There is some research into this https://phys.org/news/2022-05-renormalization-group-methods-...
Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
11–20 of 244 posts
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#12The author (bafflingly) seems to have completely missed the point- since anything they state up to page 15 (at which point I stopped reading) does not refute Chomsky's points at all. The author talks about LLMs and how they generate text and then goes on to talk about how it refutes Chomsky's claim about syntax and semantics. However it does not since Chomsky's primary claim is about how HUMANS acquire language. The…
Also, the LLMs are cheating! They learned from us. It's entirely possible that you do need syntax/semantics/sapience to create the original corpus, but not to duplicate it.
Let's see an AlphaZero-style version of an LLM, that learns language from scratch and creates a semantically meaningful corpus of work all on its own. It's entirely possible that Chomsky's mechanisms are necessary to do so.
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#13While I think some of the points in the article are interesting, the usual evidence for the Chomskian approach is the relative lack of input data for learning language by children in the wild. How much input data is used to train modern language models?
2. Depending on what exactly you're trying to teach (perfect grammar, paragraphs of coherent text, basic reasoning), much less data is needed. https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.07759
3. Brains don't start at 0. Evolution, dna/rna etc. There's obviously some pre disposition for language learning in humans but that alone isn't enough ground for a "universal grammar"
4. We really do take in an enormous amount of data (not text specifically)
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#14The author (bafflingly) seems to have completely missed the point- since anything they state up to page 15 (at which point I stopped reading) does not refute Chomsky's points at all. The author talks about LLMs and how they generate text and then goes on to talk about how it refutes Chomsky's claim about syntax and semantics. However it does not since Chomsky's primary claim is about how HUMANS acquire language. The…
> The fact that you can replicate coherent text from probabilistic analysis and modeling of a very large corpus does not mean that humans acquire and generate language the same way. Also, the LLMs are cheating! They learned from us. It's entirely possible that you do need syntax/semantics/sapience to create the original corpus, but not to duplicate it. Let's see an AlphaZero-style version of an LLM, that learns langu…
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#15The author (bafflingly) seems to have completely missed the point- since anything they state up to page 15 (at which point I stopped reading) does not refute Chomsky's points at all. The author talks about LLMs and how they generate text and then goes on to talk about how it refutes Chomsky's claim about syntax and semantics. However it does not since Chomsky's primary claim is about how HUMANS acquire language. The…
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#16While I think some of the points in the article are interesting, the usual evidence for the Chomskian approach is the relative lack of input data for learning language by children in the wild. How much input data is used to train modern language models?
Do children really lack input data though? Human sensory input is quite a lot of data. Our languages may have common structure because that structure reflects causality and physics encountered by directly sampling the real world.
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#17The author (bafflingly) seems to have completely missed the point- since anything they state up to page 15 (at which point I stopped reading) does not refute Chomsky's points at all. The author talks about LLMs and how they generate text and then goes on to talk about how it refutes Chomsky's claim about syntax and semantics. However it does not since Chomsky's primary claim is about how HUMANS acquire language. The…
Wordcels think LLMs imitate the human brain, when a shape rotator knows they really just imitate human language.
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#18The author (bafflingly) seems to have completely missed the point- since anything they state up to page 15 (at which point I stopped reading) does not refute Chomsky's points at all. The author talks about LLMs and how they generate text and then goes on to talk about how it refutes Chomsky's claim about syntax and semantics. However it does not since Chomsky's primary claim is about how HUMANS acquire language. The…
> The fact that you can replicate coherent text from probabilistic analysis and modeling of a very large corpus does not mean that humans acquire and generate language the same way. Also, the LLMs are cheating! They learned from us. It's entirely possible that you do need syntax/semantics/sapience to create the original corpus, but not to duplicate it. Let's see an AlphaZero-style version of an LLM, that learns langu…
No...they aren't. Humans aren't learning from thin air by any stretch of the imagination.
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#19The author (bafflingly) seems to have completely missed the point- since anything they state up to page 15 (at which point I stopped reading) does not refute Chomsky's points at all. The author talks about LLMs and how they generate text and then goes on to talk about how it refutes Chomsky's claim about syntax and semantics. However it does not since Chomsky's primary claim is about how HUMANS acquire language. The…
> The fact that you can replicate coherent text from probabilistic analysis and modeling of a very large corpus does not mean that humans acquire and generate language the same way. Also, the LLMs are cheating! They learned from us. It's entirely possible that you do need syntax/semantics/sapience to create the original corpus, but not to duplicate it. Let's see an AlphaZero-style version of an LLM, that learns langu…
Re: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language
#20The author (bafflingly) seems to have completely missed the point- since anything they state up to page 15 (at which point I stopped reading) does not refute Chomsky's points at all. The author talks about LLMs and how they generate text and then goes on to talk about how it refutes Chomsky's claim about syntax and semantics. However it does not since Chomsky's primary claim is about how HUMANS acquire language. The…