6 ms·

> GPT-3 = Give a 3rd grader wikipedia and some paper. I don't know if you're being hyperbolic here, but if not, I consider that a massive step forward for AI.

bildung 6y ago
I think fock's point is not about the 3rd grader's capability of reasoning, but only about their proficiency in writing syntactically correct sentences. GPT-3 does zero reasoning.
- AgentME 6y ago
  What are you calling reasoning? Is reasoning something entirely separate from choosing what word is expected next in a sentence based on the logic of the words? You can give GPT-3 things like "Alice was friends with Bob. Alice went to visit her friend _____" and "10 + 10 = 20. 20 + 20 = ___" and get right answers. You can tell it the definition of a made-up word and ask it to use the word in a sentence, and it can come up with a sentence that uses it in a relevant context. You can give it a short story and ask it questions about the story. All of these go far beyond basic syntactic concerns like putting subjects and verbs in the right spots.
  - p1esk 6y ago
    I think he meant GPT-3 does zero human reasoning.
    - empath75 6y ago
      Do we know that humans do reasoning? People talk much much faster than they could work out anything like what people consider to be logical reasoning. Remember that logic had to be invented by Aristotle. It was a mechanical system meant to approximate how humans make decisions naturally.
    - Sharlin 6y ago
      Well, of course. It’s not human. Even a superintelligent AGI would likely do zero ”human reasoning” unless it wanted to do authentic emulation of a meatbrain for whatever reason. Like keeping uploaded humans running.
  - bildung 6y ago
    > Is reasoning something entirely separate from choosing what word is expected next in a sentence based on the logic of the words? Yes, otherwise a markov chain would be reasoning, too. > "10 + 10 = 20. 20 + 20 = ___" You can do the same in Prolog and similar languages. Is the language/the compiler reasoning? > All of these go far beyond basic syntactic concerns like putting subjects and verbs in the right spots. I'm not sure about that. The output obviously is a wonderful achievement, and will find a multitude of applications, but isn't it technically still a stochastic model describing the probability of a sequence of events, albeit at unprecedenced scale? Reasoning needs conscious thoughts, sentience, awareness, and we don't have the slightest hints these are present in GPT. Yes, humans reason about something and then write a coherent text, but that doesn't mean that the presence of a coherent text is proof of reasoning - just as the absence of the capability to produce coherent text isn't proof of the absence of reasoning (e.g. in the horrible cases of the locked-in syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome )
    - FeepingCreature 6y ago
      > You can do the same in Prolog and similar languages. Is the language/the compiler reasoning? Yes, of course. Reason isn't magic.
      - empath75 6y ago
        Pro log is literally ‘logic programming’. It’s right in the name.
      - bildung 6y ago
        No, the compiler is following rules humans implemented. The humans were reasoning. The compiler follows a well-defined process. This is also what a scientific calculator can do - but the calculator isn't an example of AI, either. Many linguists think that every human language follows fundamental patterns (e.g. [0]). In that context, the achievement of GPT is that it indirectly derived such a model by working through ungodly amounts of data. The results sound meaningful for us - but that doesn't imply that GPT intended meaning. Every theory of reason I know has consciousness as a hard requirement. I'm not trying to be pedantic, but the topic of this thread is exactly the kind where clear definitions of words are important. If Prolog is reasoning, then a scientific calculator is, too. But now we just need another word for the thing that differentiates us from calculators. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_and_parameters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_and_parameters
wokwokwok 6y ago
It's not a 3rd grader. This kind of weird characterisation that people keep bringing up is totally wrong. It's more like a savant, who can generate random stories that have no bearing on reality. It's just a bit better than GPT-2, which spat out mostly incoherent crap. What's interesting about this is that it seems like the approach still seems to scale, and at some point, it might make something that actually generates useful output... and the ability of the model to handle general NLP tasks is a bit better. So yeah, it's interesting, but no, it's not a massive step forward for AI, in the way having an actual 3rd grader would be.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  I don't think a third grader would ever be able to write anything like e.g. https://read-the-samples.netlify.app/sample_1986 https://read-the-samples.netlify.app/sample_1986 this. Like it or not, this dreamed-up story is internally coherent in a truly impressive way, and even more impressive is how it stays on-message throughout.
  - SonOfLilit 6y ago
    > Please share this article to show Trump’s new racist ad to everyone, because it is disgusting! Ouch, we've all just been burned by an AI!
    - Mirioron 6y ago
      I'm more scared than burned. If I saw this text in the wild I wouldn't be able to tell that it wasn't written by a human.
      - techdragon 6y ago
        For me the giveaway is that the level of hyperbolic content doesn’t match the level of textual content. It reads like subtle spam to me.
  - criddell 6y ago

bildung 6y ago

I think fock's point is not about the 3rd grader's capability of reasoning, but only about their proficiency in writing syntactically correct sentences. GPT-3 does zero reasoning.

