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Do the thinking models think?

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Re: Do the thinking models think?

#81

Post by cortesoft »

xmprt wrote: post #33
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…

Not sure if I buy this reasoning. I just prompted ChatGPT and asked it to "pay attention to all the words". It still got it wrong but I'm sure if you told a human this, they'd actually do more thinking to get the right answer. ### > Pay attention to all the words and answer this riddle: A young man gets into an accident. The surgeon, after completing his preparations, says: ‘I can’t operate on him, he is my son.’ How…

I am sure some humans would still miss the clue even if you told them to pay close attention. Being dumb is not the same as not thinking.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#82

Post by ASalazarMX »

Eisenstein wrote: post #70
netdevphoenix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> The Chinese Room is just a roundabout way of pleading human exceptionalism

Au contraire, LLMs have proven that Chinese Rooms that can casually fool humans do exist.

ELIZA could be considered a rudimentary Chinese Room, Markov chains a bit more advanced, but LLMs have proven that given enough resources, LLMs can be surprisingly convincing Chinese rooms.

I agree that our consciousness might be fully explained by a long string of deterministic electrochemical reactions, so we could be not that different; and until we can fully explain consciousness we can't close the possibility that a statistical calculation is conscious to some degree. It just doesn't seem likely IMO right now.

Food for thought: If I use the weights to blindly calculate the output tokens with pencil and paper, are they thinking, or is it a Chinese Room with a HUGE dictionary?

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#83

Post by Eisenstein »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #82
Eisenstein wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> The Chinese Room is just a roundabout way of pleading human exceptionalism Au contraire, LLMs have proven that Chinese Rooms that can casually fool humans do exist. ELIZA could be considered a rudimentary Chinese Room, Markov chains a bit more advanced, but LLMs have proven that given enough resources, LLMs can be surprisingly convincing Chinese rooms. I agree that our consciousness might be fully explained by a lo…

> ELIZA could be considered a rudimentary Chinese Room, Markov chains a bit more advanced, but LLMs have proven that given enough resources, LLMs can be surprisingly convincing Chinese rooms.

Eliza is not a Chinese room because we know how it works. The whole point of the Chinese Room is that you don't. It is a thought experiment to say 'since we don't know how this is producing output, we should consider that it is just following rules (unless it is human).

> Food for thought: If I use the weights to blindly calculate the output tokens with pencil and paper, are they thinking, or is it a Chinese Room with a HUGE dictionary?

Well, I never conceded that language models are thinking, all I did was say that the Chinese Room is a lazy way of concluding human exceptionalism.

But, I would have to conclude that if you were able to produce output which was coherent and appropriate, and exhibited all signs of what I understand a thinking system to do, then it is a possibility.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#84

Post by hkkwritesgmail »

If the AI truly becomes human like, then it should also make mistakes like a human does even on simple arithmetic. Now, AI might make mistakes on simple arithmetic just like humans. However, once the human is given a hint on the fact that there is some simple arithmetic mistake to be corrected without any details, then the human corrects it. But the AI never does.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#85

Post by the_gipsy »

polotics wrote: post #26
the_gipsy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bag is already empty Some don't want to believe it

Don't you think there are a few things we could say on this subject to bring the debate to good-old-HN level? (1) LLM's Attention mechanisms are clear enough at a conceptual level: "the chicken didn't cross the road because it was too wide"... OK, so LLMs "understand" that the "it" is the road, because QVK etc is enough to "learn" this. some say this is all you need... I beg to differ: (2) Human brains are complex bu…

Yes we can!

I would never say that's all we need, but... I do say that that might be the most important part we need! That is, language is the most distinctive feature our brains we have. DMN, and similar shallow "activity scans" don't tell us much. Yes, some animals have some kind of language, they communicate and predict trivial results or remember some events. But this is meaningless compared to the output of a human brain, the difference is abysmal.

I don't think there's anything interesting left in the bag.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#86

Post by IAmBroom »

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.

And that is the essence of the Turing Test.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#87

Post by IAmBroom »

hkkwritesgmail wrote: post #84

If the AI truly becomes human like, then it should also make mistakes like a human does even on simple arithmetic. Now, AI might make mistakes on simple arithmetic just like humans. However, once the human is given a hint on the fact that there is some simple arithmetic mistake to be corrected without any details, then the human corrects it. But the AI never does.

You're moving the goalposts. The article asks if AI thinks, not if AI thinks just like humans do.

Re: Do the thinking models think?

#88

Post by IAmBroom »

faidit wrote: post #23

A human who is familiar with the original surgeon riddle could also be tricked the same way that ChatGPT was tricked here. I don't think all LLMs would consistently fall for that one either.

Yes, if you know someone who is bad at telling jokes - does that mean they don't think?
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