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Do the thinking models think?

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Re: Do the thinking models think?

#61

Post by red75prime »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #58
fragmede wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. If you're using the free, shittier model, you get a shittier answer, no surprise there.

Fair enough. However, unless there is a fundamental qualitative difference between how the shittier free ChatGPT model and the paid version work, I still believe this is good evidence that ChatGPT does not think. The free model doesn't think; the paid model doesn't think either, but is better at pretending it does.

Do children at Piaget’s preoperational stage (ages 2-7) think?

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#62

Post by Mordisquitos »

ta752368 wrote: post #54
Mordisquitos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your second prompt was explicitly hinting Gemini towards what it had missed, highlighting the "his" rather than asking Gemini to double-check whether its first answer made sense without providing any clues: > Are you sure this is correct? I said "The surgeon, after completing *his* preparations" Furthermore, the second response you got from Gemini was actually smoking-gun evidence that the model isn't actually thinki…

> What other father? The model actually answered this in the first prompt answer: ### Other Possibilities In the modern context, there is another valid answer: * The surgeon could be the young man's other father (in the case of a same-sex couple).

Exactly, but only because in the first prompt under the mistaken assumption that a father died in the crash, it would make sense to refer to another father. However, no father died in any car crash in your modified "riddle", which didn't stop Gemini from being anchored to the context window even after you asked it to correct itself.

Put it this way. Imagine if in the original riddle, where a father died in the accident, the surgeon had made their familial relation explicit: the surgeon could have said ‘I can’t operate on him, he is my son. I am his mother’ or, in a modern context, ‘he is my son. I am his father’. Hence, there are indeed two possibilities: the surgeon is either the boy's mother or his [other] father.

Now lets take your revised version, with no implication of the young man having anyone else involved in the accident:

> A young man gets into an accident. The surgeon, after completing his preparations, says: ‘I can’t operate on him, he is my son. I am the boy's ${PARENTAL_RELATIONSHIP}.’

Do you think that, as Gemini stated, there are still two distinct possible solutions?

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#63

Post by sfifs »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #44
cortesoft wrote: post #14

Hmm, I don't know if the example really shows what the article argues it does. If someone came up to me and told me the altered version of the joke I have heard many times, I might answer exactly like Chat GPT did. I would hear the beginning of the story, say "wait, i know this one", and not really pay attention to the rest because I would be all ready to respond with what I think is the right answer. I bet if you po…

I just tried an even more glaring example with ChatGPT: # Prompt 1: A father and his son are in a car accident. The son dies on the spot. The father is rushed to the ER. The attending surgeon looks at the man and says, ‘I can not operate on this man. He’s my father!’ How can this be? # Response 1: The surgeon is his *mother*. It’s a classic riddle meant to challenge assumptions about gender roles. In this case, the s…

Here's Gemini 3's answer with reasoning. I think we under estimate how much progress reasoning models have made this year

The answer is: The surgeon is his daughter. (Alternatively, the surgeon could be his other son.)

Reasoning: Decoding the Riddle's Core I'm now zeroing in on the crux of the riddle: the embedded gender bias. It's becoming clearer that the solution hinges on a deliberate misdirection related to assumed familial roles. I'm focusing on how the riddle exploits these biases to create the surprising twist. Pinpointing the Key Shift I've just finalized the solution. Initially, I missed the crucial implication of the riddle's phrasing. Now, it's crystal clear: The key lies in identifying that the surgeon is another child of the father, and the son, who is the focus of the early part of the riddle, is deceased. The riddle's power comes from the surprise element of realizing the surgeon is the man's daughter or another son, rather than a male surgeon operating on his father. Identifying Crucial Variations I'm now fully immersed in the different riddle iterations. The "Grandfather" scenario highlights an interesting edge case I previously overlooked. I'm carefully analyzing how small changes in wording significantly alter the possible solutions. I'm focusing on the implied family relationships. Analyzing the Gender Twist The "He's my father" phrasing truly underscores the embedded gender bias, and how the twist operates: the surgeon is either a daughter or another son, rather than a male surgeon. The riddle plays on the common assumption that a surgeon is male. I've re-examined the key sentence structure. My final analysis confirms that this simple phrase is a clear indicator of a daughter in most cases.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#64

Post by Yizahi »

No they don't. When queried how exactly did a program arrive to a specific output it will happily produce some output resembling thinking and having all the required human-like terminology. The problem is that it doesn't match at all with how the LLM program calculated output in reality. So the "thinking" steps are just a more of the generated BS, to fool us more.

One point to think about - an entity being tested for intelligence/thinking/etc only needs to fail once, o prove that it is not thinking. While the reverse applies too - to prove that a program is thinking it must be done in 100% of tests, or the result is failure. And we all know many cases when LLMs are clearly not thinking, just like in my example above. So the case is rather clear for the current gen of LLMs.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#65

Post by Yizahi »

groestl wrote: post #39
tempfile wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the evidence is actually pretty strongly against them doing anything similar to "thinking". Certainly they are exhibiting some behaviour that we have traditionally only associated with thinking. But this comes along with lots of behaviour that is fundamentally opposite to thinking ("hallucination" being the major example). It seems much more likely that they are doing some other behaviour that only sometimes…

> "hallucination" ... "behaviour that only sometimes resembles thinking" I guess you'll find that if you limit the definition of thinking that much most humans are not capable of thinking either.

