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>> Conversation is a stack! Eh, no. Say you start writing some text in a text editor. Then I write a bit. Then you write a bit. Then I write a bit. That's not

>> Conversation is a stack! Eh, no. Say you start writing some text in a text editor. Then I write a bit. Then you write a bit. Then I write a bit. That's not recursion. It's not even iteration. It's just... adding stuff on top of other stuff. Exquisite Corpse, really. It's not recursive. Recursion is a wild horse. It runs away from you and it explodes in complexity: those are its characteristics in action, much more salient than its theoretical ones. Recursion is dangerous. If you have to compute it by hand, or help your little silly bot "run" it, by running it for it by hand... well then the bot is not running recursion. Nobody is, or your head would explode. But your head doesn't explode even if you start computing recursion. With your human mind you can see the undecidability of "this sentence is false" from a mile away. Really. I learned that as a joke when I was a schoolkid, we laughed at it and never thought twice about it. But a computer will get stuck in an infinite loop, because a computer is not human, and it can't see the things that humans can see, it can only compute, and sometimes it's just stuck computing until it runs out of resources because that's all it can do. As before, I think you're mechanomorphising humans and anthropomorphising machines. The "brain" may do whatever it likes, but computers aren't brains, and they don't do the things that brains do. And I have a sneaking suspicion that the "recursion" in human language that you allude to is something very different than what we are talking about here, also. But I'm no expert in human languages, so I can't really say.

IIAOPSW 4y ago
Of all the angles you could take, you go with the neo-cartesian dualist "a computer can't replicate the brain". At some level you have to reconcile that a computer can do a physics simulation to whatever precision, and therefore either it can replicate a brain if by nothing else than sheer simulation, or you have to invoke some magical thinking about brains not being in the domain of physical law. How can you engage with AI, engage in conversation about AI, and also be rejecting the very premise that AI is possible? Now there's the one thing that really does explode my mind. >Eh, no. Say you start writing some text in a text editor. Then I write a bit. Then you write a bit. Then I write a bit. That's not recursion. It's not even iteration. It's just... adding stuff on top of other stuff. Exquisite Corpse, really. It's not recursive. Hey buddy, quick favor. Just zoom out on the page for a moment. You see all the conversational threads here. See how they are organized, right in front of your eyes, in a tree like structure? I don't think I need to explain how trees are inherently recursive. The recursive nature of conversation is staring you right in the face! You have managed to completely miss what is actually happening. He's not "holding the bots hand" or "running it for it by hand". He's not doing any computation on behalf of the model. He is merely jerry-rigging a means for the bot prompt itself. >And I have a sneaking suspicion that the "recursion" in human language that you allude to is something very different than what we are talking about here, also. But I'm no expert in human languages, so I can't really say. Strange, you knew exquisite corpse yet not colorless dreams? Its all trees maaaan. From the level of conversation on down to the level of the sentence. We organize information in hierarchies, but sometimes, I am a strange loop and the tree has no root. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_fu...
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  >> Of all the angles you could take, you go with the neo-cartesian dualist "a computer can't replicate the brain" No, I said "computers aren't brains, and they don't do the things that brains do". I don't know if that's "neo-cartesian dualist", it's just how computers are, right now. Computers can do a physics simulation to "whatever precision"? Maybe, but for the time being that precision is very, very low. >> How can you engage with AI, engage in conversation about AI, and also be rejecting the very premise that AI is possible? Who ever said anything like that? But, for the record, time traval, stable wormholes, antimatter as fuel for interstellar travel... those are all things that are possible and we even have the maths to show it. Except they're possible, but not practical. And for AI, we don't even have the maths to show it's possible. So, maybe in principle AI is possible, maybe it's not. For the time being, we don't know how to do it. >> You have managed to completely miss what is actually happening. He's not "holding the bots hand" or "running it for it by hand". He's not doing any computation on behalf of the model. He is merely jerry-rigging a means for the bot prompt itself. He has to do that because the model can't do any computation itself, because it's a model and not a computational device. >> Its all trees maaaan. I see, you're just taking the piss. You should have said up front :P
  - IIAOPSW 4y ago
    >No, I said "computers aren't brains, and they don't do the things that brains do". >and also be rejecting the very premise that AI is possible? >>Who ever said anything like that? They certainly do a lot of the things brains do. Lest we forget, "calculator" was once a job title. My understanding of AI as field is that the point of it all is exactly to figure out how to do on the machine the stuff brains can do that still eludes us. The case you've been making, particularly "because a computer is not human, and it can't see the things that humans can see, it can only compute" is the anthesis of this premise. It implies that there is something about our conscious existence that cannot be understood and implemented as a computer algorithm (as we've done for prior things that were once strictly the domain of man). It implies that questions of emergent properties and the relevance of recursion and so on are futile. Maybe we just have superficial agreement. On the surface we are both "interested in AI", but dig into our reasons why and maybe there's a sea of difference. I don't think its terribly important that "the model can't do any computation itself, because it's a model and not a computational device." I'm not interested in...whatever that argues against. I am interested in if giving chatGPT the ability to prompt itself recursively results in any surprising emergent reasoning behaviors. With respect to that, it really doesn't matter the details of how it was piped back into itself.

