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Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

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Re: Thoughts on thinking

#371

Post by bccdee »

visarga wrote: post #246
jen729w wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh turns out ChatGPT generates exactly the level of banality that one would expect. https://chatgpt.com/canvas/shared/6827fcdd3ec88191ab6a2f3297... I don't want to read this story. I probably want to read one that a human author laboured over.

It would be a mistake to take the banality of current LLM outputs and extrapolate that into the future. Of course they are going to get better. But that is not the point - it is that in the chat room the human and LLM spark ideas off each other. Humans come with their own unique life experience and large context, LLMs come with their broad knowledge and skills.

> It would be a mistake to take the banality of current LLM outputs and extrapolate that into the future.

Imagine a chef, congenitally unable to taste or smell food, who has nevertheless studied a million recipes. Can they reproduce existing recipes? Sure, if they follow the instructions perfectly. Can they improvise original recipes? I doubt it. Judging by the instructions alone, the recipes they invent may be indistinguishable from real recipes, but this chef can never actually try their food to see if it tastes good. The only safe flavour combinations are the ones they reuse. This is a chef who cannot create.

LLMs are structurally banal. The only plausible route to a machine which can competently produce original art requires the development of a machine which can accurately model human's aesthetic sensibilities—something which humans themselves cannot do and have no need for, since we already have those aesthetic sensibilities built in.

This is the fundamental error of using an LLM as a ghostwriter. Humans don't only bring inspiration to the table—they also bring the aesthetic judgement which shapes the final product. Sentences written by an LLM are banal sentences, no matter how you prompt it.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#372

Post by nthingtohide »

cameldrv wrote: post #275
abathologist wrote: post #159

I think we are going to be seeing a vast partitioning in society in the next months and years. The process of forming expressions just is the process of conceptual and rational articulation (as per Brandom). Those who misunderstand this -- believing that concepts are ready made, then encoded and decoded from permutations of tokens, or, worse, who have no room to think of reasoning or conceptualization at all -- they…

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

I think this is nothing but how applied science realtime feedback loops should work. Earlier we used to study only planets, atoms and bacteria, now systems are studying us and guiding us to best outcomes.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#373

Post by gofreddygo »

mistercow wrote: post #326
JackFr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I can extract a square root by hand. We all had to learn it and got tested on it. No one to day learns that anymore. The vast, vast majority have no idea and I don’t think people are dumber because of it. That is to say, I think it’s not cut-and-dried. I agree you need to learn something, but something’s it’s okay use a tool.

> No one to day learns that anymore. The vast, vast majority have no idea and I don’t think people are dumber because of it. Arguably, the kind of person who was helped by learning to do that by hand still learns to do it by hand, but because of curiosity rather than because a teacher told them to. I remember being thirteen and trying to brute force methods for computing the square root. I didn’t have the tools yet t…

you put my thoughts into words I couldn't.

Any school's #1 job is to motivate learning. Schools clearly suck at this.

LLMs are a fascinating effective learning tool. early learning would be better off embracing it as such.

i imagine a combination of a video of a good tutor explaining a concept followed up with an llm to quiz and explain the concept seems far better than what we have today.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#374

Post by AstroBen »

azinman2 wrote: post #122
johnisgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can learn a lot from LLMs though, same with, say, Wikipedia. You need curiosity. You need the desire to learn. If you do not have it, then of course you will get nowhere, LLMs or no LLMs.

Never underestimate laziness, or willingness to take something 80% as good for 1% of the work. So most are not curious. So what do you do for them?

that's on them? Why do I have to take responsibility for someone else's growth?

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#375

Post by bsenftner »

bartread wrote: post #363
bsenftner wrote: post #359

I believe the author is awash in a sea they do not understand, and that is the cause of their discomfort. When they describe their ideas being fully realized by LLMs, are they really, or just appearing as such because the words and terms arrive in a similar and expected manner as their prompt? Performing any type of intellectual philosophic or exploratory work with LLMs is extremely subtle, largely because you nor th…

> but when that audience is a weak communicator the entire process disintegrates. That is, what I suspect is happening with the blog post author. That’s a pretty rude and disrespectful take on this piece, don’t you think? How can you read a piece that is so well articulated then turn around and, apparently unironically, suggest the author isn’t a good communicator? How can you invalidate the author’s experience witho…

If you are worried about being rude when dealing with misunderstandings, you waste a lot of time coddling your audience. The author describes their highly emotional inability to effectively communicate with an LLM, I point out the issue is a lack of communications skill, and you call that as rude? How else to describe this issue? Effective communications and using LLMs is the issue.

