Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 363 posts

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#21

Post by [deleted] »

Probiotic6081 wrote: post #10
LASR wrote: post #5

Often 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 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…

[deleted]

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#23

Post by 101008 »

readams wrote: post #15

I suspect people will argue about whether AIs are truly conscious or just stochastic parrots even as all human-dominated tasks are replaced by AIs. The AIs will be creating masterwork art and literature personalized for each person better than anything Shakespeare ever wrote or Michaelangelo ever sculpted, but we'll console ourselves that at least we're _really_ conscious and they're just stochastic parrots.

Masterwork is not independent of its time, context, etc. It's hard to say AI will be creating masterwork, especially when focused for each person.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#24

Post by lainga »

Chabsff wrote: post #17
Probiotic6081 wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

The befuddlement goes even farther for me. LLMs are, effectively, black-box systems that interface with the world via a stochastic parrot interface. You'd think that software engineers would be a group that easily understands how making radical assumptions about implementation details when looking at nothing but an interface is generally misguided. I'm not saying that there isn't a strong case to be made against LLMs…

Ah, but HN is a platform for not just any software engineer, but the entrepreneurial type.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#25

Post by fragmede »

Probiotic6081 wrote: post #10
LASR wrote: post #5

Often 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 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…

To be fair, it's any of the exalted professions that the blessed extend their expertise to. Doctors, lawyers, software engineers. they (we) start with the notion that I'm a smart person, so from first principles, I can conquer the world. nevermind that that's an existing body of work, with their own practitioners to build off of.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#26

Post by Gringham »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #19
LASR wrote: post #5

Often 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…

LLMs don't create new information, they only compress existing complexity in their train and inference data sets. Humans definitely create new information. (Well, at least some humans do.)

Do they though? Or do humans just combine things they have learned about the world?

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#27

Post by danielmarkbruce »

Probiotic6081 wrote: post #10
LASR wrote: post #5

Often 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 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 it comes to producing output.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#28

Post by [deleted] »

LASR wrote: post #5

Often 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…

[deleted]

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#29

Post by [deleted] »

readams wrote: post #15

I suspect people will argue about whether AIs are truly conscious or just stochastic parrots even as all human-dominated tasks are replaced by AIs. The AIs will be creating masterwork art and literature personalized for each person better than anything Shakespeare ever wrote or Michaelangelo ever sculpted, but we'll console ourselves that at least we're _really_ conscious and they're just stochastic parrots.

[deleted]

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#30

Post by danielmarkbruce »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #19
LASR wrote: post #5

Often 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…

LLMs don't create new information, they only compress existing complexity in their train and inference data sets. Humans definitely create new information. (Well, at least some humans do.)

How are you defining "create new information" ?
Post reply on HN