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> No model of the regularities of text will ever produce a language-user. No but it will produce language-users, incidentally. Language-users are an irreducibl

> No model of the regularities of text will ever produce a language-user. No but it will produce language-users, incidentally. Language-users are an irreducible aspect of the underlying regularity in language. Now I'm not saying that "GPT will wake up" purely from language tasks, that GPT will become a language user by being a system that picks up regularities. But for GPT to contain systems like language users, to instantiate language-users, which it has to (on some level) in order to successfully predict the next frame, is already enough to be threatening. I know that using examples from fiction is annoying, but - purely as a rhetorical aid - consider the Enterprise computer (in Elementary, Dear Data) as GPT, and the Moriarty hologram as an embedded agent. The Enterprise computer is not conscious, but as a very powerful pattern predictor it can instantiate conscious agents "by accident", purely by completing a pattern it has learnt. It doesn't want to threaten the Enterprise, it doesn't want to not threaten the Enterprise, because it doesn't have any intentional stance. Instead, it was asked "A character that can challenge Data is ¬" and completed the sentence, as is its function.

mjburgess 5y ago
How does the computer answer "Do you like what i'm wearing today?" ? Well, if we say the computer is, in fact, not participating in the world with us -- it is merely predicting "the next word", then it cannot. I am not asking for any answer to this question. I want to know what it (like a friend) actually thinks about what i'm wearing. To do this, it would need to be a competent language user; not a word annoucer. It would, in otherwords, need to know what the language was about -- and need to be able to make a judgement of taste based on its prior experiences, etc. I dont think our ability to misattribute a capacity of languge to things (eg., to bugs bunny) is salient -- we are fools, easily fooled. Bugs bunny doesnt exist. In this case, the star trek computer, insofar as it actually answers the questions its asked -- is routinely depicted as being actually present in the world with us. That the show might claim "no it isnt!", or we otherwise hold this premise whilst observing that it is, is just foolishness. Bugs bunny likewise, is depicted with the premise that bugs is within his own world; this likewise, is irrelevant.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  Well, GPT is not the sort of thing that can have a "you." But it has seen dialogues that have a "you" in it, and it knows how a "you" tends to answer. For instance, depending on context, it may be operating under a different model for the "you" agent - the sort of person who likes a red dress, or the sort of person who likes suspenders. If we assume a multimodal GPT, it's going to draw on its pattern recognition from movies and its context window for what it's previously said as "you" or what you've prompted it as in order to guess what the agent it's pattern completing for "you" would think of your dress. In effect, I'm saying that just because GPT is not a word-user, that doesn't mean that its model of "you" - the layered system of patterns that generates its prediction for words that come after "I think your dress looks" - isn't a word-user. The "you" model, effectively, takes in sensory input, processes it, and produces output. Because the language model has learnt to complete sentences using agents as predictive patterns - because agents compress language - the you pattern acts agentic, despite the fact that the language model itself is not "committed" to this agent and will, if you reset its context window, readily switch to pattern predicting another agent. GPT is not an agent, but GPT can predict an agent, and this is equivalent to containing it.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    I dont think it is equivalent. If you assume it has the same modal properties, sure -- let's say that's plausible. Ie., if GPT said on the occasion it was asked Q, an answer A, in a possible world W, such that this answer A was the "relevant and reasonable" answer in W -- then GPT is "doing something interesting". Eg., if I am wearing red shoes (World W1) and it says "i like your red shoes" in W1, then that's for-sure really interesting. My issue is that it isnt doing this; GPT is completely insensitive to what world its in and just generates an average A in reply to a world-insensitive Q. If you take a langauge-user, eg. me, and enumerate my behaviour in all possible worlds you will get somehting like what GPT is aiming to capture. Ie., what i would say, if asked Q, in world-1, wolrd-2, world-infinity. My capacity to answer the question in "relevant and reasonable" ways across a gegnuine infinity of possible worlds comes from actual capacities i have to obvserve, imagination, explore, question, intereact, etc. It doesnt come from being an implementation of the (Q, A, W) pattern -- which is an infintity on top of an infinity. No model which seeks to directly implement (Q, A, W) can ever have the same properties of an actual agent. That model would be physically impossible to store. So GPT does not "contain" an agent in the sense that QAW patterns actually occur as they should. And no route through modelling those patterns will ever produce the "agency pattern". You actually need to start with the capacities of agents themselves to generate these in the relevant situations, which is not a matter of a compressed representation of QAW possibilities -- its the very ability to imagine them peicemeal (investigate, explore, etc .)

