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Does GPT-2 really "understand" anything? I feel like this is pretty quickly going to devolve into a semantic argument, but having interacted with some trained G

Does GPT-2 really "understand" anything? I feel like this is pretty quickly going to devolve into a semantic argument, but having interacted with some trained GPT-2 models, it seems to produce only what Orwell would have called duckspeak[0]. There's very clearly no mind behind the words, so it's hard for me to credit it with understanding. [0] http://www.orwelltoday.com/duckspeak.shtml http://www.orwelltoday.com/duckspeak.shtml

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
I think the only time a system can be truly be said to understand something is when its answers are derived from logic (such as old school symbolic AI). No matter how good current statistical approaches get, they won't meet that bar. However, I do believe we see evidence of approximate logical reasoning in these models, as well as the concept of abstraction. Furthermore we can take statements generated with statistical techniques and validate them mechanically with older techniques. This is basically what recent work in automated theorem proving using deep learning is about. Generating logical statements using heuristics and then validating them mechanically also sounds like a reasonable approximation of what a human often does, speaking as a human.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  > Generating logical statements using heuristics and then validating them mechanically also sounds like a reasonable approximation of what a human often does, speaking as a human. I think I agree with that, but I might add that humans who understand a topic well can also make novel connections and uncover further implications that might seem illogical at first glance. This process of "insight" seems poorly understood by everyone, but I think it goes beyond validating heuristic intuition.
icandoit 7y ago
If something acts as though it understands a thing then it does. What else could understand mean? Behold the damage that Searl hath wrought, lol. Maybe it makes more sense to talk about predicting the behavior of a system independent of the composition of the system.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  > If something acts as though it understands a thing then it does. I've had the misfortune of working on teams where the hiring manager subscribed to this philosophy.

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

I think the only time a system can be truly be said to understand something is when its answers are derived from logic (such as old school symbolic AI). No matter how good current statistical approaches get, they won't meet that bar. However, I do believe we see evidence of approximate logical reasoning in these models, as well as the concept of abstraction. Furthermore we can take statements generated with statistical techniques and validate them mechanically with older techniques. This is basically what recent work in automated theorem proving using deep learning is about. Generating logical statements using heuristics and then validating them mechanically also sounds like a reasonable approximation of what a human often does, speaking as a human.

ForHackernews 7y ago
> Generating logical statements using heuristics and then validating them mechanically also sounds like a reasonable approximation of what a human often does, speaking as a human. I think I agree with that, but I might add that humans who understand a topic well can also make novel connections and uncover further implications that might seem illogical at first glance. This process of "insight" seems poorly understood by everyone, but I think it goes beyond validating heuristic intuition.

icandoit 7y ago

If something acts as though it understands a thing then it does. What else could understand mean? Behold the damage that Searl hath wrought, lol. Maybe it makes more sense to talk about predicting the behavior of a system independent of the composition of the system.

ForHackernews 7y ago
> If something acts as though it understands a thing then it does. I've had the misfortune of working on teams where the hiring manager subscribed to this philosophy.