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I think this experiment shows that humans overestimate their innate creativity. Most of thoughts build upon earlier thoughts and experiences. A sophisticated la

I think this experiment shows that humans overestimate their innate creativity. Most of thoughts build upon earlier thoughts and experiences. A sophisticated language model can emulate most of our routine thoughts. The philosopher Gurdjieff and Zen philosophers say we drift though life in low awareness and in mental ruts. They propose mental exercises to improve this.

Animats 4y ago
> I think this experiment shows that humans overestimate their innate creativity. Yes. GPT-3 teaches us that a sizable fraction of "serious" writing is just remixing previously written content. No underlying insight required. This is embarrassing to humans. Note where this won't work: directions on how to do something real. If you used GPT-3 to generate auto repair manuals, you'd get plausible manuals, but they'd be wrong.
- kingkawn 4y ago
  Rather than embarrassing I think it is liberating to cast aside our absurd sentimentality about our minds and see them as the tools of environmental adaptation that they are
- r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
  Then again you have copilot which is very explicitly producing directions on how to do something, albeit for a computer rather than a human, and fairly successfully to. Has anyone produced an AI that can write IKEA furniture assembly instructions yet? Also "remixing" content is arguably how we learn. It's why we write essays and do problems at school and university. It isn't until graduate level that people start generating or synthesizing new knowledge rather than restating it.
  - golergka 4y ago
    Copilot shines when it's used alongside correctly utilized strong type systems that catch many possible failures, but human languages don't have anything like it.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I only think it's embarrassing to humans if you are particularly attached to human exceptionalism. It makes me think about how contextual information is. I think it's about who you are, who they are and how you relate. Plato and Aristotle are interesting because the history of human thought is interesting, not because anything they said individually was particularly unique. I read certain blogs because of the way that person combines ideas is compatible with the kinds of ideas I want to be combined, or my background, or their sense of humor. I think one big problem with AI in the future will be the massive explosion in signal to noise ratio. Trying to differentiate between AI and Real is mainly only interesting in it's significance around AI (and yes, misinformation, etc.). Maybe we'll go back to reading local papers or listening to local bands when that's the only way to differentiate.
- naasking 4y ago
  Yes, new writing doesn't require new insight. That could be fine though, because insight is often in readers rather than writers ie. an explanation phrased as X might enlighten some set of people P0 but phrased as Y night enlighten a disjoint set of people P1.
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  GPT-3 teaches us that a sizable fraction of "serious" writing is just remixing previously written content. No underlying insight required. This is embarrassing to humans. I think quite a philosophers and writers would acknowledge there's nothing new under the sun. The way I'd see it, what even good writers do is usually a loose weaving together of things that have been already read along with some customization. It's only occasionally, (very roughly guestimating), every couple paragraphs, that this loose weaving needs to become tight and exact. That's my working hypothesis for why GPT-3 sounds senseless every paragraph or two.
fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
I mean, not really. Philosophical and legal texts are particularly emulateable because of their logically necessary formulaic structures and conventions. And in any case, this was a test of mimicry, not of creation so your conclusion is a bit of a nonsequitur, regardless.
Viliam1234 4y ago
> The philosopher Gurdjieff and Zen philosophers say we drift though life in low awareness and in mental ruts. They propose mental exercises to improve this. Then it's quite ironic that the philosophers are among the easiest ones to emulate by the computer.
- elefanten 4y ago
  What's the irony? Those deepest in the rut know it the best!
AshamedCaptain 4y ago
To be honest, I have played enough of these games where they ask you "was it $RANDOM_FAMOUS_PERSON who said this, or Hitler?" that I know how terrible it would be to actually extract any conclusions from this game. It's not that $RANDOM_FAMOUS_PERSON was close in thought to Hitler (what these popular games inevitably try to claim). It's not that you suck at distinguishing people from Hitler wannabees (which is also often claimed). It's just that if you select the quotes well enough, most speeches have large swaths of what coincidentally amounts to the same writing. It's like the birthday paradox of prose. That does not mean that most speeches express entirely the same thoughts, much less than most famous persons all have the same speeches, all the way from Hitler. The same ML model would not even approach passing the Turing Test. How can anyone claim it can "impersonate" a famous philosopher? This is just absolutely misleading clickbait.
- FabHK 4y ago
  +1 for "birthday paradox of prose" - nicely said.