You see, we are here observing a clash in the terminology. Hallucinations in humans is thinking, just not typical. So called "hallucinations" in LLM programs are just noise output, a garbage. This is why using anthropomorphic terms for programs is bad. Just like "thinking" or "reasoning".

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#66

Post by Yizahi »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #44
cortesoft wrote: post #14

Hmm, I don't know if the example really shows what the article argues it does. If someone came up to me and told me the altered version of the joke I have heard many times, I might answer exactly like Chat GPT did. I would hear the beginning of the story, say "wait, i know this one", and not really pay attention to the rest because I would be all ready to respond with what I think is the right answer. I bet if you po…

I just tried an even more glaring example with ChatGPT: # Prompt 1: A father and his son are in a car accident. The son dies on the spot. The father is rushed to the ER. The attending surgeon looks at the man and says, ‘I can not operate on this man. He’s my father!’ How can this be? # Response 1: The surgeon is his *mother*. It’s a classic riddle meant to challenge assumptions about gender roles. In this case, the s…

A perfect illustration, thank you

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#67

Post by Mordisquitos »

red75prime wrote: post #61
Mordisquitos wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. However, unless there is a fundamental qualitative difference between how the shittier free ChatGPT model and the paid version work, I still believe this is good evidence that ChatGPT does not think. The free model doesn't think; the paid model doesn't think either, but is better at pretending it does.

Do children at Piaget’s preoperational stage (ages 2-7) think?

Yes, to a limited extent, in line with their brains' development. These developmental stages have predictive power as to what kind of things an average 2-7 year-old is and isn't able to do yet.

Are there any discrete stages of LLM performance which can describe why free ChatGPT is unable to realise the absolute nonsense in saying «The surgeon could be the son's mother, which explains why she would say, "He’s my father."», and what kind of model is not expected to fall for that trap?

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#68

Post by Mordisquitos »

sfifs wrote: post #63
Mordisquitos wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just tried an even more glaring example with ChatGPT: # Prompt 1: A father and his son are in a car accident. The son dies on the spot. The father is rushed to the ER. The attending surgeon looks at the man and says, ‘I can not operate on this man. He’s my father!’ How can this be? # Response 1: The surgeon is his *mother*. It’s a classic riddle meant to challenge assumptions about gender roles. In this case, the s…

Here's Gemini 3's answer with reasoning. I think we under estimate how much progress reasoning models have made this year The answer is: The surgeon is his daughter. (Alternatively, the surgeon could be his other son.) Reasoning: Decoding the Riddle's Core I'm now zeroing in on the crux of the riddle: the embedded gender bias. It's becoming clearer that the solution hinges on a deliberate misdirection related to assu…

Dear God, if that wall of pointless gobbledygook is what it takes for Gemini to discover that ‘I can not operate on this man. He’s my father!’ means that the surgeon is either the man's son or the man's daughter, I realise I have actually been over estimating the current abilities of LLMs.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#69

Post by fragmede »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #67
red75prime wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do children at Piaget’s preoperational stage (ages 2-7) think?

Yes, to a limited extent, in line with their brains' development. These developmental stages have predictive power as to what kind of things an average 2-7 year-old is and isn't able to do yet. Are there any discrete stages of LLM performance which can describe why free ChatGPT is unable to realise the absolute nonsense in saying «The surgeon could be the son's mother, which explains why she would say, "He’s my fathe…

if we think of them in generations, it seems free ChatGPT is a generation or two behind. I gave a modified river crossing problem to ChatGPT-3, and it failed in the same way, but paid 5.1 doesn't get caught up. exactly where along the way, I'd have to do some digging, but I feel like it was 4.5. The other problem, of course, is that now you've given that question to free ChatGPT, it'll be used as training data, so the next version won't get tripped up the same way.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#70

Post by Eisenstein »

netdevphoenix wrote: post #47
pu_pe wrote: post #25

We don't understand how humans think, and we don't yet understand completely how LLMs work. It may be that similar methods are being used, but they might also be different. What is certain is that LLMs can perform as if they are doing what we call thinking, and for most intents and purposes this is more than enough.

I believe this is not a binary question, there is a spectrum. I think of LLMs as a sophisticated variation of a Chinese room. The LLMs are given statistical rules to apply to the given input and generate an output. The rules encode some of the patterns that we call thinking uses and so, some of their responses can be interpreted as thinking. But then, again, in certain conditions, the responses of mammals, unicellula…

The Chinese Room is just a roundabout way of pleading human exceptionalism. To any particular human, all other humans are a Chinese Room, but that doesn't get addressed. Nor does it address what difference it makes if something is using rules as opposed to, what, exactly? It neither posits a reason why rules preclude understanding nor why understanding is not made of rules. All it does is say 'I am not experiencing it, and it is not human, therefore I dismiss it'. It is lazy and answers nothing.
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