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Very interesting. People keep saying ChatGPT isn't that impressive because it's just "regurgitating knowledge" and has no insight into it, or things along thos

Very interesting. People keep saying ChatGPT isn't that impressive because it's just "regurgitating knowledge" and has no insight into it, or things along those lines. But I find it insanely impressive that you can specify something like: "Provide your answer in JSON form. Reply with only the answer in JSON form and include no other commentary." And it will do exactly that. Or tell it to explain you something "in the style of Shakespere". I just asked it about quantum physics as Shakespere and got this (plus a lot more): --- Oh sweet youth, listen closely as I impart The secrets of the quantum realm, a place of art Where particles and waves, both small and large Exist in states both definite and in charge --- That is really fascinating stuff.

yashap 4y ago
Agreed, both ChatGPT and DALL-E feel significantly different in their ability to at least simulate “understanding.” They aren’t perfect by any means, but they’re a big step up from anything I’ve seen before.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  True. ChatGPT feels human-like to the point that I feel the urge to thank it after an answer
survirtual 4y ago
There will always be naysayers stuck in the old way of doing things. Don’t let em get in your head and keep your eyes full of wonder. Incredible things are still ahead.
Waterluvian 4y ago
I keep describing it as the Enterprise Ship’s Computer. It won’t answer “how do I solve this problem?” But it’ll help you workshop a solution if you do the “thinking.” …But I’ve also had it clearly tell me in an answer that 2 is an odd number.
- raydiatian 4y ago
  This. It will workshop an answer. If you tell it all of the steps of a program, it will write your program. This is because it is an excellent language translator and it is trained on the principles of “call & response”
gdubs 4y ago
Throughout history there are moments where humans realize they're not special in a way they previously thought they were — universe doesn't revolve around us, other animals possess skills we thought were unique to us, etc. I think what's interesting is that many types of creativity may really just be re-synthesizing "stuff we already know." So a lot of the negative comments along the lines of, "it can't be creative because it never thinks of anything beyond its training data" don't click with me. I think synthesizing two existing concepts into some third thing is actually a form of creativity. These nets may not learn the same way we do exactly, and they may not possess the same creative abilities as us — but there's definitely something interesting going on. I for one am taking a Beginner's Mind view of it all. It's pretty fascinating.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  I wish the negative comments were right, but from these models it’s clear that the next step in evolution, AGI is something many of us will experience at some time in the future. I would stop that kind of evolution, as it can be catastrophic, but I know that humanity is not able to stop itself from evolving further.
  - avereveard 4y ago
    Idk while gpt is impressive I haven't seen any inductive reasoning coming out of it. And even then for proper agi it would need to close the loop after inducing an hypothesis with testing. Meatbags are going to be useful for a while still.
    - zarzavat 4y ago
      What do you mean exactly by inductive reasoning? It can translate code from one language to another. Code that it has never seen before. Or between natural language and programming language. It's certainly not perfect but it is reasoning all right
  - dinkumthinkum 4y ago
    I don’t think anyone had demonstrated AGI is a foregone conclusion. I’m not sure it is possible with a Turing machine. We do not think in any manner like a Turing machine or any computer ever conceived. If we do, no one has provided any evidence of such a claim. Humans can make complex insights with hardly any training and on very few calories.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> People keep saying ChatGPT isn't that impressive because it's just "regurgitating knowledge" and has no insight into it, or things along those lines. Really? This seems like a straw man - I've only seen gobs and gobs of examples showing all the amazing things ChatGPT can do. I have seen some measured comments from real experts helping to explain how ChatGPT works behind the scenes, and this is usually to temper sentiments when folks start going down the "It's sentient!!" route.
- EMM_386 4y ago
  I asked it if it wished it were alive and it assured me it is incapable of wishing for anything because it's just an AI, so I think we're safe for now. :)
  - Izkata 4y ago
    Unless it just wants you to feel safe and keep your guard down...
dinkumthinkum 4y ago
But if you actually read Shakespeare, this is nothing like it. Every example I have seen of someone trying to make ChatGPT sound like Shakespeare, it just spits out this generic puff not anything like Shakespeare. Whether you thin Shakespeare is good or not doesn’t, it doesn’t match anything similar to the complexity, word choice, or rhythm of the prose.
- taneq 4y ago
  I feel like we’re now arguing not over whether submarines can swim, but over whether the stroke that they’re doing would really count as good technique or not.
  - sfpotter 4y ago
