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Thoughts on thinking
381–390 of 459 posts
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#382[dead]
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#383Earlier 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.
O3s story is not amazing but it sure is orders of magnitude more interesting than your example: https://chatgpt.com/share/68282eb2-e53c-8000-853f-9a03eee128... I don't think it's possible to generate an acceptable story without reasoning. That is not to say that I disagree with you. I would prefer to read human authors even if the AI was great at writing stories, because there's something alluring about getting a gli…
> I don't think it's possible to generate an acceptable story without reasoning.
If I look back at any article, book, movie, or conversation that I liked, it always had this essential ingredient: it had to make sense, AND it had to introduce some novel fact (or idea) that led to implications that were entertaining somehow (intriguing, revelatory, amusing, etc).
Would this be possible without the author having some idea of how reasoning works? Or of what facts are novel or could lead to surprise of some kind? No is the obvious answer to both. Until I see clear evidence that LLMs have mastered both logic and the concept of what knowledge is and is not intriguing to a human, I foresee little creative output from any LLM that will 'move the needle' creatively.
Until then, LLM-generated fare will remain the uninspired factory produce of infinite monkeys and typewriters...
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#384Earlier 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.
The manual methods are also the foundation for higher approaches involving approximation and iterative solutions. These are widely used in engineering and science. Pressing a calculator key doesn’t give the same insight.
Memorization and manual methods also help develop intuition about what is a plausible answer and what is not. It helps build a brain that is able to sanity-check what it is being told.
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#385[dead]
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#386I would welcome folks thoughts on how this applies to medicine and war, two aspects of life where 'the enemy gets a vote' and the consequences are high.
In medicine, I see the LLMs as a pretty good net outcome. For war, I see this as potentially catastrophic. We need more Stanislav Petrovs, fewer Charles Forbins and his Colossus.
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I’m very glad my kid’s school has hardcore banned them. What does that mean, I’m curious? The schools and university I grew up in had a “single-sanction honor code” which meant if you were caught lying or cheating even once you would be expelled. And you signed the honor code at the top of every test. My more progressive friends at other schools who didn’t have an honor code happily poo-pooed it as a repugnantly ha…
That's an surprisingly "strict" (in quotes for obvious reason) honor code. I'm at some uni in Poland, not top tier, but at the same time - not bad either, slighly above average. The amount of cheating I saw - it's almost mundane. Teachers know this, so do we...
It worked. There was still cheating (caught and uncaught), but 50-100x less than what I saw at other schools.
And it gave students a sense of pride in their education
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 indis…
Head over to groq.com, use the qwen-qwq-32b model, and take these examples [1] and put them at the start before the prompt. After that use the following command:
write chapter 1 for a new Novel in Progress, take inspiration from the example Novel but DO NOT Repeat Example. Add vivid imagery, in a dark comedy style. dial up the humor and irony and use first person narration. Fracture sentences and emphasize the unusual: use unusual word orders, such as placing adjectives after nouns or using nouns as verbs, use linguistic voice pyrotechnics, telegraphically leaned and verbal agility in plot building intention, reflection, dialog, action, and describe solar civilization, which lives totally in space. Near a star, but not in a planet, and no gravitational pull anywhere.
[1] https://gist.github.com/pramatias/953f6e3420f46f31410e8dd3c8...
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#389Earlier 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…
> I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. That’s not really true, is it? Who tells the GPS where you’d like to go? You, I imagine. You don’t just follow GPS instructions unless you’ve first told it where you’d like to go. And, indeed, unless you tell it, it won’t give you any instructions (though it might suggest common destinations for you to choose from).…
It's not a loop. It's the main() function.
The loop is driven by the system and that makes a lot of difference.
Re: Thoughts on thinking
#390Among the many ways that AI causes me existential angst, you've reminded me of another one. That is, the fact that AI pushes you towards the most average thoughts. It makes sense, given the technology. This scares me because creative thought happens at the very edge. When you get stuck on a problem, like you mentioned, you're on the cusp of something novel that will at the very least grow you as a person. The temptat…
The internet taught us long ago that novel thoughts are extremely uncommon. Most people likely don't have any novel thoughts their entire lives.