Animats 4y ago

> I think this experiment shows that humans overestimate their innate creativity. Yes. GPT-3 teaches us that a sizable fraction of "serious" writing is just remixing previously written content. No underlying insight required. This is embarrassing to humans. Note where this won't work: directions on how to do something real. If you used GPT-3 to generate auto repair manuals, you'd get plausible manuals, but they'd be wrong.

kingkawn 4y ago
Rather than embarrassing I think it is liberating to cast aside our absurd sentimentality about our minds and see them as the tools of environmental adaptation that they are
r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
Then again you have copilot which is very explicitly producing directions on how to do something, albeit for a computer rather than a human, and fairly successfully to. Has anyone produced an AI that can write IKEA furniture assembly instructions yet? Also "remixing" content is arguably how we learn. It's why we write essays and do problems at school and university. It isn't until graduate level that people start generating or synthesizing new knowledge rather than restating it.
- golergka 4y ago
  Copilot shines when it's used alongside correctly utilized strong type systems that catch many possible failures, but human languages don't have anything like it.
mikkergp 4y ago
I only think it's embarrassing to humans if you are particularly attached to human exceptionalism. It makes me think about how contextual information is. I think it's about who you are, who they are and how you relate. Plato and Aristotle are interesting because the history of human thought is interesting, not because anything they said individually was particularly unique. I read certain blogs because of the way that person combines ideas is compatible with the kinds of ideas I want to be combined, or my background, or their sense of humor. I think one big problem with AI in the future will be the massive explosion in signal to noise ratio. Trying to differentiate between AI and Real is mainly only interesting in it's significance around AI (and yes, misinformation, etc.). Maybe we'll go back to reading local papers or listening to local bands when that's the only way to differentiate.
naasking 4y ago
Yes, new writing doesn't require new insight. That could be fine though, because insight is often in readers rather than writers ie. an explanation phrased as X might enlighten some set of people P0 but phrased as Y night enlighten a disjoint set of people P1.
joe_the_user 4y ago
GPT-3 teaches us that a sizable fraction of "serious" writing is just remixing previously written content. No underlying insight required. This is embarrassing to humans. I think quite a philosophers and writers would acknowledge there's nothing new under the sun. The way I'd see it, what even good writers do is usually a loose weaving together of things that have been already read along with some customization. It's only occasionally, (very roughly guestimating), every couple paragraphs, that this loose weaving needs to become tight and exact. That's my working hypothesis for why GPT-3 sounds senseless every paragraph or two.

fleetwoodsnack 4y ago

I mean, not really. Philosophical and legal texts are particularly emulateable because of their logically necessary formulaic structures and conventions. And in any case, this was a test of mimicry, not of creation so your conclusion is a bit of a nonsequitur, regardless.

Viliam1234 4y ago

> The philosopher Gurdjieff and Zen philosophers say we drift though life in low awareness and in mental ruts. They propose mental exercises to improve this. Then it's quite ironic that the philosophers are among the easiest ones to emulate by the computer.

elefanten 4y ago
What's the irony? Those deepest in the rut know it the best!

AshamedCaptain 4y ago

To be honest, I have played enough of these games where they ask you "was it $RANDOM_FAMOUS_PERSON who said this, or Hitler?" that I know how terrible it would be to actually extract any conclusions from this game. It's not that $RANDOM_FAMOUS_PERSON was close in thought to Hitler (what these popular games inevitably try to claim). It's not that you suck at distinguishing people from Hitler wannabees (which is also often claimed). It's just that if you select the quotes well enough, most speeches have large swaths of what coincidentally amounts to the same writing. It's like the birthday paradox of prose. That does not mean that most speeches express entirely the same thoughts, much less than most famous persons all have the same speeches, all the way from Hitler. The same ML model would not even approach passing the Turing Test. How can anyone claim it can "impersonate" a famous philosopher? This is just absolutely misleading clickbait.

FabHK 4y ago
+1 for "birthday paradox of prose" - nicely said.