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Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

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Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#321

Post by NoGravitas »

allemagne wrote: post #166
alexwebb2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a well-documented concept called "God of the gaps" where any phenomenon humans don't understand at the time is attributed to a divine entity. Over time, as the gaps in human knowledge get filled, the god "shrinks" - it becomes less expansive, less powerful, less directly involved in human affairs. The definition changes. It's fascinating to watch the same thing happen with human exceptionalism – so many cries…

"God is dead" is beyond passé in the 2020s, but in the 19th century nobody really needed a "god of the gaps." If a Friedrich Nietzsche equivalent was active today, and let's just say was convinced that AGI was possible, I kind of wonder what generally accepted grand narrative he'd declare dead beyond just human exceptionalism. Philosophy itself?

Philosophy is already a self-destroying enterprise (it lets you think out to the limits of thought). Eugene Thacker's "The Horror of Philosophy" series is probably the best thorough explanation of this.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#322

Post by NoGravitas »

lainga wrote: post #24
Chabsff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The befuddlement goes even farther for me. LLMs are, effectively, black-box systems that interface with the world via a stochastic parrot interface. You'd think that software engineers would be a group that easily understands how making radical assumptions about implementation details when looking at nothing but an interface is generally misguided. I'm not saying that there isn't a strong case to be made against LLMs…

Ah, but HN is a platform for not just any software engineer, but the entrepreneurial type.

Which is to say, the type that will believe anything if it's currently easy to hype to VCs.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#323

Post by naasking »

slibhb wrote: post #315
naasking wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From that perspective, we can't say that a rock lacks an internal life That's what panpsychists believe. Regardless, this is a silly comparison. Show me a rock that can carry an intelligent conversation and then you might have a point.

Using a rock as an example makes sense given the post I replied to. The argument that we lack a "mechanistic model of qualia" has nothing to do with behavior. That aside, we should be close to certain that LLMs don't have internal lives. That computer programs can mimic human behavior in some contexts is a tremendous discovery but it's no reason to assume an internal life. Conversely, many animals can't mimic human b…

You cannot simultaneously believe that qualia evolved while also asserting that qualia has nothing to do with behaviour.

In any case, the behaviour I'm referring to is clearly a proxy for complex change. A rock does not undergo complex changes, so unless you're a panpsychist, it's a pretty straightforward deduction that a rock doesn't have internal life.

> but it's no reason to assume an internal life.

I'm not asserting they have an internal life, the person I responded to was saying they have no internal life and I said they cannot rigorously justify such a claim.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#324

Post by naasking »

smoldesu wrote: post #314
naasking wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, an LLM is math. Particle physics is also math, and that makes up all of existence. Furthermore, I'm not sure why "artificiality" has any bearing on the question of whether something is alive, whatever that means. I'm also not even sure why you're talking about "alive" or "inanimate". From context it's clear we're talking about "internal life", meaning experience, feelings, thoughts, etc., not some ability to pro…

> it's clear we're talking about "internal life", meaning experience, feelings, thoughts, etc. So do you have any evidence of that existing, then? Because so far, it sounds like speculation. LLMs do not feel or think or experience anything, in the same way that particle physics is not inherently sentient. LLM architectures are not designed to resemble life, or even understand human language for the most part. It's un…

> LLMs do not feel or think or experience anything, in the same way that particle physics is not inherently sentient

Panpsychists would like a word.

> but Markov Chains and LISP bots were no closer to achieving "internal life" or what have you.

I'm simply making clear that this is a statement of belief as opposed to a statement of fact. You believe that true life or true sentience has certain qualities that you believe LLMs are lacking, therefore you conclude that LLMs are not alive and not sentient. I'm simply saying that we don't know enough about sentience to turn such statements of belief into statements of fact (and I don't know what "life" is in such a context, so I won't touch that).

> but our brains are not artificial purpose-built tools

Again, artificiality has nothing to do with whether something is alive, intelligent or sentient. Furthermore evolution has indeed shaped our brain into a purpose-built tool optimized to procreate.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#325

Post by naasking »

intended wrote: post #310
naasking wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But life they are not. At best, they are mimics A mimicry of fire is not fire because fire is a reaction between matter. A mimicry of intelligence may well be intelligence, because intelligence is just information processing. We're not talking here about "life", but intelligence and "internal life", aka feelings, thoughts, etc. Edit: as for the argument that "LLMs are simply tools", it has been quite easy for our a…

I havent read it, but Blindsight did a very good job of explaining LLMs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) I am saying that LLMs DONT process information, not the way people are implying. The best I can suggest is to please try building with an LLM. Its very hard to explain the nuance, and I am not the only one struggling with it.

I understand the nuance, I think you're just wrong. LLMs augmented with memory are Turing complete [1], so they do process information. This distinction you're trying to draw is a mirage.

[1] https://pub.towardsai.net/llms-and-memory-is-definitely-all-...

