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> I firmly believe that LLMs are stochastic parrots and also that humans are too. To the point where I actually think even consciousness itself is a next-token predictor. I agree with the first sentence but not with the second one. Consciousness most probably does not arise from just a next-token predictor. At least not from an architecture similar to current LLMs. Both humans and LLMs basically learn to predict what…
In order to predict what happens next we need to create a model of the world. We exist as part of the world so we need to model ourselves within it. We also have to model our mind for it to be complete, including the model of the world it contains. Oops, I just created an infinite loop.
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FWIW, I tried this with both my sons. They both started using the gestures the same day they started actually talking :-/ I have friends who had much more success with it, but the value will largely depend on your child’s relative developmental strengths. A friend’s son with autism got literally years’ benefit out of the gestures before verbal speech caught up.
> FWIW, I tried this with both my sons. They both started using the gestures the same day they started actually talking :-/ Could still useful: instead of shouting across the playground on whether they have to go potty you can simply make the gesture with minimal embarrassment. :)
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Except LLM's are built on neural networks. That are based on how neurons work. The first tech that actually copies aspects of us.
sigh Neural networks are not based on how neurons work. They do not copy aspects of us. They call them neural networks because they are sort of conceptually like networks of neurons in the brain but they’re so different as to make false the statement that they are based on neurons.
Humans have a long history of comparing ourselves, and the universe, to our latest technological advancement. We used to be glorified clocks (as was the universe), then we were automatons, then computers, then NPC's, and now AI's (in particular LLM's). Which BTW I don't think is a completely absurd comparison, see https://mattasher.substack.com/p/ais-killer-app
I point this out because I think the idea of comparing ourselves to recent tech is more about using the technology as a metaphor for self, and it's worth incorporating the other ways we have done so historically for context.
[1]: https://online.ucpress.edu/SLA/article/2/4/542/83344/The-Bra...
> But he could understand so much more than he could say. If you asked him to point to the vacuum cleaner, he would. Perhaps worth noting that it is possible to teach infants (often starting at around 9 months) sign language so that they can more easily signal their desires. Some priority recommended words would probably be: * hungry/more * enough/all done (for when they're full) * drink (perhaps both milk/formula an…
It took very minimal effort on our part, and was very rewarding for him; certainly a lot better than him crying with the hope that we could guess what he wanted. Definitely recommended for any new parents.
The best moment was when he was sitting on the floor, and looked up at his mom and made the "together" sign, it was heart melting.
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We'll see! I came to this conclusion a long time ago but at the same time I do subjectively experience consciousness, which in itself is something a mystery in the material-reductionist philosophy.
I hear this a lot, but is it really a mystery/incompatible with materialism? Is there a reason consciousness couldn't be what it feels like to be a certain type of computation? I don't see why we would need something immaterial or some undiscovered material component to explain it.
The concept of consciousness is wildly more expansive and diverse than computation, rather than the other way around. A strict materialist account or "explanation" of consciousness seems to just end up a category error.
I take it as no surprise that a website devoted to the computers and software often insists that this is the only way to look at it, but there are entire philosophical movements that have developed fascinating accounts of consciousness that are far from strict materialism, nor are they "spiritual" or religious which is a common rejoinder by materialists, an example is the implications of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work from Philosophical Investigations and his analysis of language. And even in neuroscience there is far from complete agreement on the topic at all.
I suspect people will argue about whether AIs are truly conscious or just stochastic parrots even as all human-dominated tasks are replaced by AIs. The AIs will be creating masterwork art and literature personalized for each person better than anything Shakespeare ever wrote or Michaelangelo ever sculpted, but we'll console ourselves that at least we're _really_ conscious and they're just stochastic parrots.
I don't think it will. Art is truth and AI is a golem replicating humanity.
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I hear this a lot, but is it really a mystery/incompatible with materialism? Is there a reason consciousness couldn't be what it feels like to be a certain type of computation? I don't see why we would need something immaterial or some undiscovered material component to explain it.
Well the undiscovered part is why it should feel like anything at all. And this is definitely relevant because consciousness clearly exists enough that we exert physical force about it, so its gotta be somewhere in physics. But where?
I guess my real point is that I don't view experience or consciousness as something special or exceptional. My guess is that over time we come to understand how the brain works better and better but never find anything that definitively explains consciousness because it's totally subjective and immeasurable. We eventually produce computers complex enough to behave totally convincingly human, and they will claim to be conscious, maybe even be granted personhood, but we'll never actually know for sure if they experience the world, just like we don't know that other humans do.
Often the "stochastic parrot" line is used as a reduction on what an LLM truly is. I firmly believe that LLMs are stochastic parrots and also that humans are too. To the point where I actually think even consciousness itself is a next-token predictor. Where the industry is headed - multi-modal models. This really I think is the remaining frontier of LLM Human parity. I also have a 15 month old son. It's totally obvio…
I think this specific line shouts out that this is a typical tribalism comment. Once people identify themselves as a part of something, they start to translate the value of that something as their own worth. It's a cheap trick that even young kids play, but can LLM do this? No.
Some might say multi-modal this, train on that-thing, but it already takes tens of thousands of the most advanced hardware and gigawatts of energy to push around numbers to reach where it is. TBH, I don't see it going anywhere, considering ROI on research will decrease as we dig deeper into the same paradigm.
What I want to say is that today's LLM is certainly not the last stop of AI technology, but a lot of advocates tend to consider it as the final form of intelligence. It's certainly a case of extrapolation, and I don't think LLM can do that.