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Bag of words, have mercy on us

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Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#161

Post by akoboldfrying »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #138
akoboldfrying wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I claim that all of thinking can be reduced to predicting the next thing. Predicting the next thing = thinking in the same way that reading and writing strings of bytes is a universal interface, or every computation can be done by a Turing machine.

People can claim whatever they like. That doesn't mean it's a good or reasonable hypothesis (especially for one that is essentially unfalsifible like predictive coding).

I'm not trying to advance a testable hypothesis. If you think the unfalsifiability of my claim is a problem, you haven't understood what I'm trying to do.

My claim is that the two concepts are indistinguishable, thus equivalent. The unfalsifiability is what makes it a natural equivalence, the same as in the other examples I gave.

Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#162

Post by ben_w »

littlestymaar wrote: post #150
akoboldfrying wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs and human brains are both just mechanisms. Why would one mechanism a priori be capable of "learning abstract thought", but no others? If it turns out that LLMs don't model human brains well enough to qualify as "learning abstract thought" the way humans do, some future technology will do so. Human brains aren't magic, special or different.

> LLMs and human brains are both just mechanisms. Why would one mechanism a priori be capable of "learning abstract thought", but no others? “Internal combustion engines and human brains are both just mechanisms. Why would one mechanism a priori be capable of "learning abstract thought", but no others?” The question isn't about what an hypothetical mechanism can do or not, it's about whether the concrete mechanism we…

The general argument you make is correct, but you conclusion "And this one doesn't." is as yet uncertain.

I will absolutely say that all ML methods known are literally too stupid to live, as in no living thing can get away with making so many mistakes before it's learned anything, but that's the rate of change of performance with respect to examples rather than what it learns by the time training is finished.

What is "abstract thought"? Is that even the same between any two humans who use that word to describe their own inner processes? Because "imagination"/"visualise" certainly isn't.

Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#164

Post by ath3nd »

gaigalas wrote: post #77
bamboozled wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use your brain and use an LLM for 6 months, you’ll work it out.

Let's go the other route. What would change your mind? It's an exercise in feasibility. For example, I don't believe in time travel. If someone made me time travel, and made it undeniable that I was transported back to 1508, then I would not be able to argue against it. In fact, no one in such position would. What is that equivalent for your conviction? There must be something, otherwise, it's just an opinion that ca…

[dead]

Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#165

Post by danielbln »

jimbokun wrote: post #97
coppsilgold wrote: post #74

Is a brain not a token prediction machine? Tokens in form of neural impulses go in, tokens in the form of neural impulses go out. We would like to believe that there is something profound happening inside and we call that consciousness. Unfortunately when reading about split-brain patient experiments or agenesis of the corpus callosum cases I feel like we are all deceived, every moment of every day. I came to realiza…

We know that consciousness exists because we constantly experience it. It’s really the only thing we can ever know with certainty. That’s the point of “I think therefore I am.”

You know that your own consciousness exists, that's where certainty ends. The rest of us might just pretend. :)

Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#166

Post by danielbln »

binary132 wrote: post #53
torben-friis wrote: post #24

I’ve made this point several times: sure, an anthropomorphized LLM is misleading, but would you rather have them seem academic? At least the human tone implies fallibility, you don’t want them acting like interactive Wikipedia.

Yes I would VERY much prefer that they not use that awful casual drivel.

So configure your LLM of choice to not.

Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#167

Post by tempestn »

4bpp wrote: post #28

As usual with these, it helps to try to keep the metaphor used for downplaying AI, but flip the script. Let's grant the author's perception that AI is a "bag of words", which is already damn good at producing the "right words" for any given situation, and only keeps getting better at it. Sure, this is not the same as being a human. Does that really mean, as the author seems to believe without argument, that humans ne…

I don't think the author's argument is that it won't replace any human labour. Or at least I wouldn't agree with such an argument. But the stronger case is that however much LLMs improve, they won't replace humans in general. In the furtherment of knowledge, because they are fundamentally parroting and synthesizing the already known, vs performing truly novel thought. And in creative fields, because people are fundamentally interested in creations of other people, not of computers.

Neither of these is entirely true in all cases, but they could be expected to remain true in at least some (many) cases, and so the role for humans remains.

Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#168

Post by zkmon »

But the issue is, 99.999% of the humans won't see is as a bag of words. Because it is easier to go by instincts and see it as a person and assume that it actually knows about magic tricks, can invent new science or theory of everything, and can solve all world problems. Back in the 90's or early 2000's I have seen people writing poems praying and seeking blessings from the Google goddess. People are insanely greedy and instinct-driven. Given this truth, what's the fall-out?

Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#169

Post by internet_points »

> If we allow ourselves to be seduced by the superficial similarity, we’ll end up like the moths who evolved to navigate by the light of the moon, only to find themselves drawn to—and ultimately electrocuted by—the mysterious glow of a bug zapper.

Good argument against personifying wordbags. Don't be a dumb moth.

Re: Bag of words, have mercy on us

#170

Post by moralIsYouLie »

bloaf wrote: post #41

Everyone is out here acting like "predicting the next thing" is somehow fundamentally irrelevant to "human thinking" and it is simply not the case. What does it mean to say that we humans act with intent? It means that we have some expectation or prediction about how our actions will effect the next thing, and choose our actions based on how much we like that effect. The ability to predict is fundamental to our abili…

most humans in any percentile act towards the thing of someone else. most of these things are a lot worse than what the human "would originally intend". this behavior stems from 100s and thousands of nudges since childhood.

the issue with AI and AI-naysayers is, by analogy, this: cars were build to drive from A to Z. people picked up tastes and some people started building really cool looking cars. the same happens on the engineering side. then portfolio communists came with their fake capitalism and now cars are build to drive over people but don't really work because people, thankfully, are overwhelming still fighting to attempt to act towards their own intents.

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