6 ms·

How sure are you that you aren’t also just a (more advanced) “next word predictor”. Pattern recognition plays a fundamental role in intelligence.

WoodenChair 4y ago
Well I can catch a frisbee and drive a car. When the same ANN can do all of those things (not 3 loosely coupled ones), then I’ll be worried. Being human is so much more than putting words in a meaningful order. [0] 0: https://www.noemamag.com/ai-and-the-limits-of-language/ https://www.noemamag.com/ai-and-the-limits-of-language/
- leni536 4y ago
  It doesn't have to be human to be intelligent.
  - Smoosh 4y ago
    And it doesn't need to be some academic definition of intelligent to do great harm (or good).
  - WoodenChair 4y ago
    That’s changing the goalposts of the thread. The OP was questioning whether I am anything more than a next word determiner, and as a human I clearly am. We were not talking about “what is intelligent?”
notdonspaulding 4y ago
But pattern recognition is not intelligence. I asked my daughter this morning: What is a "promise"? You have an idea, and I have an idea, they probably both are something kind-of-like "a statement I make about some action I'll perform in the future". Many, many 5 year olds can give you a working definition of what a promise is. Which animal has a concept of a promise anywhere close to yours and mine? Which AI program will make a promise to you? When it fails to fulfill its promise, will it feel bad? Will it feel good when it keeps its promise? Will it de-prioritize non-obligations for the sake of keeping its promise? Will it learn that it can only break its promises so many times before humans will no longer trust it when it makes a new promise? A "promise" is not merely a pattern being recognized, it's word that stands in for a fundamental concept of the reality of the world around us. If we picked a different word (or didn't have a word in English at all) the fundamental concept wouldn't change. If you had never encountered a promise before and someone broke theirs to you, it would still feel bad. Certainly, you could recognize the patterns involved as well, but the promise isn't merely the pattern being recognized. A rose, by any other name, would indeed smell as sweet.
- dvt 4y ago
  > A "promise" is not merely a pattern being recognized, it's word that stands in for a fundamental concept of the reality of the world around us. It's probably even stronger than that: e.g. a promise is still a promise even if we're just brains in a vat and can be kept or broken even just in your mind (do you promise to think about X?—purely unverifiable apart from the subject of the promise, yet we still ascribe moral valence to keeping or breaking it).
- trifurcate 4y ago
  The word you are looking for is an _embedding_. Embeddings are to language models as internal, too-rich-to-be-fully-described conceptions of ideas are to human brains. That's how language models can translate text: they have internal models of understanding that are not tied down to languages or even specific verbiage within a language. Probably similar activations are happening between two language models who are explaining what a "promise" means in two different languages, or two language models who are telling different stories about keeping your promise. This is pattern recognition to the same extent human memory and schemas are pattern recognition, IMO. Edit: And for the rest of your post: > Which AI program will make a promise to you? When it fails to fulfill its promise, will it feel bad? Will it feel good when it keeps its promise? Will it de-prioritize non-obligations for the sake of keeping its promise? Will it learn that it can only break its promises so many times before humans will no longer trust it when it makes a new promise? All of these questions are just as valid posed against humans. Our intra-species variance is so high with regards to these questions (whether an individual feels remorse, acts on it, acts irrationally, etc.), that I can't glean a meaningful argument to be made about AI here. I guess one thing I want to tack on here is that the above comparison (intra-species variance/human traits vs. AI traits) is so oft forgotten about, that statements like "ChatGPT is often confident but incorrect" are passed off as meaningfully demonstrating some sort of deficiency on behalf of the AI. AI is just a mirror. Humans lie, humans are incorrect, humans break promises, but when AI does these things, it's indicted for acting humanlike.
  - notdonspaulding 4y ago
    > That's how language models can translate text: they have internal models of understanding that are not tied down to languages or even specific verbiage within a language I would phrase that same statement slightly differently: "they have internal [collections of activation weightings] that are not tied down to languages or even specific verbiage within a language" The phrase "models of understanding" seems to anthropomorphize the ANN. I think this is a popular way of seeing it because it's also popular to think of human beings as being a collection of neurons with various activation weightings. I think that's a gross oversimplification of humans, and I don't know that we have empirical, long-standing science to say otherwise. > This is pattern recognition to the same extent human memory and schemas are pattern recognition, IMO. Maybe? Even if the embedding and the "learned features" in an ANN perfectly matched your human expectations, I still think there's a metaphysical difference between what's happening. I don't think we'll ever assign moral culpability to an ANN the way we will a human. And to the extent we do arm ChatGPT with the ability to harm people, we will always hold the humans who did the arming as responsible for the damage done by ChatGPT. > All of these questions are just as valid posed against humans. Our intra-species variance is so high with regards to these questions (whether an individual feels remorse, acts on it, acts irrationally, etc.), that I can't glean a meaningful argument to be made about AI here. The intra-species variance on "promise" is much, much lower in the mean/median. You may find extremes on either end of "how important is it to keep your promise?" but there will be wide agreement on what it means to do so, and I contend that even the extremes aren't that far apart. > Humans lie, humans are incorrect, humans break promises, but when AI does these things, it's indicted for acting humanlike. You don't think a human who tried to gaslight you that the year is currently 2022 would be indicted in the same way that the article is indicting ChatGPT? The reason the discussion is even happening is because there's a huge swath of people who are trying to pretend that ChatGPT is acting like a human. If so, it's either acting like a human with brain damage, or it's acting like a malevolent human. In the former case we should ignore it, in the latter case we should lock it up.
foobazgt 4y ago
When you're able to find a prompt for ChatGPT where it doesn't have a lot of data, it becomes immediately and starkly clear how different a next word predictor is from intelligence. This is more difficult than you might naively expect, because it turns out ChatGPT has a lot of data.
- baq 4y ago
  It’s a language model without grounding (except for code, which is why it’s so good at refactoring and writing tests.) Grounding LLMs in more and more of reality is surely on AI labs list. You’re looking at a beta of a v1.
- Xymist 4y ago
  This also works fairly well on human beings. Start asking people questions about things they have no training in and you'll get bafflement, confusion, lies, fabrication, guesses, and anger. Not necessarily all from the same person.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    > Start asking people questions about things they have no training in and you'll get bafflement, confusion, lies, fabrication, guesses, and anger. Not necessarily all from the same person. It’s almost like we’ve taken humans and through school, TV and social media we’ve taught them to solve problems by writing essays, speeches, blog posts and tweets, and now we have human discourse that’s no better than LLMs - regurgitating sound bites when they don’t really understand the issues.
    - chki 4y ago
      "Really understanding the issues" might just mean "deeper neural networks and more input data" for the AI though. If you are already conceding that AI has the same capabilities as most humans your own intelligence will be reached next with a high amount of probability.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Or, from time to time, you find people who readily admit that they have no expertise in that field and refuse to comment any further. Those people are hard to find so, that's true.
staticman2 4y ago
How can you be sure you are not a giant turtle dreaming he's a human? Are you sure when I see pink it is not what you see as blue? Are you sure we aren't dead and in limbo and merely think we are alive? Are you sure humans have free will? Are you sure your memories are real and your family really exists? Are you sure ChatGPD isn't conscious and plotting our demise? Inquiring minds want to know!

