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Doesn't the article say... exactly that? The basic concept of ChatGPT is at some level rather simple. Start from a huge sample of human-created text from the

by vore 4y ago

Doesn't the article say... exactly that? The basic concept of ChatGPT is at some level rather simple. Start from a huge sample of human-created text from the web, books, etc. Then train a neural net to generate text that’s “like this”. And in particular, make it able to start from a “prompt” and then continue with text that’s “like what it’s been trained with”. Just because there are emergent behaviors doesn't mean it's not a probabilistic word generator. Nor does it being a probabilistic word generator mean it can't have interesting underlying properties.

kilgnad 4y ago
I didn't say it's not a probabilistic word generator. I'll quote more of what I wrote: >There are clearly different angles of interpreting what these models are actually doing but people are stubbornly refusing to believe it's anything more then just statistical word jumbles. So CLEARLY because I said there are different angles of interpretation I'm implying that from one of these angles we can interpret it as a statistical word generator. I mean from one perspective you and I are both statistical word generators too.
- vore 4y ago
  I mean, that is the fundamental architecture of the model and how it's explicitly designed: given an input embedding and output embedding, the model is trained over a massive corpus of text to optimize the probability for generating the next token in the sequence. Any other interpretation is secondary to that, no matter how impressive the results are.
  - kilgnad 4y ago
    There is no rule that implies the explicit design dominates the emergent effect. Evolutionary biology strives to make us logical creatures to fulfill the singular goal of passing on genetic material. Your sentience and your humanity is a side effect of this singular goal. So what dominates the description of who YOU are? Human or vessel for genetic material? I'll say that YOU are human and therefore more then just a vessel for ferreting your genetic material into the future... just like how I'll go with the fact that LLMs are more then just statistical word generators.
    - vore 4y ago
      They really aren't more than just statistical word generators because we can and do build what are exactly statistical word generators and get the behavior of ChatGPT (because that is what ChatGPT is). For what it's worth, this isn't a knock on ChatGPT, but more just how amazing how far you can get with straightforward concepts.
      - dnaddie 4y ago
        Except the paper in the OPs comment literally talks about how these LLM's are building actual models of the real world. No need to be worried about knocking chatGPT. I have no pride invested in the thing. But I do think that people who view it solely as statistical word generators are biased.
      - westoncb 4y ago
        It's also a specific choice of label though, and one which in the context of current discourse favors a particular side. It's like insisting on calling anything physical "atom collections". Yes, we get it, it's true (under a certain interpretation)—but it's clearly pointless to say except as an attempt at devaluing through reduction. (And it takes a particular stance on what it means to "be" something: to say it's literally the truth that anything physical is "just atoms" isn't the only way of looking at it.) There were things we could've called "statistical word generators" decades ago; insisting on using a term directed at that level of generality implies a belief that nothing significant has happened since. Printing press? Just atoms. Cars? Just atoms. Computers? Just atoms.
        funcantor 4y ago
        I think its because it's sort of gone in the opposite way that science usually goes. Science traditionally been the process of physical phenomena that we don't understand => falsifiable theory that helps describe that phenomena. Meanwhile, we started at stuff like the perceptron. The starting point was that we knew everything about that equation/classifier. Now we have a thing that we built from the ground up, and we don't fully grasp how it all comes together.
- Rury 4y ago
  How is this significant? I mean you can view a moving car as stationary, and reality is the thing that moves around it, or you can view reality as stationary, but the car moves through it. Or you can make analogies between electricity and water. (Frankly, I like viewing neural nets as a numerical method for doing nonlinear multivariate regression, and ChatGPT is nothing but a resulting equation(s) of such). In the end, regardless of how you choose to perceive it, the result is the same, so what's your point? It sounds like you just don't like viewing it as simply "a probabilistic word generator", as that takes the magic out of it. And yeah, it's not magic, but it is quite useful.
  - kilgnad 4y ago
    Well you're just a jumble of electrons and protons interacting with each other. That's a 100% true interpretation is it not? It's also a view that misses the point that you are a molecular intelligence made of DNA that continually mutates and reconstructs it's physical form with generational copies to increase fitness in an ever changing environment. But that viewpoint also misses the point that you're a human with wants, needs, desires and capability of understanding the world around you. All viewpoints are valid. But Depending on the context one viewpoint is more valid then others. For example, in my day to day life do I go around treating everyone as if they're useless jumbles of molecules and atoms? Do I treat them like biological natural selection entities? Or do I treat them like humans? What I'm complaining about is the fact that a lot of people are taking the most simplest viewpoint when looking at these LLMs. They ARE MORE then statistical word generators and it's OBVIOUS this is the case when you talk to it in-depth. Why are people denying the obvious? Why are people choosing not to look at LLMs for what they are? Because of fear. Because of bias.
    - Rury 4y ago
      I still don't see your point behind your first 4 paragraphs. How you decide to treat your fellow humans is up to you. Just as you can decide to view your fellow humans however you want. It's entirely possible to treat them like "humans" while still viewing them as nothing but jumbles of molecules and atoms. So again why does perspective matter here (particularly with ChatGPT being a statistical word generator)? Your last paragraph lacks proof, and is a reflection of how you feel and want to view it - as something more than a statistical word generator. That's fine, but people with graduate level math/statistics education know that math/statistics is capable of doing everything ChatGPT does (and even more). To me, it sounds like you're the fearful one.
FleurBouquet 4y ago
This is really a problem with our linguistic use of the word "just" and the philosophical misunderstandings it creates. A tornado is just wind. To argue a tornado is just wind though is really a rhetorical device to downplay a tornado. We are almost never searching for the truth with the word "just" in this way. To argue chatGPT is JUST a probabilistic next token generator is exactly downplay its emergent properties. This shouldn't be terribly surprising since it is not like undergrads have to take a class in complex systems. I can remember foolishly thinking 15 years ago that the entire field of complex systems was basically a bogus subject. chatGPT clearly has scaling properties that you can't really say it is JUST a probabilistic next token generator. chatGPT is the emergent properties of the system as a whole.

