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A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

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Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#221

Post by positron26 »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #201
positron26 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unrolled loop in a feed-forward network is all just that. The computation is DAG.

But the function of an unrolled recursion is the same as a recursive function with bounded depth as long as the number of unrolled steps match. The point is whatever function recursion is supposed to provide can plausibly be present in LLMs.

And then during the next token, all of that bounded depth is thrown away except for the token of output.

You're fixating on the pseudo-computation within a single token pass. This is very limited compared to actual hidden state retention and the introspection that would enable if we knew how to train it and do online learning already.

The "reasoning" hack would not be a realistic implementation choice if the models had hidden state and could ruminate on it without showing us output.

Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#222

Post by psychoslave »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #205
4ndrewl wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rodents aren't functions though?

Every computable system, even stateful systems, can be reformulated as a function. If IO can be functional, I don't see why mice can't.

Well, that's a strong claim of equivalence between computationable models and realty.

The consensual view is rather that no map is matching fully the territory, or said otherwise the territory includes ontological components that exceeds even the most sophisticated map that can be ever built.

Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#223

Post by Xss3 »

latexr wrote: post #160
fenomas wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see these debates it's always the other way around - one person speaks colloquially about an LLM's behavior, and then somebody else jumps on them for supposedly believing the model is conscious, just because the speaker said "the model thinks.." or "the model knows.." or whatever. To be honest the impression I've gotten is that some people are just very interested in talking about not anthropomorphizing AI, an…

Respectfully, that is a reflection of the places you hang out in (like HN) and not the reality of the population. Outside the technical world it gets much worse. There are people who killed themselves because of LLMs, people who are in love with them, people who genuinely believe they have “awakened” their own private ChatGPT instance into AGI and are eschewing the real humans in their lives.

The other day a good friend of mine with mental health issues remarked that "his" chatgpt understands him better than most of his friends and gives him better advice than his therapist.

It's going to take a lot to get him out of that mindset and frankly I'm dreading trying to compare and contrast imperfect human behaviour and friendships with a sycophantic AI.

Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#224

Post by FeepingCreature »

psychoslave wrote: post #222
FeepingCreature wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every computable system, even stateful systems, can be reformulated as a function. If IO can be functional, I don't see why mice can't.

Well, that's a strong claim of equivalence between computationable models and realty. The consensual view is rather that no map is matching fully the territory, or said otherwise the territory includes ontological components that exceeds even the most sophisticated map that can be ever built.

I believe the consensus view is that physics is computable.

Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#225

Post by stoneyhrm1 »

grey-area wrote: post #120
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #117

I have the technical knowledge to know how LLMs work, but I still find it pointless to not anthropomorphize, at least to an extent. The language of "generator that stochastically produces the next word" is just not very useful when you're talking about, e.g., an LLM that is answering complex world modeling questions or generating a creative story. It's at the wrong level of abstraction, just as if you were discussing…

On the contrary, anthropomorphism IMO is the main problem with narratives around LLMs - people are genuinely talking about them thinking and reasoning when they are doing nothing of that sort (actively encouraged by the companies selling them) and it is completely distorting discussions on their use and perceptions of their utility.

I thought this too but then began to think about it from the perspective of the programmers trying to make it imitate human learning. That's what a nn is trying to do at the end of the day, and in the same way I train myself by reading problems and solutions, or learning vocab at a young age, it does so by tuning billions of parameters.

I think these models do learn similarly. What does it even mean to reason? Your brain knows certain things so it comes to certain conclusions, but it only knows those things because it was ''trained'' on those things.

I reason my car will crash if I go 120 mph on the other side of the road because previously I have 'seen' where the input is a car going 120mph has a high probability of producing a crash, and similarly have seen input where the car is going on the other side of the road, producing a crash. Combining the two would tell me it's a high probability.

Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#226

Post by stoneyhrm1 »

cmenge wrote: post #126
grey-area wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, anthropomorphism IMO is the main problem with narratives around LLMs - people are genuinely talking about them thinking and reasoning when they are doing nothing of that sort (actively encouraged by the companies selling them) and it is completely distorting discussions on their use and perceptions of their utility.

I kinda agree with both of you. It might be a required abstraction, but it's a leaky one. Long before LLMs, I would talk about classes / functions / modules like "it then does this, decides the epsilon is too low, chops it up and adds it to the list". The difference I guess it was only to a technical crowd and nobody would mistake this for anything it wasn't. Everybody know that "it" didn't "decide" anything. With AI…

I mean you can boil anything down to it's building blocks and make it seem like it didn't 'decide' anything. When you as a human decide something, your brain and it's neurons just made some connections with an output signal sent to other parts that resulting in your body 'doing' something.

I don't think LLMs are sentient or any bullshit like that, but I do think people are too quick to write them off before really thinking about how a nn 'knows things' similar to how a human 'knows' things, it is trained and reacts to inputs and outputs. The body is just far more complex.

Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#227

Post by JimDabell »

flir wrote: post #154
cmenge wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda agree with both of you. It might be a required abstraction, but it's a leaky one. Long before LLMs, I would talk about classes / functions / modules like "it then does this, decides the epsilon is too low, chops it up and adds it to the list". The difference I guess it was only to a technical crowd and nobody would mistake this for anything it wasn't. Everybody know that "it" didn't "decide" anything. With AI…

Agreeing with you, this is a "can a submarine swim" problem IMO. We need a new word for what LLMs are doing. Calling it "thinking" is stretching the word to breaking point, but "selecting the next word based on a complex statistical model" doesn't begin to capture what they're capable of. Maybe it's cog-nition (emphasis on the cog).

> this is a "can a submarine swim" problem IMO. We need a new word for what LLMs are doing.

Why?

A plane is not a fly and does not stay aloft like a fly, yet we describe what it does as flying despite the fact that it does not flap its wings. What are the downsides we encounter that are caused by using the word “fly” to describe a plane travelling through the air?

Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#229

Post by Xss3 »

HeartStrings wrote: post #119
szvsw wrote: post #3

So the author’s core view is ultimately a Searle-like view: a computational, functional, syntactic rules based system cannot reproduce a mind. Plenty of people will agree, plenty of people will disagree, and the answer is probably unknowable and just comes down to whatever axioms you subscribe to in re: consciousness. The author largely takes the view that it is more productive for us to ignore any anthropomorphic re…

[flagged]

Ok. How do you know?

Re: A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs

#230

Post by adityaathalye »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #117

I have the technical knowledge to know how LLMs work, but I still find it pointless to not anthropomorphize, at least to an extent. The language of "generator that stochastically produces the next word" is just not very useful when you're talking about, e.g., an LLM that is answering complex world modeling questions or generating a creative story. It's at the wrong level of abstraction, just as if you were discussing…

My brain refuses to join the rah-rah bandwagon because I cannot see them in my mind’s eye. Sometimes I get jealous of people like GP and OP who clearly seem to have the sight. (Being a serial math exam flunker might have something to do with it. :))))

Anyway, one does what one can.

(I've been trying to picture abstract visual and semi-philosophical approximations which I’ll avoid linking here because they seem to fetch bad karma in super-duper LLM enthusiast communities. But you can read them on my blog and email me scathing critiques, if you wish :sweat-smile:.)

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