The piece is not that well written, it has large amounts of assumptions that need to be clarified if that information were to be used within an LLM prompt. Very few people, developers included, appear to understand the concept of LLM context construction and management. It is barely even a topic. I suspect because the software engineering professional, as a whole, are composed largely of weak communicators, and the zietgiest of understanding how to use LLMs is truly and genuinely not there. To grasp LLM usage, it is very much "literature calculus", a term or concept not out yet at all.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#376

Post by mistercow »

gofreddygo wrote: post #373
mistercow wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one to day learns that anymore. The vast, vast majority have no idea and I don’t think people are dumber because of it. Arguably, the kind of person who was helped by learning to do that by hand still learns to do it by hand, but because of curiosity rather than because a teacher told them to. I remember being thirteen and trying to brute force methods for computing the square root. I didn’t have the tools yet t…

you put my thoughts into words I couldn't. Any school's #1 job is to motivate learning. Schools clearly suck at this. LLMs are a fascinating effective learning tool. early learning would be better off embracing it as such. i imagine a combination of a video of a good tutor explaining a concept followed up with an llm to quiz and explain the concept seems far better than what we have today.

I think we need to find a way to teach without grades. That is, we do know how to teach without grades at younger levels, and many schools do it successfully.

The problem is that eventually you need to measure for placement, and Goodhart’s Law kicks in and destroys the enjoyment of learning. It’s very hard to be intrinsically motivated when the external pressure dominates.

The fact that “study for the test” is basically synonymous with “study” for most people is indicative that we’re doing something extremely wrong in education.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#377

Post by bsenftner »

daveguy wrote: post #370
bsenftner wrote: post #359

I believe the author is awash in a sea they do not understand, and that is the cause of their discomfort. When they describe their ideas being fully realized by LLMs, are they really, or just appearing as such because the words and terms arrive in a similar and expected manner as their prompt? Performing any type of intellectual philosophic or exploratory work with LLMs is extremely subtle, largely because you nor th…

> LLMs are fantastic communicators, who will mirror their audience in an attempt to be better understood, but... This seems to represent a complete misunderstanding of what LLMs are and do. There is not a single LLM that "attempts" to be understood or anything else other than produce tokens. They have no autonomy.

Don't nit pick on my use of the term "attempt", I'm describing how the words used in a prompt generate the context that then generates the reply. In this specific human language context my use of "attempt" is describing the LLMs choice of words in it's reply. I know there is no "attempting" as a human would "attempt". I'm paraphrasing and alluding rather than writing a formal and complex essay.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#378

Post by liugongqx »

empiricus wrote: post #288
cameldrv wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

For GPS, I start by looking at the overall route, and compare with potential alternatives. Then during the driving the GPS just manages the local details, I still have some understanding and agency over where to go and how to get there.

I am obseesed comparing different routes from GPS for EACH trip. Long or short. Bragging to my wife how much time I saved.

She doesn't use GPS. Guess what, she alwayes beats me.

My Guess: 1. Algorithem does not favor me 2. Monitor GPS adds unsensible distraction and pressure which reduces action smoothness compare to brain driven actions.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#379

Post by Nevermark »

pwndByDeath wrote: post #270
Nevermark wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go with 99.9%. But not 100%. Someone imagined space and time could be a deformed fabric. That was new. In minor and major ways, new ideas are found or emerge from searches for solutions to problems from science to art. Or exploration of things in new combinations or from a previously untapped viewpoint. Most people are not looking hard for anything beyond what they know. So not likely to find anything new. But many p…

Not really new it came from observations or imagination of observed things.

General patterns don’t actually exist. We create a pattern from multiple observations.

What is the point in saying there is nothing new,? So the word “new” is like “utopia”, with only a mythical aspirational meaning?

History has never stopped proving how inane such an utterly unsupported opinion is.

Just keep up with quantum physics. Constantly finding new strange counterintuitive effects that require intense research and explorations of combinations of ideas and imagination to envision. And then challenging invention of new highly artificially controlled conditions, not found in nature, to create.

Mathematics as a profession is all about discovery of new things (from exploration) and invention (from imaginative questions and quests).

Art produces new things all the time, but you have to have familiarity with art to see what is new. If all you see are materials and color you are not literate enough to read it. Anymore than a unique story is “just words”.

For that matter, in slower timescales, nature has never stopped creating new creatures with new attributes or behaviors.

Perhaps have you set your own sights much too low. Try doing something nobody has been able to do before, and sticking with it. You will discover something if you really do stick with it. Even understanding the barriers better than before reveals things, and forces new concepts into being.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#380

Post by griffzhowl »

bccdee wrote: post #233
fennecbutt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% if not 100% of human thought and general output is derivative. Everything we create or do is based on something we've experienced or seen. Try to think of an object that doesn't exist, and isn't based on anything you've ever seen before, a completely new object with no basis in our reality. It's impossible. Writers made elves by adding pointy ears to a human. That's it.

No, that's not true. Quick, what's 51 plus 92? Now: Did you think back to a time someone else added these numbers together, or are you doing it yourself, right now, in your head? I'm sure it's not the first time these numbers have ever been summed, but that doesn't matter. You're doing it now, independently. Just because something isn't unique, doesn't make it derivative. We rediscover things every day.

Pointing out that we can mechanically apply an algorithm on novel inputs is possibly the worst defence of human creativity I can think of in this context.
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