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The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

win-vector.com

11–20 of 148 posts

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#11

This argument is disingenuous. Hyperparameter optimization is not in the same category as prompt engineering, like at all. Also no one claims like half of the things the article claims people clain.

He, imo correctly, puts them both in the category of extra degrees of freedom that can allow the user to overfit and get results that appear more impressive than the underlying reality about how the model has generalized.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#12
post #9

I can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time: on one hand, yes, there's certainly a lot of Kool-Aid being drank by the AI folks. Even on HN, I constantly argue with people that genuinely think LLMs are some kind of magical black box that contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain. And on the other hand, I think that language interfaces are probably the n…

>contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain

These are not mutually exclusive. If you have a Markov chain that 100% of the time outputs "A cat is an animal", then it has knowledge that a cat is an animal.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#13
> Also, as they the hyper-parameter selection fully to the users, they become not falsifiable. If they didn’t work, it is because you didn’t pick the right hyper-parameters or training procedures.

See Also: Scrum certification.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#14
post #9

I can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time: on one hand, yes, there's certainly a lot of Kool-Aid being drank by the AI folks. Even on HN, I constantly argue with people that genuinely think LLMs are some kind of magical black box that contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain. And on the other hand, I think that language interfaces are probably the n…

>contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain These are not mutually exclusive. If you have a Markov chain that 100% of the time outputs "A cat is an animal", then it has knowledge that a cat is an animal.

  $ yes "a cat is an animal"
Does `yes` also have "knowledge"?

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#16
post #9

I can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time: on one hand, yes, there's certainly a lot of Kool-Aid being drank by the AI folks. Even on HN, I constantly argue with people that genuinely think LLMs are some kind of magical black box that contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain. And on the other hand, I think that language interfaces are probably the n…

>contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain These are not mutually exclusive. If you have a Markov chain that 100% of the time outputs "A cat is an animal", then it has knowledge that a cat is an animal.

I think you are operating with a different definition of "knowledge" that the parent does.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#17
post #9

I can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time: on one hand, yes, there's certainly a lot of Kool-Aid being drank by the AI folks. Even on HN, I constantly argue with people that genuinely think LLMs are some kind of magical black box that contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain. And on the other hand, I think that language interfaces are probably the n…

>contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain These are not mutually exclusive. If you have a Markov chain that 100% of the time outputs "A cat is an animal", then it has knowledge that a cat is an animal.

It does not. It has a language output that you find pleasing.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#18

If I understand correctly, the meat of the argument is "that is a system for every (∀) task, there exists (∃) a setting that gives the correct answer for that one task." My understanding of this (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the scam is convincing users that GPT-X can do anything with say, the correct prompts. This argument misses the mark for me. It's not that it solves all the problems, it's that the problems i…

I ended up, ironically, asking ChatGPT for a summary of the article. That's the argument it derived too.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#19
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>contain "knowledge" or "intelligence" or "meaning" when in reality, it's just a very fancy Markov chain These are not mutually exclusive. If you have a Markov chain that 100% of the time outputs "A cat is an animal", then it has knowledge that a cat is an animal.

I think you are operating with a different definition of "knowledge" that the parent does.

The heart of the issue is always the same: is a perfect simulation actually the same thing as what it simulates. I would argue that yes especially when the definition of knowledge or intelligence is already so fuzzy but some people will probably always disagree.

Re: The Sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ Scam

#20

If I understand correctly, the meat of the argument is "that is a system for every (∀) task, there exists (∃) a setting that gives the correct answer for that one task." My understanding of this (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the scam is convincing users that GPT-X can do anything with say, the correct prompts. This argument misses the mark for me. It's not that it solves all the problems, it's that the problems i…

Right

#1 it’s not clear that this ∃ ∀ construction is a fair representation of what is being ‘sold’ by GPT-x

#2 it’s also not clear what this proposed inverted formulation (∀ ∃) that describes what the author thinks GPT actually is even means. For every setting there exists a task that it answers? Does that even make sense?

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