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A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

nytimes.com

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Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#71

Post by [deleted] »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #47
quickthrowman wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is bull. Take paint brushes for fine finish when painting houses. Amazon sells "paint brushes." But what they don't sell are paint brushes that are actually fit for purpose. The person you’re replying to was talking about consumer products, not tools for tradespeople and serious amateurs. Maybe 1 in 100 people that do painting in their home even realize they can get quality paintbrushes instead of using the cr…

Amazon is an authorized direct reseller of metrology equipment like Mitutoyo products https://www.amazon.ca/Mitutoyo-543-400-Digimatic-Indicator-G... https://www.amazon.ca/Mitutoyo-500-463-Stainless-Resolution-... https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00MBHXWGY/ref=sw_img_1?smi... They also provided NIST traceable versions at one time, and I can personally confirm the legitimate products hit the tolerances on reference o…

[deleted]

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#72

Post by nomel »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #68
nomel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory

And... now?

LLM context window is the same concept as working memory. An LLM loading its working memory from reference a reference text or note you made is similar to how you might, if you forgot something.

Context is a type of memory, by all definitions of "memory", with the "past experiences" bit of it being the previous messages sent. You're perspective isn't clear, but if you're arguing that place this context is stored between sessions is too far away from the LLM, in a technical rather than functional sense, then I don't think that small implementation detail of a larger system (that's not even true with modern hosting) is a useful thing to critique.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#73

Post by rrr_oh_man »

nomel wrote: post #72
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And... now?

LLM context window is the same concept as working memory. An LLM loading its working memory from reference a reference text or note you made is similar to how you might, if you forgot something. Context is a type of memory, by all definitions of "memory", with the "past experiences" bit of it being the previous messages sent. You're perspective isn't clear, but if you're arguing that place this context is stored betw…

LLMs are fancy statistical word predictors. There is no functioning concept of memory in the context of (pun intended) LLMs. There are no past experiences. They cannot be referenced. Anything that is being "referenced" by an LLM is another word prediction that makes you anthropomorphize a statistical model.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#74

Post by rrr_oh_man »

SwellJoe wrote: post #3

People just really don't understand that LLMs do not "remember" anything. They have no memory. They can't have memory. The AI companies bolt a database on the side with instructions for the model to query the database for stuff in its "memory", but if it's not in its active context it doesn't know what to query for. It's not like a human where everything is kind of floating around and we mostly know what we know. The…

> People just really don't understand that LLMs do not "remember" anything. They have no memory. They can't have memory.

I find it crazy that so many seemingly smart technical people are working with LLMs right now, yet so few get this point.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#75

Post by nomel »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #73
nomel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLM context window is the same concept as working memory. An LLM loading its working memory from reference a reference text or note you made is similar to how you might, if you forgot something. Context is a type of memory, by all definitions of "memory", with the "past experiences" bit of it being the previous messages sent. You're perspective isn't clear, but if you're arguing that place this context is stored betw…

LLMs are fancy statistical word predictors. There is no functioning concept of memory in the context of (pun intended) LLMs. There are no past experiences. They cannot be referenced. Anything that is being "referenced" by an LLM is another word prediction that makes you anthropomorphize a statistical model.

Sure, but nobody uses an LLM in isolation. They use systems that are built around an LLM. In many of those systems, like a chat interface, the context is almost always used a form of memory. I think I was correct that your disagreements based on the physical location of where the previous context is stored. At the functional system level, with nearly any tool you or I use, the context/RAG/etc is used as memory, loaded with relevant/past symbols.

Say I created a new LLM architecture that integrated this concept of only appending to previous context, with no way to clear it. With it now being physically closer/integrated with the bit of code you call an "LLM", would you then agree it was memory? I don't see that implementation detail being all that important.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#76

Post by rrr_oh_man »

nomel wrote: post #75
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are fancy statistical word predictors. There is no functioning concept of memory in the context of (pun intended) LLMs. There are no past experiences. They cannot be referenced. Anything that is being "referenced" by an LLM is another word prediction that makes you anthropomorphize a statistical model.

Sure, but nobody uses an LLM in isolation. They use systems that are built around an LLM. In many of those systems, like a chat interface, the context is almost always used a form of memory . I think I was correct that your disagreements based on the physical location of where the previous context is stored. At the functional system level, with nearly any tool you or I use, the context/RAG/etc is used as memory, load…

Dude, you’re just going down a rabbit hole with imaginary arguments. Nobody’s talking about your weird location argument.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#77

Post by SwellJoe »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #69
SwellJoe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because an LLM does not get smarter and it does not learn. It is fully cooked when it launches and only gets smarter with more training of some sort, a long, expensive, process that doesn't get phrased as "we thought the model would get smarter".

Ah, you think by "Luna would eventually get smarter" they meant that the model backing it would, without retraining, somehow improve? I figured they just meant they'd use newer models as they come out.

That's not how it reads, to me. But, I guess one could generously interpret it that way.

However, if it is a scientific experiment, then changing a primary variable in the middle seems like bad thing.

I don't actually think it's a scientific experiment, of course, I think it's a PR stunt. So, they can change the model all they want. Nobody's learning anything from this that you can't learn without burning $100,000.

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#78

Post by XMPPwocky »

SwellJoe wrote: post #77
XMPPwocky wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, you think by "Luna would eventually get smarter" they meant that the model backing it would, without retraining, somehow improve? I figured they just meant they'd use newer models as they come out.

That's not how it reads, to me. But, I guess one could generously interpret it that way. However, if it is a scientific experiment, then changing a primary variable in the middle seems like bad thing. I don't actually think it's a scientific experiment, of course, I think it's a PR stunt. So, they can change the model all they want. Nobody's learning anything from this that you can't learn without burning $100,000.

Definitely agree with that last paragraph - I don't think anybody involved thinks they're doing an RCT here!

Re: A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart

#79

Post by nomel »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #76
nomel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but nobody uses an LLM in isolation. They use systems that are built around an LLM. In many of those systems, like a chat interface, the context is almost always used a form of memory . I think I was correct that your disagreements based on the physical location of where the previous context is stored. At the functional system level, with nearly any tool you or I use, the context/RAG/etc is used as memory, load…

Dude, you’re just going down a rabbit hole with imaginary arguments. Nobody’s talking about your weird location argument.

I'll simplify it as much as I possible can, because I think you miss the simple point I'm trying to make: context can be a practical form of working memory.

You said

> There are no past experiences.

I'm saying that if the context contains something added in the past, it's functionally no different than a "past experience". For example, a context that is a chat log you had with the LLM. If you tell the LLM to remember a word, continue your conversation, and then tell it to recall that word, the system can recall that past experience. That "memory" that is the context feed to the LLM is a form of memory, in some cases. Now you say, "but that chat log storage that you send to the LLM is not part of the LLM!" and then I say "see above".

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