With AI devaluing human creativity and thought I wonder what is left to be proud of? One's body? It seems like humans will be valued more based on their looks than anything else. Apps like Tinder, Instagram, OnlyFans have already been pushing in this direction but AI will take it further and devalue the one valuable trait that the less attractive people could compete on. AI will also compete with porn but the tech for replacing physical human bodies is nowhere near as advanced. The winners will be attractive women and maybe plumbers. The losers will be everyone else but especially men.
Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
151–160 of 363 posts
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#152This is a really beautiful article, and while there are certainly fundamental differences between how a toddler thinks and learns, and how an LLM "thinks", I don't think we should get too comfortable with those differences. Every time I say to myself "AI is no big deal because it can't do X", some time later someone comes along and makes an AI that does X.
Then never say to yourself "AI is no big deal because it can't do X".
Say instead (for example) "It is important that I understand the differences between both the capabilities and internal mechanisms of AI and people, even if, over some period of time, the capabilities may appear to converge".
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#153With AI devaluing human creativity and thought I wonder what is left to be proud of? One's body? It seems like humans will be valued more based on their looks than anything else. Apps like Tinder, Instagram, OnlyFans have already been pushing in this direction but AI will take it further and devalue the one valuable trait that the less attractive people could compete on. AI will also compete with porn but the tech fo…
Hairdressers and telephone sanitisers will eventually get the last laugh.
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#154> 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…
Worked incredibly well for our first born, but 2nd child just wanted to talk like their sibling.
Almost 20 years later, I still know all the signs for baby food ;)
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#155> 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…
This is good advice but with a caveat: some of the muscle control required for particular signs is not able to be learned by children until they're a bit older.
For example, voluntary supination/pronation of the forearm is generally not something a 9month old can do. If you try and teach them a common sign for "enough/finished" (fist closed, thumb pointed out, then rotation of the forearm back and forth), or "done" and "more" in the parent link, they probably won't be able to do it properly. They can copy something close to that (thumb out and wobbling their hand around? good enough!) so you have to go with the flow.
There are quite a few signs like that actually, so try and think about how many muscles move together, and how controlled or complex that is. Simple stuff is good -- and doable.
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I firmly believe that LLMs are stochastic parrots and also that humans are too. To the point where I actually think even consciousness itself is a next-token predictor. Almost every time I'm on hackernews I end up baffled by software engineers feeling entitled to have an unfunded opinion on scientific disciplines outside of their own field of expertise. I've literally never encountered that level of hubris from any…
Yeah, it's only software people. No one else has unfounded opinions. But... a parrot has a body. And sure, you'll say "they don't literally mean parrot".. but it's a vague term when you unpack it, and people saying "we are stochastic parrots" are also making a pretty vague comment (they clearly don't mean literally). Anyone who has a small child and understands LLMs is shocked by how much similar they seem to be when…
The question is: does polly really want a cracker?
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#157> 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 did this with our boys. The oldest picked up a sign we weren't even trying to teach: whenever I changed his poopy diaper I'd say "phoo phoo phoo!" jokingly and fan my noise. One day he was playing on the other side of the room and fanned his nose. He'd pooped and was telling us. Super cool.
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#158I think it's reductivism to assume that neural networks cannot emergently support/implement a non-stochastic computational model capable of explicit logical reasoning. We already have an instance of emergent logic. Animals engage in logical reasoning. Corollary, humans and toddlers are not merely super-autocompletes or stochastic parrots. It has nothing to do with "sensory embodiment" and/or "personal agency" argumen…
Imagine that for some reason and by some unknown agency, somebody in 1068 could build something that was functionally equivalent to one of the contemporary LLMs of today (it would likely be mechanical and thus slower, but let's just ignore speed because that's mostly a substrate artifact).
OK, time to train up our LLM.
Oops. Printing not yet invented. Books are scarce, and frequently not copied. We have almost no input data to give to our analog LLM.
Will it be of any use whatsoever? I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that it will not.
However, contrast a somewhat typical human from the same era. Will they suffer from any fundamental limitation compared to someone alive today? Will there be skills they cannot acquire? Languages they cannot learn? It's not quite so easy to be completely confident about the answer to this, but I think there's a strong case for "no".
The data dependence of LLMs compared to human (or ravens) makes a compelling argument that they are not operating in the same way (or, if they are, they have somehow reduced the data dependency in an incredibly dramatic way, such that it may still be reasonable to differentiate the mechanisms).
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#159> 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…
One of the funniest interactions I had with my eldest daughter was the day we baked cookies together, when she not yet 2. She was verbalizing a lot, but also signing "milk" and "more" quite a bit. And when she bit into her very first chocolate chip cookie of her entire life, she immediately signed "more" and said as much through the mouthful of cookie.
You remind me of the following.
At about the same age, I bought my son a mango lassi. He looked suspiciously at it, but took a sip. With a look of shocked delight he tilted it back, back, back, and emptied the cup!
Then he put it down, looked at me, and said, "Want more!"
I'm looking forward to kids out of the house. But there are some moments that I treasure.
Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?
#160Often the "stochastic parrot" line is used as a reduction on what an LLM truly is. I firmly believe that LLMs are stochastic parrots and also that humans are too. To the point where I actually think even consciousness itself is a next-token predictor. Where the industry is headed - multi-modal models. This really I think is the remaining frontier of LLM Human parity. I also have a 15 month old son. It's totally obvio…
I would have agreed until these recent podcasts that Chomsky did.
Everyone is basically talking out their ass when it comes to language and linguistics. That becomes incredibly obvious listening to Chomsky on chatGPT.
I was even so stupid to think Chomsky wasn't a fan of chatGPT because it somehow invalidated some of his language theories. Low and behold, no, Chomsky actually knows what he is talking about when it comes to linguistics.