Eight things to know about large language models [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Eight things to know about large language models [pdf]

#111

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 9:11 PM UTC

cjbprime wrote: post #110

Godel_unicode wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The asker thought they were. They were not. The internet is big and human memories are not. As an aside, I’m really starting to hate these threads on here, people are constantly reading words that aren’t there in search of gotcha-it’s-skynet. It’s not. It’s just pattern matching and randomness with a giant amount of information encoded.

> As an aside, I’m really starting to hate these threads on here. I'm not sure what to say, other than that if you'd like to have less frustrating conversations, you could do better than showing up with hearsay where someone asked a question they thought was unique, but it wasn't, and it can't be modified to be unique and then asked again, and you aren't willing to tell us what it was, and possibly don't know yoursel…

[deleted]

Re: Eight things to know about large language models [pdf]

#112

Post by Godel_unicode » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 9:12 PM UTC

cjbprime wrote: post #110

Godel_unicode wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The asker thought they were. They were not. The internet is big and human memories are not. As an aside, I’m really starting to hate these threads on here, people are constantly reading words that aren’t there in search of gotcha-it’s-skynet. It’s not. It’s just pattern matching and randomness with a giant amount of information encoded.

> As an aside, I’m really starting to hate these threads on here. I'm not sure what to say, other than that if you'd like to have less frustrating conversations, you could do better than showing up with hearsay where someone asked a question they thought was unique, but it wasn't, and it can't be modified to be unique and then asked again, and you aren't willing to tell us what it was, and possibly don't know yoursel…

This is the exact type of unserious wish-reading I’m talking about. Do better.

Re: Eight things to know about large language models [pdf]

#113

Post by DonaldPShimoda » Fri, Apr 07, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

UncleEntity wrote: post #34

DonaldPShimoda wrote: post #3

This is a personal correspondence typeset via LaTeX — it is not an academic paper, and it was not peer-reviewed. (The document does not claim otherwise, but I think it's common for people to assume that documents that have been typeset in such a format are more rigorous than this is.) Leaving that aside, I really take issue with the style used by the author. For example, section 3 begins: > There is increasingly subs…

So the AI Ethics peeps are the True Scotsmen? We may just live in a world where there’s room for more than one viewpoint and people are able to research different aspects of the same thing without getting into debates over dogma. I mean, inclusion -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34698769

> We may just live in a world where there’s room for more than one viewpoint

AI safety is not a "viewpoint", it is a marketing strategy. The goal of the people leading that charge is to drum up FUD to increase investment in their useless snake oil companies. I feel no remorse for not being inclusive of their "perspective".

Re: Eight things to know about large language models [pdf]

#114

Post by DonaldPShimoda » Fri, Apr 07, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

dimatura wrote: post #83

DonaldPShimoda wrote: post #3

This is a personal correspondence typeset via LaTeX — it is not an academic paper, and it was not peer-reviewed. (The document does not claim otherwise, but I think it's common for people to assume that documents that have been typeset in such a format are more rigorous than this is.) Leaving that aside, I really take issue with the style used by the author. For example, section 3 begins: > There is increasingly subs…

At what point are we allowed to use the "reason" or "learn" for AI then? Can we use these terms for non-human animals? If so, which ones? I think LLMs are at the point where adopting an "intentional stance" (using Daniel Dennett's term) is reasonable.

> At what point are we allowed to use the "reason" or "learn" for AI then?

Maybe when the technology is physically capable of thinking for itself, rather than just being statistically likely to respond in a way that appears like the way a human would respond. Which may never happen, for what it's worth.

> I think LLMs are at the point where adopting an "intentional stance" (using Daniel Dennett's term) is reasonable.

I hadn't heard of this term so I looked into it, and wow, what a biased Wikipedia article it has. It's written with a completely partial stance. I've no idea whether to take it seriously, to be honest.

That said, I disagree strongly. LLMs do not "intend" anything, and pretending they do is (in my view) highly problematic. They're just (sophisticated!) prediction engines; nothing more.