thing - not that the feats themselve…

> some of these gaps can be tackled

Seems like the major gap is in facts. It'll often make up completely plausible specific details that are flat wrong, or refuse to proceed if it's "not allowed" to do so.

Coupling it (handwave) with a massive structured data repository like Wolfram Alpha and Wikidata would be really something.

Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#74

Post by PaulHoule »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #49
dvt wrote: post #37

I know everyone's (as usual) "amazed" by this, but here are a few stark observations: (1) a linguist could do this (come up with a toy language, conjugations, and sentence structure, probably the Python code too) in like 30 minutes, (2) it's disappointing that the AI constantly messes up very simple grammar rules (rules a grade-schooler could understand)—I'm actually very surprised it doesn't have hardcoded grammar r…

I find it amazing from the point of view that this is not a linguist or a grade schooler, but a general purpose computer program. Have you seen a computer program that can do these things, especially one that wasn’t written to do these things but can also turn itself into a plausible linux box, translate python to rust, and all sorts of other wacky party tricks? That’s the amazing thing - not that the feats themselve…

ChatGPT's superpower is hijacking the human desire for meaning into causing people to believe it is much better than it really is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

has dialogues between Achilles and the Tortoise where they work out the limitations of various fantastic A.I. systems based on mathematical logic. Roughly, neural networks don't repeal the results of Gödel, Turing and Tarski.

The short of it is that ChatGPT is good at charming people, better than some people are at charming people, but when it comes to getting accurate answers some of the things which it tries to do are logically impossible, so it is not like it gets it right 70% of the time now and they'll get that up to 100% but rather people will be puzzled about how it hit a plateau and we'll hear a few years later about what a disappointment it was just like Amazon's Alexa.

Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#75

Post by PaulHoule »

mkmk3 wrote: post #72
fnordpiglet wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amazing from the point of view that this is not a linguist or a grade schooler, but a general purpose computer program. Have you seen a computer program that can do these things, especially one that wasn’t written to do these things but can also turn itself into a plausible linux box, translate python to rust, and all sorts of other wacky party tricks? That’s the amazing thing - not that the feats themselve…

I'm still super into this as it is, without considering real growth on the tech side. It's dumb but I think it's still useful. It'll be crazy when it replaces us but for the moment I've been using it to learn and explore (C, some linux tools, game dev in lisp) and the results are surprising - and we're looking at the newest tech demo, as you say what will it look like in a few years? Even just give some app devs some…

If "useful" means we don't need the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk anymore I am all for it.

Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#77

Post by allturtles »

dvt wrote: post #65
fnordpiglet wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amazing from the point of view that this is not a linguist or a grade schooler, but a general purpose computer program. Have you seen a computer program that can do these things, especially one that wasn’t written to do these things but can also turn itself into a plausible linux box, translate python to rust, and all sorts of other wacky party tricks? That’s the amazing thing - not that the feats themselve…

> this is not a linguist or a grade schooler, but a general purpose computer program This is sleight of hand. The training data almost certainly includes thousands of grade schoolers and linguists. Your argument seems to be that this is all generated ad nihilum from first principles (it's "just" a computer program bro), but that's not how it actually came to be. Rather, it was trained on literally terrabytes and terr…

Why is that relevant? Grade schoolers and linguists also learn from other people. A single computer system with the capabilities of a grade schooler (or beyond) across a huge variety of domains (poetry writing, computer programming, linguistics, joke writing, scientific knowledge, etc, etc.), is an amazing thing that is far beyond the capacities of the best AI systems even a few years ago.

I'm perplexed to see all the people scoffing at it because it isn't as good as a Ph.D. in domain X at task Y (yet). Are we ready to declare that grade schoolers and median IQ people don't count as intelligent?

Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#78

Post by [deleted] »

stavros wrote: post #46
dvt wrote: post #37

I know everyone's (as usual) "amazed" by this, but here are a few stark observations: (1) a linguist could do this (come up with a toy language, conjugations, and sentence structure, probably the Python code too) in like 30 minutes, (2) it's disappointing that the AI constantly messes up very simple grammar rules (rules a grade-schooler could understand)—I'm actually very surprised it doesn't have hardcoded grammar r…

This reads like a "my dog can sing!" "yeah, but it's too flat in parts" comment.

[deleted]

Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#79

Post by fnordpiglet »

PaulHoule wrote: post #74
fnordpiglet wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amazing from the point of view that this is not a linguist or a grade schooler, but a general purpose computer program. Have you seen a computer program that can do these things, especially one that wasn’t written to do these things but can also turn itself into a plausible linux box, translate python to rust, and all sorts of other wacky party tricks? That’s the amazing thing - not that the feats themselve…

ChatGPT's superpower is hijacking the human desire for meaning into causing people to believe it is much better than it really is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach has dialogues between Achilles and the Tortoise where they work out the limitations of various fantastic A.I. systems based on mathematical logic. Roughly, neural networks don't repeal the results of Gödel, Turing and Tarski. The shor…

I’ve been using it to teach me programming languages. If it plateaus here I’m delighted by its uniqueness and utility.

You seem to think people are hinting this is general ai. I don’t think that’s what’s amazing people.

I’ll bet you Siri and Alexa would be 100x more useful with a language model like this behind it. Part of their uselessness is the inability to generalize or reason, but relying instead in coded prompt and replies. Is that lost on the Alexa team (or what’s left)? I’m sure not. So, hey, I guess Alexa won’t plateau yet either eh?

There will come a time that it’s harder and harder to distinguish what’s AI and what isn’t. At a certain point, will it matter? Is the utility of these tools their ability to manifest human sentience? I don’t know why that’s useful to me - I already did that creating my daughter. What I want is a tool that enhances and extends and supplements my own mind and abilities to make me more effective in what I do.

And ChatGPT actually already does that. I can ask it questions about programming problems I’m having and it’ll largely give me a right answer - at least as often as a person would, and more reliably than I get on stack overflow. I’ll still use stack overflow, but I’ll filter my questions through assistants like this.

Re: I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

#80

Post by PaulHoule »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #79
PaulHoule wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT's superpower is hijacking the human desire for meaning into causing people to believe it is much better than it really is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach has dialogues between Achilles and the Tortoise where they work out the limitations of various fantastic A.I. systems based on mathematical logic. Roughly, neural networks don't repeal the results of Gödel, Turing and Tarski. The shor…

I’ve been using it to teach me programming languages. If it plateaus here I’m delighted by its uniqueness and utility. You seem to think people are hinting this is general ai. I don’t think that’s what’s amazing people. I’ll bet you Siri and Alexa would be 100x more useful with a language model like this behind it. Part of their uselessness is the inability to generalize or reason, but relying instead in coded prompt…

"100x more useful" is pure hyperbole. 2x maybe, but 100x is a symptom of exactly what's wrong about people's thinking about ChatGPT.

I would point to "There is no royal road to geometry"

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Euclid

high-social status people have often been put off by quantitative reasoning because you spend years learning to do it, spend time gathering facts, thinking hard about things and often end up with tentative statements. High-social status people can skip all of that and get deference anyway the same way ChatGPT does.

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