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> For all the talk about how language models "just" learn correlations, there's a remarkable dearth of evidence that humans do something qualitatively different

> For all the talk about how language models "just" learn correlations, there's a remarkable dearth of evidence that humans do something qualitatively different. GPT3 doesn't know the difference between a given set of characters and the idea/object the characters represent. It can associate "river" and "stream" and "water" but has no understanding beyond that they appear in patterns together. It couldn't possibly make the connection that river and streams are bodies of water, because there is no association with reality. GPT3 wouldn't even know the difference between human language and characters derived from some random data source. The only thing it does is identify deeply complex patterns, as long as there are humans around to notify it when it's doing a good job. It's going to be very useful for auto-complete, and jumping in to help users finish repetitive tasks, along with the other stuff ML is good at, but it's simply a GIGO pattern recognition system. So I think you have it exactly backwards -- there is a dearth of evidence that AGI is even remotely possible. We have known the full anatomy of the C. Elegans ringworm since 1984 -- it's 1mm long and has 300 neurons. There is a foundation dedicated to replicating it's behavior[1], and all they have achieved is complex animation. [1] http://openworm.org/ http://openworm.org/

chillacy 6y ago
> It couldn't possibly make the connection that river and streams are bodies of water, because there is no association with reality. Yet if you asked it if rivers and streams are bodies of water it would probably say that they are. Likewise if I asked you if black holes and neutron stars are both celestial bodies you would say yes... but you've presumably never seen them, only read about them. Now I think you could argue that you could ultimately tie your knowledge back to some reality, like star ties to the sun and how you've seen the sun, but I haven't been so convinced that we know enough about how the mind works to be sure that the distinction between form and meaning is real. Assuming there is no "soul" which makes meat life special, I don't see any fundamental problems with building simulated intelligence.
- formercoder 6y ago
  What if you asked it: what tool would you need to put a square peg in a round hole? I doubt it would get to lathe.

chillacy 6y ago

> It couldn't possibly make the connection that river and streams are bodies of water, because there is no association with reality. Yet if you asked it if rivers and streams are bodies of water it would probably say that they are. Likewise if I asked you if black holes and neutron stars are both celestial bodies you would say yes... but you've presumably never seen them, only read about them. Now I think you could argue that you could ultimately tie your knowledge back to some reality, like star ties to the sun and how you've seen the sun, but I haven't been so convinced that we know enough about how the mind works to be sure that the distinction between form and meaning is real. Assuming there is no "soul" which makes meat life special, I don't see any fundamental problems with building simulated intelligence.

formercoder 6y ago
What if you asked it: what tool would you need to put a square peg in a round hole? I doubt it would get to lathe.