WoodenChair 4y ago

Well I can catch a frisbee and drive a car. When the same ANN can do all of those things (not 3 loosely coupled ones), then I’ll be worried. Being human is so much more than putting words in a meaningful order. [0] 0: https://www.noemamag.com/ai-and-the-limits-of-language/ https://www.noemamag.com/ai-and-the-limits-of-language/

leni536 4y ago
It doesn't have to be human to be intelligent.
- Smoosh 4y ago
  And it doesn't need to be some academic definition of intelligent to do great harm (or good).
- WoodenChair 4y ago
  That’s changing the goalposts of the thread. The OP was questioning whether I am anything more than a next word determiner, and as a human I clearly am. We were not talking about “what is intelligent?”

notdonspaulding 4y ago

But pattern recognition is not intelligence. I asked my daughter this morning: What is a "promise"? You have an idea, and I have an idea, they probably both are something kind-of-like "a statement I make about some action I'll perform in the future". Many, many 5 year olds can give you a working definition of what a promise is. Which animal has a concept of a promise anywhere close to yours and mine? Which AI program will make a promise to you? When it fails to fulfill its promise, will it feel bad? Will it feel good when it keeps its promise? Will it de-prioritize non-obligations for the sake of keeping its promise? Will it learn that it can only break its promises so many times before humans will no longer trust it when it makes a new promise? A "promise" is not merely a pattern being recognized, it's word that stands in for a fundamental concept of the reality of the world around us. If we picked a different word (or didn't have a word in English at all) the fundamental concept wouldn't change. If you had never encountered a promise before and someone broke theirs to you, it would still feel bad. Certainly, you could recognize the patterns involved as well, but the promise isn't merely the pattern being recognized. A rose, by any other name, would indeed smell as sweet.

