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LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

arxiv.org

51–60 of 60 posts

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#51
post #9

This paper introduces a term and instantly defines it as a definitely biased thing that is definitely happening, then spends its entirety arguing against the strawman it built itself. Not a single sentence is spent actually arguing with the idea or any of its points (other than the “partial similarities” paragraph on page I just realized the pages aren’t even numbered). In general, the terms “LLM-like” and “human-lik…

Straight out of the Oxford Handbook for AI Ethics is "intelligence is an ordinary process requiring time, space and energy".

Obviously llms are not firing in the same dimension of human intelligence but its got some facet of it which may be economically useful in total

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#52
post #11

I mimic how LLM responds when I talk to my boss lol. Appear useful and present verbose facts. Works pretty well so far.

Try "caveman" mode and report back.

   disk drive make clickly noise blinky light go dead.

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#53
post #15

Before electric computers, the human mind was a steam engine: https://www.ezrabrand.com/p/releasing-the-pressure-a-dive-in...

a lot of control theory goes into steam train locomotive, you don't say it explicitly but the way people typically make the same reference they evoke the image of a simple steady state steam engine, and insinuate that people compared brains to whatever was the novelty. I don't think that was ever the case, and comparing the brain with the intricate feedback systems, regulators and more general control theory facets o…

This is ridiculous. You can't compare legged locomotion with a locomotive on rails and then say that the power source is the brain.

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#54
post #9

This paper introduces a term and instantly defines it as a definitely biased thing that is definitely happening, then spends its entirety arguing against the strawman it built itself. Not a single sentence is spent actually arguing with the idea or any of its points (other than the “partial similarities” paragraph on page I just realized the pages aren’t even numbered). In general, the terms “LLM-like” and “human-lik…

> plausibility is an acceptable substitute for empiricism

This is the most practical and realistic consideration mentioned.

“Voltaire rolls in his grave as his dream for an age of reason devolves into an age of orgiastic reasons.” - whoever

I’m pretty sure modern society prefers telling themselves stories about a thing more comfortably than comprehending the nature of such things.

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#55
I’m not moved by the argument’s premise in any way. Humans who think they’re toasters. Meh.

I’m more curious about the influence of human language looped back to the human mind via llm—shall we start to mimic llm’s?

At my workplace we’re encouraged to use llm’s when communicating outside. And considering the content and context of these are mostly simple logical arguments, why not?

Interesting that humans mimicking other humans adopt language patterns for their effects. Whereas humans using llm’s might not adopt language patterns from the llm, because…? We’re not really reading? Because some element of cognitive reinforcement is missing when you simply scan an llm production and send it on (with little internalization)?

But what’s really the tell… haha

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#56
I appreciate the general idea, but I don't like how this and other hypotheses of how human consciousness might work are immediately branded as "isms" and implicitly treated as psychological illnesses:

> I distinguish LLMorphism from mechanomorphism, anthropomorphism, computationalism, dehumanization, objectification, and predictive-processing theories of mind.

There is an implicit claim here that any attempt to explain consciousness biologically or mechanistically must be wrong - which I think is a pretty strong and debatable claim on its own.

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot of control theory goes into steam train locomotive, you don't say it explicitly but the way people typically make the same reference they evoke the image of a simple steady state steam engine, and insinuate that people compared brains to whatever was the novelty. I don't think that was ever the case, and comparing the brain with the intricate feedback systems, regulators and more general control theory facets o…

This is ridiculous. You can't compare legged locomotion with a locomotive on rails and then say that the power source is the brain.

and that is again misreading which facets were being compared

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#58
post #9

This paper introduces a term and instantly defines it as a definitely biased thing that is definitely happening, then spends its entirety arguing against the strawman it built itself. Not a single sentence is spent actually arguing with the idea or any of its points (other than the “partial similarities” paragraph on page I just realized the pages aren’t even numbered). In general, the terms “LLM-like” and “human-lik…

> plausibility is an acceptable substitute for empiricism This is the most practical and realistic consideration mentioned. “Voltaire rolls in his grave as his dream for an age of reason devolves into an age of orgiastic reasons.” - whoever I’m pretty sure modern society prefers telling themselves stories about a thing more comfortably than comprehending the nature of such things.

That’s got nothing at all to do with LLMs or “LLMorphism” though.

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plausibility is an acceptable substitute for empiricism This is the most practical and realistic consideration mentioned. “Voltaire rolls in his grave as his dream for an age of reason devolves into an age of orgiastic reasons.” - whoever I’m pretty sure modern society prefers telling themselves stories about a thing more comfortably than comprehending the nature of such things.

That’s got nothing at all to do with LLMs or “LLMorphism” though.

I meant as an observation of modern intellectual laziness which is encouraged by LLMs. I also didn’t intend to imply much else was to point!

Re: LLMorphism: When humans come to see themselves as language models

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that it's easier to construct the argument † that a mind like an LLM would have an easier time capturing mind as steam engine than a mind like a steam engine would have capturing mind as LLM. †: come up with each token after the other that induces a graspable interpretation of a sequence of tokens representing a potential judgement

Maybe the LLM token stream is just like the curve of the rails coming into view of the steam engine mind.

Chooo chooo!! (Yes!!)
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