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Understanding ChatGPT

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Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#121

Post by PartiallyTyped »

xur17 wrote: post #105
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans experience time And? So what? > Humans have agency. Which is what exactly? You are living in a physical universe bound by physical laws. For any other system we somehow accept that it will obey physical laws and there will not be a spontaneous change, so why are we holding humans to different standards? If we grow up and accept that free will does not actually exist, then all agency is is our brain trying to…

> What you describe as pausing and thinking is exactly letting your circuits run for longer - which again - is a decision made by said circuits who then informed your internal time keeper that "you" made said decision. Yup, and it feels like ChatGPT might be able to approximate this by giving the model a "think longer" output that feeds the output back into itself. I'm actually curious if immediately prompting the mo…

I will try that and a couple other ideas and report back!

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#122

Post by mellosouls »

maxdoop wrote: post #28

“It’s a glorified word predictor” is becoming increasingly maddening to read. Do tell— how can you prove humans are any different? The most common “proofs” I’ve seen: “Humans are more complex”. Ok, so you’re implying we add more complexity (maybe more modalities?); if more complexity is added, will you continue to say “LLMs are just word predictors”? “Humans are actually reasoning. LLMs are not.” Again, how would you…

Do tell— how can you prove humans are any different?

In this (and other comments by you I think?) you've implied the onus is on the AGI sceptics to prove to you that the LLM is not sentient (or whatever word you want to describe motive force, intent, consciousness, etc that we associate with human intelligence). This is an unreasonable request - it is on you to show that it is so.

I’m forever amazed how a seemingly forward-looking group of people is continually dismissive of a tool that came out LITERALLY 4 MONTHS AGO

Frankly, this is nonsense - I've never seen anything dominate discussions here like this, and for good reason; it is obvious to most - including LLMs-are-AGI-sceptics like me - that this is an epochal advance.

However, it is entirely reasonable to question the more philosophical implications and major claims in this important moment without being told we are "dismissing" it.

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#123

Post by glitchc »

maxdoop wrote: post #28

“It’s a glorified word predictor” is becoming increasingly maddening to read. Do tell— how can you prove humans are any different? The most common “proofs” I’ve seen: “Humans are more complex”. Ok, so you’re implying we add more complexity (maybe more modalities?); if more complexity is added, will you continue to say “LLMs are just word predictors”? “Humans are actually reasoning. LLMs are not.” Again, how would you…

> "Humans are actually reasoning. LLMs are not.” Again, how would you measure such a thing?

Agreed. Humans reasoning? Critically thinking? What BS. Humans actually reasoning is not something I've experienced in the vast majority of interactions with others. Rather humans tend to regurgitate whatever half-truths and whole lies they've been fed over their lifetime. The earlier the lie, the more sacrosanct it is.

Humans actually avoid critical thinking as it causes them pain. Yes, this is a thing and there's research pointing to it.

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#124

Post by danans »

killerstorm wrote: post #90
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“It’s a glorified word predictor” is becoming increasingly maddening to read. Do tell— how can you prove humans are any different? One difference between humans and LLMs is that humans have a wide range of inputs and outputs beyond language. The claim that humans are word predictors is not something I would want to dispute. The claim that humans are nothing more than word predictors is obviously wrong though. When I…

> One difference between humans and LLMs is that humans have a wide range of inputs and outputs beyond language. I share ability to move around and feel pain with apes and cats. What I'm interested about is ability "reason" - analyze, synthesize knowledge, formulate plans, etc. And LLMs demonstrated those abilities. As for movement and so on, please check PaLM-E and Gato. It's already done, it's boring. > it's not be…

> I share ability to move around and feel pain with apes and cats.

> What I'm interested about is ability "reason" - analyze, synthesize knowledge, formulate plans, etc.

It's great that you are interested in that specific aspect. Many of us are. However, ignoring the far greater richness of human and animal existence doesn't give any more weight to the argument that humans are "just word predictors".

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#125

Post by fauigerzigerk »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #120
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So does Bing and multimodal models. I'm not talking about getting fed pictures and videos. I'm talking about interacting with others in the physical world, having social relations, developing goals and interests, taking the initiative, perceiving how the world responds to all of that. >What does "fully" mean? Being able to draw conclusions that are not possible to draw from language alone. The meaning of language is…

I fail to see how the first is useful. For all intents and purposes your brain might as well be a Boltzmann brain / in a jar getting electrical stimuli. Your notion of reality is a mere interpretation of electrical signals / information. This implies that all such information can be encoded via language or whatever else. You also don’t take initiative. Every action that you take is dependent upon all previous actions…

>You also don’t take initiative. Every action that you take is dependent upon all previous actions as your brain is not devoid of operations until you “decide” to do something.