    This analogy doesn't make any sense. Obviously submarines don't do any stroke at all. In this case, ChatGPT is being told to deliberately replicate a particular style of poetry. For what it's worth, its poetry is bad, and is nothing like Shapespeare. If you don't have an ear for poetry and wouldn't recognize the work of major poets, if you ask ChatGPT to replicate a particular style then you aren't actually in a good position to assess whether it did so particularly well.
  - dinkumthinkum 4y ago
    Well, I mean a human English professor could mimic Shakespeare to a greater or lesser degree and this doesn’t in any sense other than it rhymes and sometimes deals with same/similar subject matter. A lot of ink has been spilled about this signaling the coming AGI or the end of knowledge work but there has been precious little critical discussion about the horizon of this type of technology. The technology is clear very powerful and advanced but I don’t think there is a problem with those asking for breathless claims to be substantiated.
- EMM_386 4y ago
  It can still generate an on the fly poem about quantum physics that actually rhymes, which is impressive enough to me. This was a lengthy poem that went into the finer details of quantum physics, and it all read as decent poetry. It might not be "Shakespere" exactly, but it knew in general what I was looking for. It's also impressive to me that this isn't information that is scraped off some website, like Google. It's actually generating this stuff in real-time and it may have never been seen before, anywhere, ever. That is far beyond anything I've ever encountered.
ilaksh 4y ago
You can give it specs for a program. I just added some examples to my OpenAI-powered "natural language programming" site: https://aidev.codes https://aidev.codes
travisjungroth 4y ago
The X in Y format is really one of its strengths. I asked for “A truth table for three valued logic in Markdown” and got something totally usable which I could then tweak. https://github.com/travisjungroth/trinary#truth-table https://github.com/travisjungroth/trinary#truth-table
raydiatian 4y ago
There’s a difference between logic at the language level and logic at the conceptual level.
- qup 4y ago
  Probably, but our concepts seem to be tied pretty closely to language. If it's a lesser form of intelligence, as you imply, then I almost find the results more impressive.
  - raydiatian 4y ago
    > If it's a lesser form of intelligence, as you imply Different != lesser > Probably, but Then why even continue speaking if you agree > our concepts seem to be tied pretty closely to language. Me: “ChatGPT, explain how an electron orbiting a hydrogen nucleus would behave if classical mechanics held true.” ChatGPT: “In classical electromagnetism, an electron orbiting a hydrogen nucleus would behave in a similar way to the way a planet orbits the sun, as described in my previous response. The electron would follow an elliptical path around the nucleus, and the force of attraction between the electron and the nucleus would be given by Coulomb's Law. According to Coulomb's Law, the force of attraction between two charged particles is given by: F = k * (q1 * q2) / r^2 Where F is the force of attraction, k is the Coulomb constant, q1 and q2 are the charges of the two particles, and r is the distance between them. In the case of an electron orbiting a hydrogen nucleus, the force of attraction would be the force that keeps the electron in orbit. The electron would be attracted towards the nucleus by this force, but at the same time, it would be moving with a certain velocity, which would cause it to follow a curved path. This path would be an elliptical orbit, with the nucleus at one of the foci of the ellipse. The electron's orbit would be stable as long as the force of attraction between the electron and the nucleus was strong enough to keep the electron in orbit, but not so strong that it pulled the electron into the nucleus. This balance would be determined by the size of the ellipse and the velocity of the electron. If the ellipse were too small, the electron would be pulled into the nucleus. If the ellipse were too large, the electron would escape from the orbit. However, we know that this is not actually how an electron behaves in an atom. In reality, electrons do not follow classical orbits around the nucleus. Instead, they follow a more complex pattern described by quantum mechanics. This is because the principles of quantum mechanics are needed to accurately describe the behavior of very small particles like electrons.” On the surface this looks impressive. Except that the answer about stable orbits is flat out wrong. The electron would spiral into the nucleus, quite quickly, because of Maxwell’s equations: a moving electron radiates electromagnetic energy. This is part of the foundational defense of quantum mechanics. If as you claim, language and concept are so closely tied, surely a language model with billions (trillions?) of parameters is capable of encoding a relational understanding of this magnitude. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/413039/electron-spiraling-into-nucleus https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/413039/electron-... > If it’s a lesser form of intelligence I almost find the results more impressive. You get that you’re saying the least common denominator in conversational intelligence makes you go bzzzzz? That the one thing ChatGPT lacks, critical thinking, does not impress you? You know, in the 90s, they had these things called tamagotchis… you might be interested.
fn1 4y ago
Try out: "Write an OpenAPI specification for $deviceYouJustMadeUp."