mjburgess 5y ago

How does the computer answer "Do you like what i'm wearing today?" ? Well, if we say the computer is, in fact, not participating in the world with us -- it is merely predicting "the next word", then it cannot. I am not asking for any answer to this question. I want to know what it (like a friend) actually thinks about what i'm wearing. To do this, it would need to be a competent language user; not a word annoucer. It would, in otherwords, need to know what the language was about -- and need to be able to make a judgement of taste based on its prior experiences, etc. I dont think our ability to misattribute a capacity of languge to things (eg., to bugs bunny) is salient -- we are fools, easily fooled. Bugs bunny doesnt exist. In this case, the star trek computer, insofar as it actually answers the questions its asked -- is routinely depicted as being actually present in the world with us. That the show might claim "no it isnt!", or we otherwise hold this premise whilst observing that it is, is just foolishness. Bugs bunny likewise, is depicted with the premise that bugs is within his own world; this likewise, is irrelevant.

FeepingCreature 5y ago
Well, GPT is not the sort of thing that can have a "you." But it has seen dialogues that have a "you" in it, and it knows how a "you" tends to answer. For instance, depending on context, it may be operating under a different model for the "you" agent - the sort of person who likes a red dress, or the sort of person who likes suspenders. If we assume a multimodal GPT, it's going to draw on its pattern recognition from movies and its context window for what it's previously said as "you" or what you've prompted it as in order to guess what the agent it's pattern completing for "you" would think of your dress. In effect, I'm saying that just because GPT is not a word-user, that doesn't mean that its model of "you" - the layered system of patterns that generates its prediction for words that come after "I think your dress looks" - isn't a word-user. The "you" model, effectively, takes in sensory input, processes it, and produces output. Because the language model has learnt to complete sentences using agents as predictive patterns - because agents compress language - the you pattern acts agentic, despite the fact that the language model itself is not "committed" to this agent and will, if you reset its context window, readily switch to pattern predicting another agent. GPT is not an agent, but GPT can predict an agent, and this is equivalent to containing it.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  I dont think it is equivalent. If you assume it has the same modal properties, sure -- let's say that's plausible. Ie., if GPT said on the occasion it was asked Q, an answer A, in a possible world W, such that this answer A was the "relevant and reasonable" answer in W -- then GPT is "doing something interesting". Eg., if I am wearing red shoes (World W1) and it says "i like your red shoes" in W1, then that's for-sure really interesting. My issue is that it isnt doing this; GPT is completely insensitive to what world its in and just generates an average A in reply to a world-insensitive Q. If you take a langauge-user, eg. me, and enumerate my behaviour in all possible worlds you will get somehting like what GPT is aiming to capture. Ie., what i would say, if asked Q, in world-1, wolrd-2, world-infinity. My capacity to answer the question in "relevant and reasonable" ways across a gegnuine infinity of possible worlds comes from actual capacities i have to obvserve, imagination, explore, question, intereact, etc. It doesnt come from being an implementation of the (Q, A, W) pattern -- which is an infintity on top of an infinity. No model which seeks to directly implement (Q, A, W) can ever have the same properties of an actual agent. That model would be physically impossible to store. So GPT does not "contain" an agent in the sense that QAW patterns actually occur as they should. And no route through modelling those patterns will ever produce the "agency pattern". You actually need to start with the capacities of agents themselves to generate these in the relevant situations, which is not a matter of a compressed representation of QAW possibilities -- its the very ability to imagine them peicemeal (investigate, explore, etc .)