You would say that, wouldn't you? ;-)

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#126

Post by barrysteve »

maxdoop wrote: post #28

“It’s a glorified word predictor” is becoming increasingly maddening to read. Do tell— how can you prove humans are any different? The most common “proofs” I’ve seen: “Humans are more complex”. Ok, so you’re implying we add more complexity (maybe more modalities?); if more complexity is added, will you continue to say “LLMs are just word predictors”? “Humans are actually reasoning. LLMs are not.” Again, how would you…

I don't see why'd you have to prove humans are anything at all, to validate the claim that GPT is a word predictor. ChatGPT doesn't really need defending, the proof is in it's massive success.. right?

It seems the news cycle has settled into two possible options for future code releases. It's either the second coming of Christ (hyperbolically speaking) or it's an overly reductive definition of GPT's core functionality.

I can't help but be reminded of the first time the iPod came out [0] and the Slashdot editor of the time, dismissed it out of hand completely.

[0] https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#127

Post by forgotusername6 »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #38
maxdoop wrote: post #28

“It’s a glorified word predictor” is becoming increasingly maddening to read. Do tell— how can you prove humans are any different? The most common “proofs” I’ve seen: “Humans are more complex”. Ok, so you’re implying we add more complexity (maybe more modalities?); if more complexity is added, will you continue to say “LLMs are just word predictors”? “Humans are actually reasoning. LLMs are not.” Again, how would you…

I'm not surprised to see your comment be downvoted, but I have yet to see a single coherent answer to this. I wish people would be more clear on what exactly they believe the difference is between LLMs are actual intelligence. Substrate? Number of neurons? Number of connections? Spiking neurons vs. simpler artifial neurons? Constant amount of computation per token vs variable? Or is it "I know it when I see it"? In w…

Chat GPT seems incapable of using logic. It talks just like a real person, and there are plenty of people who just talk nonsense in the real world, but most people base their words on some sort of logic.

To give you an example, I tried and failed repeatedly yesterday to get chatgpt to quote and explain a particular line from hamlet. It wasn't that it couldn't explain a line or two, but it literally was unable to write the quote. Every time it told me that it had written the line I wanted it was wrong. It had written a different line. It was basically claiming black to be white in a single sentence.

It was this conversation that made me realise that likely anything it writes that looks like logic is clearly just parroted learning. Faced with a truly novel question, something requiring logical reasoning, it is much more likely to lie to you than give you a reasoned response.

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#128

Post by skybrian »

One important difference between people and the AI chatbots is that they play a turn-based game. It’s a request-response API, state is client-side, and there is nothing there to do any thinking when it’s not the bot’s turn.

More about this: https://skybrian.substack.com/p/ai-chats-are-turn-based-game...

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#129

Post by danans »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #120
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So does Bing and multimodal models. I'm not talking about getting fed pictures and videos. I'm talking about interacting with others in the physical world, having social relations, developing goals and interests, taking the initiative, perceiving how the world responds to all of that. >What does "fully" mean? Being able to draw conclusions that are not possible to draw from language alone. The meaning of language is…

I fail to see how the first is useful. For all intents and purposes your brain might as well be a Boltzmann brain / in a jar getting electrical stimuli. Your notion of reality is a mere interpretation of electrical signals / information. This implies that all such information can be encoded via language or whatever else. You also don’t take initiative. Every action that you take is dependent upon all previous actions…

> You merely call the outcome of your brain’s competing circuits as “taking initiative”.

We give names to all kinds of outcomes of our brains competing circuits. But our brains competing circuits have evolved to solve a fundamentally different set of problems than an LLM was designed for: the problems of human survival.

> A blind person has no notion of colour yet we don’t claim they are not sentient or generally intelligent.

Axiomatic anthropocentrism is warranted when comparing humans and AI.

Even if every known form of human sensory input, from language to vision, sound, pheromones, pain, etc were digitally encoded and fed into its own large model and they were all connected and attached to a physical form like C3PO, the resulting artificial being - even if it were marvelously intelligent - should still not be used to justify the diminishment of anyone's humanity.

If that sounds like a moral argument, that's because it is. Any materialist understands that we biological life forms are ultimately just glorified chemical information systems resisting in vain against entropy's information destroying effects. But in this context, that's sort of trite and beside the point.

What matters is what principles guide what we do with the technology.

Re: Understanding ChatGPT

#130

Post by m3kw9 »

maxdoop wrote: post #28

“It’s a glorified word predictor” is becoming increasingly maddening to read. Do tell— how can you prove humans are any different? The most common “proofs” I’ve seen: “Humans are more complex”. Ok, so you’re implying we add more complexity (maybe more modalities?); if more complexity is added, will you continue to say “LLMs are just word predictors”? “Humans are actually reasoning. LLMs are not.” Again, how would you…

Humans have feed back loops, we don’t stop, the thoughts keep running as we hear see and feel. Machines has a single input and output.
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