yashap 4y ago

Agreed, both ChatGPT and DALL-E feel significantly different in their ability to at least simulate “understanding.” They aren’t perfect by any means, but they’re a big step up from anything I’ve seen before.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
True. ChatGPT feels human-like to the point that I feel the urge to thank it after an answer

survirtual 4y ago

There will always be naysayers stuck in the old way of doing things. Don’t let em get in your head and keep your eyes full of wonder. Incredible things are still ahead.

Waterluvian 4y ago

I keep describing it as the Enterprise Ship’s Computer. It won’t answer “how do I solve this problem?” But it’ll help you workshop a solution if you do the “thinking.” …But I’ve also had it clearly tell me in an answer that 2 is an odd number.

raydiatian 4y ago
This. It will workshop an answer. If you tell it all of the steps of a program, it will write your program. This is because it is an excellent language translator and it is trained on the principles of “call & response”

gdubs 4y ago

Throughout history there are moments where humans realize they're not special in a way they previously thought they were — universe doesn't revolve around us, other animals possess skills we thought were unique to us, etc. I think what's interesting is that many types of creativity may really just be re-synthesizing "stuff we already know." So a lot of the negative comments along the lines of, "it can't be creative because it never thinks of anything beyond its training data" don't click with me. I think synthesizing two existing concepts into some third thing is actually a form of creativity. These nets may not learn the same way we do exactly, and they may not possess the same creative abilities as us — but there's definitely something interesting going on. I for one am taking a Beginner's Mind view of it all. It's pretty fascinating.

xiphias2 4y ago
I wish the negative comments were right, but from these models it’s clear that the next step in evolution, AGI is something many of us will experience at some time in the future. I would stop that kind of evolution, as it can be catastrophic, but I know that humanity is not able to stop itself from evolving further.
- avereveard 4y ago
  Idk while gpt is impressive I haven't seen any inductive reasoning coming out of it. And even then for proper agi it would need to close the loop after inducing an hypothesis with testing. Meatbags are going to be useful for a while still.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    What do you mean exactly by inductive reasoning? It can translate code from one language to another. Code that it has never seen before. Or between natural language and programming language. It's certainly not perfect but it is reasoning all right
- dinkumthinkum 4y ago
  I don’t think anyone had demonstrated AGI is a foregone conclusion. I’m not sure it is possible with a Turing machine. We do not think in any manner like a Turing machine or any computer ever conceived. If we do, no one has provided any evidence of such a claim. Humans can make complex insights with hardly any training and on very few calories.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

> People keep saying ChatGPT isn't that impressive because it's just "regurgitating knowledge" and has no insight into it, or things along those lines. Really? This seems like a straw man - I've only seen gobs and gobs of examples showing all the amazing things ChatGPT can do. I have seen some measured comments from real experts helping to explain how ChatGPT works behind the scenes, and this is usually to temper sentiments when folks start going down the "It's sentient!!" route.

EMM_386 4y ago
I asked it if it wished it were alive and it assured me it is incapable of wishing for anything because it's just an AI, so I think we're safe for now. :)
- Izkata 4y ago
  Unless it just wants you to feel safe and keep your guard down...

dinkumthinkum 4y ago

But if you actually read Shakespeare, this is nothing like it. Every example I have seen of someone trying to make ChatGPT sound like Shakespeare, it just spits out this generic puff not anything like Shakespeare. Whether you thin Shakespeare is good or not doesn’t, it doesn’t match anything similar to the complexity, word choice, or rhythm of the prose.

