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Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

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Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#21

Post by roenxi »

tootie wrote: post #13
hellohello2 wrote: post #10

"Text generated by an LM is not grounded in communicative intent, any model of the world, or any model of the reader’s state of mind." Modelling text describing the world is not modelling (some aspect) of the world? Modelling the probability that a reader likes or dislike a piece of text is not modelling (some aspect) of a reader's state of mind?

No? There's no model involved. It's all just probabilistic. LLMs understand what you're thinking as well as a mood ring.

It isn't possible to have "just probabilistic" (maybe a philosophical exception could be made for a uniform random distribution or whatever provides the little dose of randomness required to get nondeterministic results). Probabilities are always in context of a model. LLMs model language but language itself is a model of something else. My money would have been on language modelling nonsense, but that is quite clearly not the case. Turns out it models the world and so do LLMs.

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#22

Post by kalkin »

mbauman wrote: post #15
libraryofbabel wrote: post #8

It would have been nice to see some version of “I am very surprised by how far LLMs have come since I wrote the stochastic parrots paper, here is how I have revised my thinking.” But there is nothing like that and the author is just doubling down or trying to correct perceived “misinterpretations” of her work. Meanwhile you have multiple Fields Medalists (Tau, Gowers) saying they’re very impressed by LLMs’ mathematic…

> stochastic parrots thesis (if it has any empirically-predictive content at all Did you read TFA? This is precisely one of the non-questions that she answers.

Yes, she addresses this by denying that she's made any empirical hypothesis, but in a way that's some combination of disingenuous and confused.

She also says:

> What I am trying to do... is to help people understand what these systems actually are

Can a phrase that has no empirical content aid people in understanding an empirical phenomenon?

> the astonishing willingness of so many to... turn to synthetic text... for all kinds of weighty decisions.

Why is this astonishing, if the nature of these models as "stochastic parrots" places no limitations whatosever on their empirical capabilities, reliability, etc?

> the field of linguistics is particularly relevant in this moment, as a linguist’s eye view on language technology is desperately needed to help make wise decisions about how we do and don’t use these products

Is it wise to make decisions about a product on the basis of information that has no relevance to how it is actually likely to behave?

(It may be, if one has ethical concerns with "data theft, the exploitative labor practices", etc -- but one could have such concerns about any kind of product, not just a "stochastic parrot", and linguists are not generally academia's experts on, e.g., labor practices.)

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#23

Post by newtonsmethod »

sdf127 wrote: post #20
newtonsmethod wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your justification in dismissing Fields medalists that they are impressed by funding? Not even receiving it (I assume you say this because Tao is not funded by AI for Math, but rather an advisor for it)? Not only would it be a leap to suggest that people automatically lose their integrity by taking funds for projects they believe are useful, especially after involvement with adjacent fields, but you are suggesting…

Renaissance "Philanthropy" brainwashes children with AI, which is child abuse: https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/insights/renaissance... https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/insights/embedding-a... It promotes "agentic science", which will destroy science further: https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/insights/open-source... No one publishes. Please show me papers about the math proof logic in ChatGPT that…

This is getting insane. You have no evidence for your initial claims and didn't respond to a thing I said, and are now claiming using AI for education is "child abuse". Please get help.

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#24

Post by harpiaharpyja »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #8

It would have been nice to see some version of “I am very surprised by how far LLMs have come since I wrote the stochastic parrots paper, here is how I have revised my thinking.” But there is nothing like that and the author is just doubling down or trying to correct perceived “misinterpretations” of her work. Meanwhile you have multiple Fields Medalists (Tau, Gowers) saying they’re very impressed by LLMs’ mathematic…

...did you read TFA?

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#25

Post by libraryofbabel »

tootie wrote: post #16
libraryofbabel wrote: post #8

It would have been nice to see some version of “I am very surprised by how far LLMs have come since I wrote the stochastic parrots paper, here is how I have revised my thinking.” But there is nothing like that and the author is just doubling down or trying to correct perceived “misinterpretations” of her work. Meanwhile you have multiple Fields Medalists (Tau, Gowers) saying they’re very impressed by LLMs’ mathematic…

She says explicitly it's not an empirical hypothesis. It's just a label for how they function. Which hasn't really changed even as they've gotten more useful. I haven't followed the full drama but this post is her saying the term has been frequently misapplied and she's basically distancing herself from some critiques that were misinterpreting her intent.