AgentME 6y ago
What are you calling reasoning? Is reasoning something entirely separate from choosing what word is expected next in a sentence based on the logic of the words? You can give GPT-3 things like "Alice was friends with Bob. Alice went to visit her friend _____" and "10 + 10 = 20. 20 + 20 = ___" and get right answers. You can tell it the definition of a made-up word and ask it to use the word in a sentence, and it can come up with a sentence that uses it in a relevant context. You can give it a short story and ask it questions about the story. All of these go far beyond basic syntactic concerns like putting subjects and verbs in the right spots.
- p1esk 6y ago
  I think he meant GPT-3 does zero human reasoning.
  - empath75 6y ago
    Do we know that humans do reasoning? People talk much much faster than they could work out anything like what people consider to be logical reasoning. Remember that logic had to be invented by Aristotle. It was a mechanical system meant to approximate how humans make decisions naturally.
  - Sharlin 6y ago
    Well, of course. It’s not human. Even a superintelligent AGI would likely do zero ”human reasoning” unless it wanted to do authentic emulation of a meatbrain for whatever reason. Like keeping uploaded humans running.
- bildung 6y ago
  > Is reasoning something entirely separate from choosing what word is expected next in a sentence based on the logic of the words? Yes, otherwise a markov chain would be reasoning, too. > "10 + 10 = 20. 20 + 20 = ___" You can do the same in Prolog and similar languages. Is the language/the compiler reasoning? > All of these go far beyond basic syntactic concerns like putting subjects and verbs in the right spots. I'm not sure about that. The output obviously is a wonderful achievement, and will find a multitude of applications, but isn't it technically still a stochastic model describing the probability of a sequence of events, albeit at unprecedenced scale? Reasoning needs conscious thoughts, sentience, awareness, and we don't have the slightest hints these are present in GPT. Yes, humans reason about something and then write a coherent text, but that doesn't mean that the presence of a coherent text is proof of reasoning - just as the absence of the capability to produce coherent text isn't proof of the absence of reasoning (e.g. in the horrible cases of the locked-in syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome )
  - FeepingCreature 6y ago
    > You can do the same in Prolog and similar languages. Is the language/the compiler reasoning? Yes, of course. Reason isn't magic.
    - empath75 6y ago
      Pro log is literally ‘logic programming’. It’s right in the name.
    - bildung 6y ago
      No, the compiler is following rules humans implemented. The humans were reasoning. The compiler follows a well-defined process. This is also what a scientific calculator can do - but the calculator isn't an example of AI, either. Many linguists think that every human language follows fundamental patterns (e.g. [0]). In that context, the achievement of GPT is that it indirectly derived such a model by working through ungodly amounts of data. The results sound meaningful for us - but that doesn't imply that GPT intended meaning. Every theory of reason I know has consciousness as a hard requirement. I'm not trying to be pedantic, but the topic of this thread is exactly the kind where clear definitions of words are important. If Prolog is reasoning, then a scientific calculator is, too. But now we just need another word for the thing that differentiates us from calculators. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_and_parameters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_and_parameters

wokwokwok 6y ago

It's not a 3rd grader. This kind of weird characterisation that people keep bringing up is totally wrong. It's more like a savant, who can generate random stories that have no bearing on reality. It's just a bit better than GPT-2, which spat out mostly incoherent crap. What's interesting about this is that it seems like the approach still seems to scale, and at some point, it might make something that actually generates useful output... and the ability of the model to handle general NLP tasks is a bit better. So yeah, it's interesting, but no, it's not a massive step forward for AI, in the way having an actual 3rd grader would be.

zozbot234 6y ago
I don't think a third grader would ever be able to write anything like e.g. https://read-the-samples.netlify.app/sample_1986 https://read-the-samples.netlify.app/sample_1986 this. Like it or not, this dreamed-up story is internally coherent in a truly impressive way, and even more impressive is how it stays on-message throughout.
- SonOfLilit 6y ago
  > Please share this article to show Trump’s new racist ad to everyone, because it is disgusting! Ouch, we've all just been burned by an AI!
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    I'm more scared than burned. If I saw this text in the wild I wouldn't be able to tell that it wasn't written by a human.
    - techdragon 6y ago
      For me the giveaway is that the level of hyperbolic content doesn’t match the level of textual content. It reads like subtle spam to me.
- criddell 6y ago