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

I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

grumpy-economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 275 posts

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#241

Post by joquarky »

grey-area wrote: post #195
red75prime wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are significant limitations Where can we read about those significant limitations?

Well here's some: Confabulation/Hallucination - https://github.com/lechmazur/confabulations Failure to read context - https://georggrab.net/content/opus46retrieval.html Deleting tests to make them pass - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jasongorman_and-after-it-did-... Going rogue and deleting data - https://x.com/jasonlk/status/1946069562723897802 Agent security nightmares because they are not in fact intelligent assi…

I've seen all of these from human teammates in my 30+ years in tech.

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#242

Post by joquarky »

mzhaase wrote: post #100
ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #43

The whole next word thing is interesting isn't it. I like to see it with Dennett's "Competence and comprehension" lens. You can predict the next word competently with shallow understanding. But you could also do it well with understanding or comprehension of the full picture. A mental model that allows you to predict better. Are the AIs stumbling into these mental models? Seems like it. However, because these are suc…

It always occurred to me that LLMs may be like the language center of the brain. And there should be a "whole damn rest of the brain" behind it to steer it. LLMs miss very important concepts, like the concept of a fact. There is no "true", just consensus text on the internet given a certain context. Like that study recently where LLMs gave wrong info if there was the biography of a poor person in the context.

Ever practiced meditation of the form where you just witness your thoughts? It seems just like LLM generated words, both factual and confabulated nonsense.

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#243

Post by joquarky »

basch wrote: post #95
ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #43

The whole next word thing is interesting isn't it. I like to see it with Dennett's "Competence and comprehension" lens. You can predict the next word competently with shallow understanding. But you could also do it well with understanding or comprehension of the full picture. A mental model that allows you to predict better. Are the AIs stumbling into these mental models? Seems like it. However, because these are suc…

It's honestly disheartening and a bit shocking how everyone has started repeating the predict the next syllable criticism. The language model predicts the next syllable by FIRST arriving in a point in space that represents UNDERSTANDING of the input language. This was true all the way back in 2017 at the time of Attention Is All You Need. Google had a beautiful explainer page of how transformers worked, which I am st…

Even if it gets the output wrong, it always seems to provide some output that indicates that it got the input right. This is the first thing that really surprised me about this tech.

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#244

Post by joquarky »

qsera wrote: post #184
gkbrk wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A microphone + ADC is hearing though, that's the whole reason we even produce microphones. So that our electronics can hear sound.

So according to you when can you qualify something as capable of hearing 1. Vibrate according input to the sound, is that hearing? 2. Generate electrical signals according to the sound, is that hearing? 3. Amplify electrical signal, does we cross the hearing mark? 4. Record the signal to a cassete tape (or use an ADC -> mp3), are we hearing yet? 5. Play it back through a speaker. Sure, we should be hearing now! At wh…

Alan Watts talks about this.

If a tree falls, does it make a sound? It depends on whether there is somebody to ultimately perceive the vibrations that the falling tree made (either directly or via recording).

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#245

Post by joquarky »

qsera wrote: post #158
basch wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is understanding but encoded meaning distilled into pure structure, in both cases a property of a pattern? No need to gatekeep the word "understanding" behind subjective human experience eg qualia.

> No need to gatekeep the word "understanding" behind subjective human experience eg qualia. Yea, I think gatekeeping is needed exactly for the same reason. Make up another word if you want..

If you make up a word, nobody will know what it means.

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#246

Post by joquarky »

qsera wrote: post #155
aqua_coder wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not knowledgeable on how transformer works but, what if, us humans just do the same thing in our minds as well ? What if our feeling of "understanding" is merely just the emotional response to a pattern matching as you just said?

Yea, you said it. It is the feeling of understanding and feeling/sensing implies consciousness. Why does it matter? I don't know. All I know is that it is not the same thing, because a chunk of metal cannot feel. So I don't want it to be called by the same name. When AI marketing (ab)uses the word, it is to project the appearance of human equivalence. And I don't like to fall for it.

Psychopaths don't feel. Are they conscious?

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#247

Post by joquarky »

mbgerring wrote: post #39
visarga wrote: post #33

> Nothing you write will matter if it is not quickly adopted to the training dataset. That is my take too, I was surprised to see how many people object to their works being trained on. It's how you can leave your mark, opening access for AI, and in the last 25 years opening to people (no restrictions on access, being indexed in Google).

People who produced the works LLMs are trained on are not compensated for the value they are now producing, and their skills are increasingly less valued in a world with LLMs. The value the LLMs are producing is being captured by employees of AI companies who are driving up rent in the Bay Area, and driving up the cost of electricity and water everywhere else. Your surprise to people’s objections makes sense if you c…

> not compensated for the value they are now producing

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the basis for this right.

Does the old way still promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts sufficiently to stifle the new way?

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#248

Post by mbgerring »

joquarky wrote: post #247
mbgerring wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who produced the works LLMs are trained on are not compensated for the value they are now producing, and their skills are increasingly less valued in a world with LLMs. The value the LLMs are producing is being captured by employees of AI companies who are driving up rent in the Bay Area, and driving up the cost of electricity and water everywhere else. Your surprise to people’s objections makes sense if you c…

> not compensated for the value they are now producing "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the basis for this right. Does the old way still promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts sufficiently to stifle the new way?

So stealing is fine if you convince investors it fits their definition of progress (firing human workers)?

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#249

Post by qsera »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #230
qsera wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So according to you when can you qualify something as capable of hearing 1. Vibrate according input to the sound, is that hearing? 2. Generate electrical signals according to the sound, is that hearing? 3. Amplify electrical signal, does we cross the hearing mark? 4. Record the signal to a cassete tape (or use an ADC -> mp3), are we hearing yet? 5. Play it back through a speaker. Sure, we should be hearing now! At wh…

You can reduce the human auditory process to a similar mechanical list. At which specific point would you say a human is hearing? You've fallen into the trap of human exceptionalism but you don't seem to be aware of that fact. Are you a substance dualist or not?

>You can reduce the human auditory process to a similar mechanical list.

You can't. Because we don't know at which point sound gets registered in consciousness.

Re: I don't know how you get here from “predict the next word”

#250

Post by qsera »

joquarky wrote: post #244
qsera wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So according to you when can you qualify something as capable of hearing 1. Vibrate according input to the sound, is that hearing? 2. Generate electrical signals according to the sound, is that hearing? 3. Amplify electrical signal, does we cross the hearing mark? 4. Record the signal to a cassete tape (or use an ADC -> mp3), are we hearing yet? 5. Play it back through a speaker. Sure, we should be hearing now! At wh…

Alan Watts talks about this. If a tree falls, does it make a sound? It depends on whether there is somebody to ultimately perceive the vibrations that the falling tree made (either directly or via recording).

It is easy to answer this if we define sound as the sensation. If there is no sensor then there is no sensation. If we define sound as the vibration of air. Then yes, it will make a sound.

Most of these questions feels perplexing because some of the underlying terms are loosely defined. If we strictly define those terms, then the question answers itself.

Post reply on HN