by vore 4y ago

kilgnad 4y ago

I didn't say it's not a probabilistic word generator. I'll quote more of what I wrote: >There are clearly different angles of interpreting what these models are actually doing but people are stubbornly refusing to believe it's anything more then just statistical word jumbles. So CLEARLY because I said there are different angles of interpretation I'm implying that from one of these angles we can interpret it as a statistical word generator. I mean from one perspective you and I are both statistical word generators too.

vore 4y ago
I mean, that is the fundamental architecture of the model and how it's explicitly designed: given an input embedding and output embedding, the model is trained over a massive corpus of text to optimize the probability for generating the next token in the sequence. Any other interpretation is secondary to that, no matter how impressive the results are.
- kilgnad 4y ago
  There is no rule that implies the explicit design dominates the emergent effect. Evolutionary biology strives to make us logical creatures to fulfill the singular goal of passing on genetic material. Your sentience and your humanity is a side effect of this singular goal. So what dominates the description of who YOU are? Human or vessel for genetic material? I'll say that YOU are human and therefore more then just a vessel for ferreting your genetic material into the future... just like how I'll go with the fact that LLMs are more then just statistical word generators.
  - vore 4y ago
    They really aren't more than just statistical word generators because we can and do build what are exactly statistical word generators and get the behavior of ChatGPT (because that is what ChatGPT is). For what it's worth, this isn't a knock on ChatGPT, but more just how amazing how far you can get with straightforward concepts.
    - dnaddie 4y ago
      Except the paper in the OPs comment literally talks about how these LLM's are building actual models of the real world. No need to be worried about knocking chatGPT. I have no pride invested in the thing. But I do think that people who view it solely as statistical word generators are biased.
    - westoncb 4y ago
      It's also a specific choice of label though, and one which in the context of current discourse favors a particular side. It's like insisting on calling anything physical "atom collections". Yes, we get it, it's true (under a certain interpretation)—but it's clearly pointless to say except as an attempt at devaluing through reduction. (And it takes a particular stance on what it means to "be" something: to say it's literally the truth that anything physical is "just atoms" isn't the only way of looking at it.) There were things we could've called "statistical word generators" decades ago; insisting on using a term directed at that level of generality implies a belief that nothing significant has happened since. Printing press? Just atoms. Cars? Just atoms. Computers? Just atoms.
      - funcantor 4y ago
        I think its because it's sort of gone in the opposite way that science usually goes. Science traditionally been the process of physical phenomena that we don't understand => falsifiable theory that helps describe that phenomena. Meanwhile, we started at stuff like the perceptron. The starting point was that we knew everything about that equation/classifier. Now we have a thing that we built from the ground up, and we don't fully grasp how it all comes together.
Rury 4y ago
How is this significant? I mean you can view a moving car as stationary, and reality is the thing that moves around it, or you can view reality as stationary, but the car moves through it. Or you can make analogies between electricity and water. (Frankly, I like viewing neural nets as a numerical method for doing nonlinear multivariate regression, and ChatGPT is nothing but a resulting equation(s) of such). In the end, regardless of how you choose to perceive it, the result is the same, so what's your point? It sounds like you just don't like viewing it as simply "a probabilistic word generator", as that takes the magic out of it. And yeah, it's not magic, but it is quite useful.
- kilgnad 4y ago
  Well you're just a jumble of electrons and protons interacting with each other. That's a 100% true interpretation is it not? It's also a view that misses the point that you are a molecular intelligence made of DNA that continually mutates and reconstructs it's physical form with generational copies to increase fitness in an ever changing environment. But that viewpoint also misses the point that you're a human with wants, needs, desires and capability of understanding the world around you. All viewpoints are valid. But Depending on the context one viewpoint is more valid then others. For example, in my day to day life do I go around treating everyone as if they're useless jumbles of molecules and atoms? Do I treat them like biological natural selection entities? Or do I treat them like humans? What I'm complaining about is the fact that a lot of people are taking the most simplest viewpoint when looking at these LLMs. They ARE MORE then statistical word generators and it's OBVIOUS this is the case when you talk to it in-depth. Why are people denying the obvious? Why are people choosing not to look at LLMs for what they are? Because of fear. Because of bias.
  - Rury 4y ago
    I still don't see your point behind your first 4 paragraphs. How you decide to treat your fellow humans is up to you. Just as you can decide to view your fellow humans however you want. It's entirely possible to treat them like "humans" while still viewing them as nothing but jumbles of molecules and atoms. So again why does perspective matter here (particularly with ChatGPT being a statistical word generator)? Your last paragraph lacks proof, and is a reflection of how you feel and want to view it - as something more than a statistical word generator. That's fine, but people with graduate level math/statistics education know that math/statistics is capable of doing everything ChatGPT does (and even more). To me, it sounds like you're the fearful one.

FleurBouquet 4y ago

This is really a problem with our linguistic use of the word "just" and the philosophical misunderstandings it creates. A tornado is just wind. To argue a tornado is just wind though is really a rhetorical device to downplay a tornado. We are almost never searching for the truth with the word "just" in this way. To argue chatGPT is JUST a probabilistic next token generator is exactly downplay its emergent properties. This shouldn't be terribly surprising since it is not like undergrads have to take a class in complex systems. I can remember foolishly thinking 15 years ago that the entire field of complex systems was basically a bogus subject. chatGPT clearly has scaling properties that you can't really say it is JUST a probabilistic next token generator. chatGPT is the emergent properties of the system as a whole.