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Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

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Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#291

> 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…

We learned ours following: * more * all done * milk (as in breast feeding) * drink

I think it makes a big difference, both for us (parents, to have a clue what they want) and the kid (being understood, when they can’t speak).

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed our consciousness is an emergent property from a complex system, however the complexity of that system - the human brain - is almost unfathomably beyond the complexity of anything we might make in silicon now or in the foreseeable future. For example, it is possible to write down a (natural/whole) number that completely describes the state of an LLM - its connections and weights etc - for example by simply tak…

Under the assumption that human brains are limited by our current understanding of physics, their state is finite - infinities are forbidden by definition. ( See the relationship between information theory and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle that results in the law of paraconservation of information : http://www.av8n.com/physics/thermo/entropy-more.html#sec-pha... )

Not true. The idea that QM discretises our universe is incorrect.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except LLM's are built on neural networks. That are based on how neurons work. The first tech that actually copies aspects of us.

I wish this myth would die

This is basic scientific history. You are simply uneducated, or scared of the implications.

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/project....

Key word: "neurophysiologist"

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#295
post #287
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We taught both our kids to sign. My favourite moment was in March, my daughter was about to turn 2 and wasn't speaking yet. I asked her if she would like to hear some music. She made the sign for dog. I searched youtube for some songs about dogs and she shook her head. She made the sign for tree. I was like "dog, tree", she nodded. Hmmm... I was searching for "dog tree music" when one of the pictures that came up was…

When signing dog, was she referring to reindeers?

The album cover for the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack has Snoopy sitting on top of a Christmas tree. I was playing the album from YouTube through the stereo and the album cover was showing on the TV to which the computer was connected.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs don't create new information, they only compress existing complexity in their train and inference data sets. Humans definitely create new information. (Well, at least some humans do.)

How are you defining "create new information" ?

In the information theoretic sense. (Increasing information entropy.)

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#297
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs don't create new information, they only compress existing complexity in their train and inference data sets. Humans definitely create new information. (Well, at least some humans do.)

Lossy compression + interpolated decompression = new information

Lossy compression decreases information entropy by definition.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs don't create new information, they only compress existing complexity in their train and inference data sets. Humans definitely create new information. (Well, at least some humans do.)

Do we? Humans can observe new information, but that's obviously not that unique. We can reason about existing information, creating new hypotheses, but that is arguably a compression of existing information. When we act on them and observe the effects they become information, but that's not us creating the information (and LLMs can both act on the environment and have the effects fed back to their input to observe, s…

I'm not arguing semantics; there's a large amount of math and theory here.

LLM's are basically lossy compressors, they decrease information entropy.

Humans increase information entropy whenever we do anything.

(Some) information entropy is potentially very valuable, so in effect LLMs destroy value by design, while humans can potentially create value. From an economic point of view humans can never be replaced by an LLM.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#299
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lossy compression + interpolated decompression = new information

Lossy compression decreases information entropy by definition.

Interpolated decompression increases information entropy by definition.
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