4 ms·

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 anythin

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.
kqr 4y 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. It's very context-dependent but I don't read this as dismissive reduction, I read it as a statement of the incredible generalisability of atoms under the current laws of physics.
- kilgnad 4y ago
  Pfft more useless text written by a giant pile of atoms. Pointless. Kidding aside, in the current context of human communication etiquette, to even refer to something as atoms outside of a demonstration or example is a deliberate dismissive reduction.
  - kqr 4y ago
    I see the current context as something narrower, namely a discussion on the technical underpinnings of LLMs.
    - kilgnad 4y ago
      The output of LLMs implies a higher level structure. You can't solely discuss the lower level underpinning unless you deliberately do not acknowledge that the output of LLMs are implying something else.
    - westoncb 4y ago
      I think the fact that it's a technical discussion highlights why it's problematic: it might be appropriate for a total outsider who needs some kind of grasp of the basic underlying principle it operates on; but in discussion by a bunch of people with CS backgrounds, calling it merely a statical language generator erases distinction between it and other software of a prior age known not to be world-changing, overlooks recent innovations we don't yet have simple ways of referring to (largely because we don't understand emergent properties of LLMs)

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.

kqr 4y 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. It's very context-dependent but I don't read this as dismissive reduction, I read it as a statement of the incredible generalisability of atoms under the current laws of physics.

kilgnad 4y ago
Pfft more useless text written by a giant pile of atoms. Pointless. Kidding aside, in the current context of human communication etiquette, to even refer to something as atoms outside of a demonstration or example is a deliberate dismissive reduction.
- kqr 4y ago
  I see the current context as something narrower, namely a discussion on the technical underpinnings of LLMs.
  - kilgnad 4y ago
    The output of LLMs implies a higher level structure. You can't solely discuss the lower level underpinning unless you deliberately do not acknowledge that the output of LLMs are implying something else.
  - westoncb 4y ago
    I think the fact that it's a technical discussion highlights why it's problematic: it might be appropriate for a total outsider who needs some kind of grasp of the basic underlying principle it operates on; but in discussion by a bunch of people with CS backgrounds, calling it merely a statical language generator erases distinction between it and other software of a prior age known not to be world-changing, overlooks recent innovations we don't yet have simple ways of referring to (largely because we don't understand emergent properties of LLMs)