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#326

Post by smoldesu »

naasking wrote: post #324
smoldesu wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's clear we're talking about "internal life", meaning experience, feelings, thoughts, etc. So do you have any evidence of that existing, then? Because so far, it sounds like speculation. LLMs do not feel or think or experience anything, in the same way that particle physics is not inherently sentient. LLM architectures are not designed to resemble life, or even understand human language for the most part. It's un…

> LLMs do not feel or think or experience anything, in the same way that particle physics is not inherently sentient Panpsychists would like a word. > but Markov Chains and LISP bots were no closer to achieving "internal life" or what have you. I'm simply making clear that this is a statement of belief as opposed to a statement of fact . You believe that true life or true sentience has certain qualities that you beli…

> I'm simply saying that we don't know enough about sentience to turn such statements of belief into statements of fact

We do! We can look at rocks and very clearly define them as non-sentient. If you disagree with that, you are not deferring to the overwhelming wealth of evidence that can prove rocks are not similar to us. Animists and panpsychics be damned, you only need thermodynamics to prove that we are not the same.

It's fine if you want to argue the uncertainty angle. I vehemently disagree with it though, and firmly believe that we can extend simple logic to conclude that LLMs are software, and software is not alive. Adding noise and 4.21gb of trained weights does not move the needle on that, for me.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#327

Post by grungegun »

throw0101a wrote: post #35

> 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…

I taught one of my younger brothers a simple sign language when I was younger. His speech was delayed by like 8 months compared to the rest of us. Can't say for sure, but there's a need to emphasize spoken communication with the sign language.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#328

Post by slibhb »

naasking wrote: post #323
slibhb wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a rock as an example makes sense given the post I replied to. The argument that we lack a "mechanistic model of qualia" has nothing to do with behavior. That aside, we should be close to certain that LLMs don't have internal lives. That computer programs can mimic human behavior in some contexts is a tremendous discovery but it's no reason to assume an internal life. Conversely, many animals can't mimic human b…

You cannot simultaneously believe that qualia evolved while also asserting that qualia has nothing to do with behaviour. In any case, the behaviour I'm referring to is clearly a proxy for complex change. A rock does not undergo complex changes, so unless you're a panpsychist, it's a pretty straightforward deduction that a rock doesn't have internal life. > but it's no reason to assume an internal life. I'm not assert…

I didn't say that internal life has nothing to do with behavior. I said you can't infer internal life from behavior.

> I'm not asserting they have an internal life, the person I responded to was saying they have no internal life and I said they cannot rigorously justify such a claim.

The only claim that I can "rigorously justify" concerning internal lives is that I have one. And the proof is subjective. Clearly this is not a discussion that admits the kind of rigor you're demanding...

We have good reason to believe that people and animals have internal lives whereas rocks and computers don't. That we can't be certain of this isn't a reason to believe the opposite. If your goal here is to insist that all statements about internal lives (other than "I have an internal life") can't be "rigorously justified," fine, I agree.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#329

Post by naasking »

slibhb wrote: post #328
naasking wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot simultaneously believe that qualia evolved while also asserting that qualia has nothing to do with behaviour. In any case, the behaviour I'm referring to is clearly a proxy for complex change. A rock does not undergo complex changes, so unless you're a panpsychist, it's a pretty straightforward deduction that a rock doesn't have internal life. > but it's no reason to assume an internal life. I'm not assert…

I didn't say that internal life has nothing to do with behavior. I said you can't infer internal life from behavior. > I'm not asserting they have an internal life, the person I responded to was saying they have no internal life and I said they cannot rigorously justify such a claim. The only claim that I can "rigorously justify" concerning internal lives is that I have one. And the proof is subjective. Clearly this…

> I said you can't infer internal life from behavior.

Behaviour can't tell you there isn't internal life, but complex behaviour sure is a big red flag that there might be internal life there.

> We have good reason to believe that people and animals have internal lives whereas rocks and computers don't.

Rocks yes, computer programs no we don't, that's the point. There is no reason to suppose an information processing system that can converse intelligently doesn't have some kind of internal experience, and you have presented not a single argument suggesting that we can draw such a conclusion. I presented a simple deduction for rocks, what is the corresponding deduction for computer programs?

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#330

Post by xigency »

dsign wrote: post #243
jtr1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simplifying greatly, but 1. LLMs “create” these cultural artifacts by recombining their inputs (text, images, etc), all of which are cultural artifacts created by humans 2. Humans also create cultural artifacts by recombining other cultural artifacts. The difference is that they combine another input which we can’t really prove AI has: qualia, the individual experience of being in the world, the synthesis of touch an…

> The difference is that they combine another input which we can’t really prove AI has: qualia, the individual experience of being in the world, the synthesis of touch and sound and feeling and perspective. I wish we could keep this as an immutable truth, but give some sick girls and boys in Silicon Valley a few more years and they will make true creatures. No, I think that we should be honest to ourselves and stop s…

> It's okay to be self-interested and say "we want to remain in control, AIs should not be, no matter how much (or if) better they are than us."

Thank you for solving the riddle!

What AI lacks compared to humans, is what humans share in common with all of life, a motivation for survival.

As the creators of AI we need to be mindfully aware that we are the moral agents, we are the ones with motives, desires and goals, and we are responsible for making ethical decisions.

My bicycle can go down a hill much faster than my feet, but it doesn’t go anywhere without me because it doesn’t have anywhere it wants to go. I’m the one providing directions.

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