> She says explicitly it's not an empirical hypothesis. It's just a label for how they function.

Then… what’s the point of the label, if it’s not making any empirically-meaningful claims about LLMs at all? I know that LLMs involve sampling over a distribution of output logits. I’ve written code to do it. So what? I know they have statistical elements. Yet I don’t go around calling LLMs stochastic parrots, because that label implies a whole lot of claims about LLMs that I don’t think are true any longer, like that they are just regurgitating and remixing training data and can’t successfully model structured systems (like mathematics or programming).

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#26

Post by aoeusnth1 »

tootie wrote: post #13
hellohello2 wrote: post #10

"Text generated by an LM is not grounded in communicative intent, any model of the world, or any model of the reader’s state of mind." Modelling text describing the world is not modelling (some aspect) of the world? Modelling the probability that a reader likes or dislike a piece of text is not modelling (some aspect) of a reader's state of mind?

No? There's no model involved. It's all just probabilistic. LLMs understand what you're thinking as well as a mood ring.

The model is the thing which is learned in order to make the probabilistic prediction with low entropy.

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#27

Post by ashgt »

newtonsmethod wrote: post #23
sdf127 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renaissance "Philanthropy" brainwashes children with AI, which is child abuse: https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/insights/renaissance... https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/insights/embedding-a... It promotes "agentic science", which will destroy science further: https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/insights/open-source... No one publishes. Please show me papers about the math proof logic in ChatGPT that…

This is getting insane. You have no evidence for your initial claims and didn't respond to a thing I said, and are now claiming using AI for education is "child abuse". Please get help.

There is also no evidence that Radio Free Europe is still linked to the CIA. Just look at the donors of Renaissance Misanthropy.

But we are feeding a sealion who does not know how the math proof logic in LLMs work, probably because it is a highly computationally expensive random restart hack calling Lean that is unpublishable.

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#28

Post by roenxi »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #25
tootie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She says explicitly it's not an empirical hypothesis. It's just a label for how they function. Which hasn't really changed even as they've gotten more useful. I haven't followed the full drama but this post is her saying the term has been frequently misapplied and she's basically distancing herself from some critiques that were misinterpreting her intent.

> She says explicitly it's not an empirical hypothesis. It's just a label for how they function. Then… what’s the point of the label, if it’s not making any empirically-meaningful claims about LLMs at all? I know that LLMs involve sampling over a distribution of output logits. I’ve written code to do it. So what? I know they have statistical elements. Yet I don’t go around calling LLMs stochastic parrots, because tha…

It is making an empirically-meaningful claim - it is observing what LLMs do in a neatly pithy way. It isn't a hypothesis though, because it doesn't try to explain anything.

> Yet I don’t go around calling LLMs stochastic parrots, because that label implies a whole lot of claims about LLMs that I don’t think are true any longer, like that they are just regurgitating and remixing training data and can’t successfully model structured systems.

The first part doesn't imply the second. It is nearly unarguable that all LLMs are going is regurgitating and remixing training data. There aren't any significant inputs other inputs than training data. It seems more likely that humans are doing the same operation the LLMs are when they model structured systems or exercise creativity - compressing data in efficient ways and then spitting it back out. "Humans are stochastic parrots" is an easy claim to defend.

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#29

Post by throw310822 »

tom_ wrote: post #19
scotty79 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also create novel math proofs.

Perhaps actual thinking is not automatically necessary for that either! - and the LLM is proof.

Then what is thinking necessary for? Not for proving novel results; not for coding; not for writing prose; not for arguing a point; not for interpreting artworks; etc.

Re: Stochastic Parrots: Frequently Unasked Questions

#30

Post by newtonsmethod »

ashgt wrote: post #27
newtonsmethod wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting insane. You have no evidence for your initial claims and didn't respond to a thing I said, and are now claiming using AI for education is "child abuse". Please get help.

There is also no evidence that Radio Free Europe is still linked to the CIA. Just look at the donors of Renaissance Misanthropy. But we are feeding a sealion who does not know how the math proof logic in LLMs work, probably because it is a highly computationally expensive random restart hack calling Lean that is unpublishable.

Many of these results don't rely on repeatedly calling Lean. You have no clue what you're talking about.

> Just look at the donors of Renaissance Misanthropy. If you're actually interested, who funds each project is listed in the PDF here. https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/annual-reports

As you can see, it's mainly philanthropic projects of wealthy families.

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