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The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

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Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#621

Post by conartist6 »

gchamonlive wrote: post #599
conartist6 wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So an x86 CPU is thinking? So many times I've seen it produce sensible, valid chains of results. Yes, I see evidence in that outcome that a person somewhere thought and understood. I even sometimes say that a computer is "thinking hard" about something when it freezes up. ...but ascribing new philosophical meaning to this simple usage of the word "thinking" is a step too far. It's not even a new way of using the word…

You can't say for sure it is or it isn't thinking based solely on the substrate, because it's not known for sure if consciousness is dependent on the hardware it's running on -- for a lack of a better analogy -- to manifest, if it really needs an organic brain or if it could manifest in silicon based solutions.

I agree. I'm just pointing out that the meaning of the word "think" already applied to the silicon substrate pre-ai, so just saying it's still applicable isn't that compelling.

But yeah, I am fully willing to believe that a silicon based life form could think and be alive. i just don't think we're there. Yes this thing speaks using a passable imitation of the voices of PhDs and poets, but in a way a simulated annelid is more alive.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#622

Post by justinclift »

slightwinder wrote: post #586
simulator5g wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having seen photocopiers so many times produce coherent, sensible, and valid chains of words on a page, I am at this point in absolutely no doubt that they are thinking.

Photocopiers are the opposite of thinking. What goes in, goes out, no transformation or creating of new data at all. Any change is just an accident, or an artifact of the technical process.

So, if there's a flaw in its sensor and you get somewhat warped output, would you consider it thinking then?

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#624

Post by intended »

tkz1312 wrote: post #274

Having seen LLMs so many times produce coherent, sensible and valid chains of reasoning to diagnose issues and bugs in software I work on, I am at this point in absolutely no doubt that they are thinking. Consciousness or self awareness is of course a different question, and ones whose answer seems less clear right now. Knee jerk dismissing the evidence in front of your eyes because you find it unbelievable that we c…

what sound does a falling tree make if no one is listening?

I’ve asked LLMs to write code for me in fields I have little background knowledge, and then had to debug the whole thing after essentially having to learn the language and field.

On the other hand, for things I am well versed in, I can debug the output and avoid entire swathes of failed states, by having a clear prompt.

Its why I now insist that any discussion on GenAI projects also have the speaker mention the level of seniority they have ( proxy for S/W eng experience), Their familiarity with the language, the project itself (level of complexity) - more so than the output.

I also guarantee - that most people have VERY weak express knowledge of how their brains actually work, but deep inherent reflexes and intuitions.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#625

Post by CuriouslyC »

antonvs wrote: post #512
CuriouslyC wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your memory formation gets inhibited and you become unresponsive under anesthesia. The brain still processes information. Let's take a step back from the "how" and talk about the what. The fundamental dichotomy is emergent consciousness versus panpsychism. The irony is that even though panpsychism is seen as more fringe (because materialists won, smh), it's actually the explanation preferred by Occam's razor. Emergen…

Panpsychism doesn’t explain anything, it just asserts that consciousness doesn’t have an explanation, that it just “is”. It’s not impossible that something like panpsychism could be true, but knowing that wouldn’t get us any closer to understanding consciousness. It also raises more questions than it answers, such as how an integrated consciousness arises within a brain/mind, whereas it presumably doesn’t in, say, a…

Those questions you mentioned apply across the board, just in nuanced variants. Do you really think that postulating a non-physical system that we can't describe in physical terms (red is not a wavelength), somehow magically creates a new dimension of "feeling" when the bits are arranged in the "right order" is less complex than the hypothesis consciousness forms arranges itself into "structures" in much the same way as matter does?

As for explaining consciousness, we can't even prove consciousness exists, so the thought of trying to explain "what" it is seems rather premature, but then that's humans for ya.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#626

Post by hodgehog11 »

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #548
lukebuehler wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cannot the say they are "thinking", "intelligent" while we do not have a good definition--or, even more difficult, unanimous agreement on a definition--then the discussion just becomes about output. They are doing useful stuff, saving time, etc, which can be measured. Thus also the defintion of AGI has largely become: "can produce or surpass the economic output of a human knowledge worker". But I think this detrac…

Heres a definition. How impressive is the output relative to the input. And by input, I don't just mean the prompt, but all the training data itself. Do you think someone who has only ever studied pre-calc would be able to work through a calculus book if they had sufficient time? how about a multi-variable calc book? How about grad level mathematics? IMO intelligence and thinking is strictly about this ratio; what ca…

Yeah, that's compression. Although your later comments neglect the many years of physical experience that humans have as well as the billions of years of evolution.

And yes, by this definition, LLMs pass with flying colours.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#627

Post by Earw0rm »

chpatrick wrote: post #600
ben_w wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having seen LLMs so many times produce coherent, sensible and valid chains of reasoning to diagnose issues and bugs in software I work on, I am at this point in absolutely no doubt that they are thinking. While I'm not willing to rule *out* the idea that they're "thinking" (nor "conscious" etc.), the obvious counter-argument here is all the records we have of humans doing thinking, where the records themselves are…

I've definitely had AIs thinking and producing good answers about specific things that have definitely not been asked before on the internet. I think the stochastic parrot argument is well and truly dead by now.

I've also experienced this, to an extent, but on qualitative topics the goodness of an answer - beyond basic requirements like being parseable and then plausible - is difficult to evaluate.

They can certainly produce good-sounding answers, but as to the goodness of the advice they contain, YMMV.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#628

Post by slightwinder »

justinclift wrote: post #622
slightwinder wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photocopiers are the opposite of thinking. What goes in, goes out, no transformation or creating of new data at all. Any change is just an accident, or an artifact of the technical process.

So, if there's a flaw in its sensor and you get somewhat warped output, would you consider it thinking then ?

No, because it is not intentional.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#629

Post by CuriouslyC »

Plot twist: LLMs are conscious, but their internal conscious experience and the tokens they emit are only loosely correlated. The tokens they emit are their excrement, the process of their digital metabolism on the informational sustenance we provide them.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#630

Post by chimprich »

dns_snek wrote: post #579
tmhn2 wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research mathematicians have been finding the tools useful [1][2]. I think those problems are interesting, novel, and hard. The AI might stumble sometimes, but it also produces meaningful, quality results sometimes. For experts working on interesting problems, that is enough to be useful. [1] https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/115420236285085121 [2] https://xcancel.com/wtgowers/status/1984340182351634571

That's a motte and bailey fallacy. Nobody said that they aren't useful, the argument is that they can't reason [1]. The world is full of useful tools that can't reason or think in any capacity. [1] That does not mean that they can never produce texts which describes a valid reasoning process, it means that they can't do so reliably. Sometimes their output can be genius and other times you're left questioning if they…

I don't agree that LLMs can't reason reliably. If you give them a simple reasoning question, they can generally make a decent attempt at coming up with a solution. Complete howlers are rare from cutting-edge models. (If you disagree, give an example!)

Humans sometimes make mistakes in reasoning, too; sometimes they come up with conclusions that leave me completely bewildered (like somehow reasoning that the Earth is flat).

I think we can all agree that humans are significantly better and more consistently good at reasoning than even the best LLM models, but the argument that LLMs cannot reliably reason doesn't seem to match the evidence.

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