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Disagree. GPT-2/GPT-3 are able to pass for humans when the reader isn't paying close attention. This article seems insightful to me: http://www.overcomingbias.

Disagree. GPT-2/GPT-3 are able to pass for humans when the reader isn't paying close attention. This article seems insightful to me: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/03/better-babblers.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/03/better-babblers.html A scarily large amount of human speech is essentially word prediction, especially in cases where someone wants to seem impressive without having actually done the work. We're all familiar with the problem of people "bullshitting" about technical topics, especially in the business realm where there are lots of people with no technical background who want to learn and have authoritative opinions on technology, like in this article. The GPT models are quite capable of producing this kind of "sounds legit" speech. And if that isn't a form of intelligence, then what is?

mellosouls 6y ago
Where in the GPT models is the conscious (or even subconscious) thinking, comprehension, understanding, relating to experience, imagination etc, etc, you know: actual intelligence as a human would feel and use it, general or otherwise? Tic Tac Toe, Chess, Image Classifying, Translation, Go, Sentence Construction, etc.; We are creating phenomenally impressive calculating worm-equivalents, but nothing human-level, or even remotely so.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Where in the human mind are these things? We judge that they exist based primarily on what people say and do. GPT-style models can't do anything, but they can say. And for better or worse a whole lot of ordinary, everyday speech doesn't have a whole lot of thinking, comprehension or imagination to it. It's just people saying what other people seem to be saying in order to try and stay with the herd. GPT-3 is scarily close to matching that.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    So, they're getting pretty close to matching us in mindlessness and stupidity. Call me when they can match us in our highs, not in our lows.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Yep, pretty much :) It's pretty fascinating that nobody (AFAIK) really predicted that, except perhaps Isaac Asimov. Sci-fi normally presents AI as either superintelligent or non-existent (just basic voice commands). I don't think I've seen one which presents it as an AI ecology of idiocracy.
saberience 6y ago
We've been able to produce that kind of speech before though. I wrote programs using Markov Chains 10 years ago which could produce almost real sounding speech but I didn't think it was intelligent. The GPT models are essentially massive databases along with the use of probability models for how words are connected. Do you think that means intelligence? Can it generate new knowledge of things outside its database? Can it generate novel theories for things outside its understanding? The GPT models often generate streams of text which can found word for word in its database, i.e. it's not really generating anything new as just mimicking. When a parrot repeats a human, it doesn't understand what the words mean, it's just making sounds.
- thu2111 6y ago
  But at some level our own brains are just very large databases and very good prediction engines, at least when running on auto-pilot and lacking any deep understanding. Hence the phenomenon of BS artists. Sad to say but I've heard speeches that were less coherent and interesting than what GPT-3 produces.

mellosouls 6y ago

Where in the GPT models is the conscious (or even subconscious) thinking, comprehension, understanding, relating to experience, imagination etc, etc, you know: actual intelligence as a human would feel and use it, general or otherwise? Tic Tac Toe, Chess, Image Classifying, Translation, Go, Sentence Construction, etc.; We are creating phenomenally impressive calculating worm-equivalents, but nothing human-level, or even remotely so.

thu2111 6y ago
Where in the human mind are these things? We judge that they exist based primarily on what people say and do. GPT-style models can't do anything, but they can say. And for better or worse a whole lot of ordinary, everyday speech doesn't have a whole lot of thinking, comprehension or imagination to it. It's just people saying what other people seem to be saying in order to try and stay with the herd. GPT-3 is scarily close to matching that.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  So, they're getting pretty close to matching us in mindlessness and stupidity. Call me when they can match us in our highs, not in our lows.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Yep, pretty much :) It's pretty fascinating that nobody (AFAIK) really predicted that, except perhaps Isaac Asimov. Sci-fi normally presents AI as either superintelligent or non-existent (just basic voice commands). I don't think I've seen one which presents it as an AI ecology of idiocracy.

saberience 6y ago

We've been able to produce that kind of speech before though. I wrote programs using Markov Chains 10 years ago which could produce almost real sounding speech but I didn't think it was intelligent. The GPT models are essentially massive databases along with the use of probability models for how words are connected. Do you think that means intelligence? Can it generate new knowledge of things outside its database? Can it generate novel theories for things outside its understanding? The GPT models often generate streams of text which can found word for word in its database, i.e. it's not really generating anything new as just mimicking. When a parrot repeats a human, it doesn't understand what the words mean, it's just making sounds.

thu2111 6y ago
But at some level our own brains are just very large databases and very good prediction engines, at least when running on auto-pilot and lacking any deep understanding. Hence the phenomenon of BS artists. Sad to say but I've heard speeches that were less coherent and interesting than what GPT-3 produces.