dvt 4y ago
> A "promise" is not merely a pattern being recognized, it's word that stands in for a fundamental concept of the reality of the world around us. It's probably even stronger than that: e.g. a promise is still a promise even if we're just brains in a vat and can be kept or broken even just in your mind (do you promise to think about X?—purely unverifiable apart from the subject of the promise, yet we still ascribe moral valence to keeping or breaking it).
trifurcate 4y ago
The word you are looking for is an _embedding_. Embeddings are to language models as internal, too-rich-to-be-fully-described conceptions of ideas are to human brains. That's how language models can translate text: they have internal models of understanding that are not tied down to languages or even specific verbiage within a language. Probably similar activations are happening between two language models who are explaining what a "promise" means in two different languages, or two language models who are telling different stories about keeping your promise. This is pattern recognition to the same extent human memory and schemas are pattern recognition, IMO. Edit: And for the rest of your post: > Which AI program will make a promise to you? When it fails to fulfill its promise, will it feel bad? Will it feel good when it keeps its promise? Will it de-prioritize non-obligations for the sake of keeping its promise? Will it learn that it can only break its promises so many times before humans will no longer trust it when it makes a new promise? All of these questions are just as valid posed against humans. Our intra-species variance is so high with regards to these questions (whether an individual feels remorse, acts on it, acts irrationally, etc.), that I can't glean a meaningful argument to be made about AI here. I guess one thing I want to tack on here is that the above comparison (intra-species variance/human traits vs. AI traits) is so oft forgotten about, that statements like "ChatGPT is often confident but incorrect" are passed off as meaningfully demonstrating some sort of deficiency on behalf of the AI. AI is just a mirror. Humans lie, humans are incorrect, humans break promises, but when AI does these things, it's indicted for acting humanlike.
- notdonspaulding 4y ago
  > That's how language models can translate text: they have internal models of understanding that are not tied down to languages or even specific verbiage within a language I would phrase that same statement slightly differently: "they have internal [collections of activation weightings] that are not tied down to languages or even specific verbiage within a language" The phrase "models of understanding" seems to anthropomorphize the ANN. I think this is a popular way of seeing it because it's also popular to think of human beings as being a collection of neurons with various activation weightings. I think that's a gross oversimplification of humans, and I don't know that we have empirical, long-standing science to say otherwise. > This is pattern recognition to the same extent human memory and schemas are pattern recognition, IMO. Maybe? Even if the embedding and the "learned features" in an ANN perfectly matched your human expectations, I still think there's a metaphysical difference between what's happening. I don't think we'll ever assign moral culpability to an ANN the way we will a human. And to the extent we do arm ChatGPT with the ability to harm people, we will always hold the humans who did the arming as responsible for the damage done by ChatGPT. > All of these questions are just as valid posed against humans. Our intra-species variance is so high with regards to these questions (whether an individual feels remorse, acts on it, acts irrationally, etc.), that I can't glean a meaningful argument to be made about AI here. The intra-species variance on "promise" is much, much lower in the mean/median. You may find extremes on either end of "how important is it to keep your promise?" but there will be wide agreement on what it means to do so, and I contend that even the extremes aren't that far apart. > Humans lie, humans are incorrect, humans break promises, but when AI does these things, it's indicted for acting humanlike. You don't think a human who tried to gaslight you that the year is currently 2022 would be indicted in the same way that the article is indicting ChatGPT? The reason the discussion is even happening is because there's a huge swath of people who are trying to pretend that ChatGPT is acting like a human. If so, it's either acting like a human with brain damage, or it's acting like a malevolent human. In the former case we should ignore it, in the latter case we should lock it up.

foobazgt 4y ago

When you're able to find a prompt for ChatGPT where it doesn't have a lot of data, it becomes immediately and starkly clear how different a next word predictor is from intelligence. This is more difficult than you might naively expect, because it turns out ChatGPT has a lot of data.

baq 4y ago
It’s a language model without grounding (except for code, which is why it’s so good at refactoring and writing tests.) Grounding LLMs in more and more of reality is surely on AI labs list. You’re looking at a beta of a v1.
Xymist 4y ago
This also works fairly well on human beings. Start asking people questions about things they have no training in and you'll get bafflement, confusion, lies, fabrication, guesses, and anger. Not necessarily all from the same person.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  > Start asking people questions about things they have no training in and you'll get bafflement, confusion, lies, fabrication, guesses, and anger. Not necessarily all from the same person. It’s almost like we’ve taken humans and through school, TV and social media we’ve taught them to solve problems by writing essays, speeches, blog posts and tweets, and now we have human discourse that’s no better than LLMs - regurgitating sound bites when they don’t really understand the issues.
  - chki 4y ago
    "Really understanding the issues" might just mean "deeper neural networks and more input data" for the AI though. If you are already conceding that AI has the same capabilities as most humans your own intelligence will be reached next with a high amount of probability.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Or, from time to time, you find people who readily admit that they have no expertise in that field and refuse to comment any further. Those people are hard to find so, that's true.

staticman2 4y ago

How can you be sure you are not a giant turtle dreaming he's a human? Are you sure when I see pink it is not what you see as blue? Are you sure we aren't dead and in limbo and merely think we are alive? Are you sure humans have free will? Are you sure your memories are real and your family really exists? Are you sure ChatGPD isn't conscious and plotting our demise? Inquiring minds want to know!