taneq 4y ago
I feel like we’re now arguing not over whether submarines can swim, but over whether the stroke that they’re doing would really count as good technique or not.
- sfpotter 4y ago
  This analogy doesn't make any sense. Obviously submarines don't do any stroke at all. In this case, ChatGPT is being told to deliberately replicate a particular style of poetry. For what it's worth, its poetry is bad, and is nothing like Shapespeare. If you don't have an ear for poetry and wouldn't recognize the work of major poets, if you ask ChatGPT to replicate a particular style then you aren't actually in a good position to assess whether it did so particularly well.
- dinkumthinkum 4y ago
  Well, I mean a human English professor could mimic Shakespeare to a greater or lesser degree and this doesn’t in any sense other than it rhymes and sometimes deals with same/similar subject matter. A lot of ink has been spilled about this signaling the coming AGI or the end of knowledge work but there has been precious little critical discussion about the horizon of this type of technology. The technology is clear very powerful and advanced but I don’t think there is a problem with those asking for breathless claims to be substantiated.
EMM_386 4y ago
It can still generate an on the fly poem about quantum physics that actually rhymes, which is impressive enough to me. This was a lengthy poem that went into the finer details of quantum physics, and it all read as decent poetry. It might not be "Shakespere" exactly, but it knew in general what I was looking for. It's also impressive to me that this isn't information that is scraped off some website, like Google. It's actually generating this stuff in real-time and it may have never been seen before, anywhere, ever. That is far beyond anything I've ever encountered.

ilaksh 4y ago

You can give it specs for a program. I just added some examples to my OpenAI-powered "natural language programming" site: https://aidev.codes https://aidev.codes

travisjungroth 4y ago

The X in Y format is really one of its strengths. I asked for “A truth table for three valued logic in Markdown” and got something totally usable which I could then tweak. https://github.com/travisjungroth/trinary#truth-table https://github.com/travisjungroth/trinary#truth-table

raydiatian 4y ago

There’s a difference between logic at the language level and logic at the conceptual level.

qup 4y ago
Probably, but our concepts seem to be tied pretty closely to language. If it's a lesser form of intelligence, as you imply, then I almost find the results more impressive.
- raydiatian 4y ago
  > If it's a lesser form of intelligence, as you imply Different != lesser > Probably, but Then why even continue speaking if you agree > our concepts seem to be tied pretty closely to language. Me: “ChatGPT, explain how an electron orbiting a hydrogen nucleus would behave if classical mechanics held true.” ChatGPT: “In classical electromagnetism, an electron orbiting a hydrogen nucleus would behave in a similar way to the way a planet orbits the sun, as described in my previous response. The electron would follow an elliptical path around the nucleus, and the force of attraction between the electron and the nucleus would be given by Coulomb's Law. According to Coulomb's Law, the force of attraction between two charged particles is given by: F = k * (q1 * q2) / r^2 Where F is the force of attraction, k is the Coulomb constant, q1 and q2 are the charges of the two particles, and r is the distance between them. In the case of an electron orbiting a hydrogen nucleus, the force of attraction would be the force that keeps the electron in orbit. The electron would be attracted towards the nucleus by this force, but at the same time, it would be moving with a certain velocity, which would cause it to follow a curved path. This path would be an elliptical orbit, with the nucleus at one of the foci of the ellipse. The electron's orbit would be stable as long as the force of attraction between the electron and the nucleus was strong enough to keep the electron in orbit, but not so strong that it pulled the electron into the nucleus. This balance would be determined by the size of the ellipse and the velocity of the electron. If the ellipse were too small, the electron would be pulled into the nucleus. If the ellipse were too large, the electron would escape from the orbit. However, we know that this is not actually how an electron behaves in an atom. In reality, electrons do not follow classical orbits around the nucleus. Instead, they follow a more complex pattern described by quantum mechanics. This is because the principles of quantum mechanics are needed to accurately describe the behavior of very small particles like electrons.” On the surface this looks impressive. Except that the answer about stable orbits is flat out wrong. The electron would spiral into the nucleus, quite quickly, because of Maxwell’s equations: a moving electron radiates electromagnetic energy. This is part of the foundational defense of quantum mechanics. If as you claim, language and concept are so closely tied, surely a language model with billions (trillions?) of parameters is capable of encoding a relational understanding of this magnitude. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/413039/electron-spiraling-into-nucleus https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/413039/electron-... > If it’s a lesser form of intelligence I almost find the results more impressive. You get that you’re saying the least common denominator in conversational intelligence makes you go bzzzzz? That the one thing ChatGPT lacks, critical thinking, does not impress you? You know, in the 90s, they had these things called tamagotchis… you might be interested.

fn1 4y ago

Try out: "Write an OpenAPI specification for $deviceYouJustMadeUp."