IIAOPSW 4y ago

Of all the angles you could take, you go with the neo-cartesian dualist "a computer can't replicate the brain". At some level you have to reconcile that a computer can do a physics simulation to whatever precision, and therefore either it can replicate a brain if by nothing else than sheer simulation, or you have to invoke some magical thinking about brains not being in the domain of physical law. How can you engage with AI, engage in conversation about AI, and also be rejecting the very premise that AI is possible? Now there's the one thing that really does explode my mind. >Eh, no. Say you start writing some text in a text editor. Then I write a bit. Then you write a bit. Then I write a bit. That's not recursion. It's not even iteration. It's just... adding stuff on top of other stuff. Exquisite Corpse, really. It's not recursive. Hey buddy, quick favor. Just zoom out on the page for a moment. You see all the conversational threads here. See how they are organized, right in front of your eyes, in a tree like structure? I don't think I need to explain how trees are inherently recursive. The recursive nature of conversation is staring you right in the face! You have managed to completely miss what is actually happening. He's not "holding the bots hand" or "running it for it by hand". He's not doing any computation on behalf of the model. He is merely jerry-rigging a means for the bot prompt itself. >And I have a sneaking suspicion that the "recursion" in human language that you allude to is something very different than what we are talking about here, also. But I'm no expert in human languages, so I can't really say. Strange, you knew exquisite corpse yet not colorless dreams? Its all trees maaaan. From the level of conversation on down to the level of the sentence. We organize information in hierarchies, but sometimes, I am a strange loop and the tree has no root. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_fu...

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
>> Of all the angles you could take, you go with the neo-cartesian dualist "a computer can't replicate the brain" No, I said "computers aren't brains, and they don't do the things that brains do". I don't know if that's "neo-cartesian dualist", it's just how computers are, right now. Computers can do a physics simulation to "whatever precision"? Maybe, but for the time being that precision is very, very low. >> How can you engage with AI, engage in conversation about AI, and also be rejecting the very premise that AI is possible? Who ever said anything like that? But, for the record, time traval, stable wormholes, antimatter as fuel for interstellar travel... those are all things that are possible and we even have the maths to show it. Except they're possible, but not practical. And for AI, we don't even have the maths to show it's possible. So, maybe in principle AI is possible, maybe it's not. For the time being, we don't know how to do it. >> You have managed to completely miss what is actually happening. He's not "holding the bots hand" or "running it for it by hand". He's not doing any computation on behalf of the model. He is merely jerry-rigging a means for the bot prompt itself. He has to do that because the model can't do any computation itself, because it's a model and not a computational device. >> Its all trees maaaan. I see, you're just taking the piss. You should have said up front :P
- IIAOPSW 4y ago
  >No, I said "computers aren't brains, and they don't do the things that brains do". >and also be rejecting the very premise that AI is possible? >>Who ever said anything like that? They certainly do a lot of the things brains do. Lest we forget, "calculator" was once a job title. My understanding of AI as field is that the point of it all is exactly to figure out how to do on the machine the stuff brains can do that still eludes us. The case you've been making, particularly "because a computer is not human, and it can't see the things that humans can see, it can only compute" is the anthesis of this premise. It implies that there is something about our conscious existence that cannot be understood and implemented as a computer algorithm (as we've done for prior things that were once strictly the domain of man). It implies that questions of emergent properties and the relevance of recursion and so on are futile. Maybe we just have superficial agreement. On the surface we are both "interested in AI", but dig into our reasons why and maybe there's a sea of difference. I don't think its terribly important that "the model can't do any computation itself, because it's a model and not a computational device." I'm not interested in...whatever that argues against. I am interested in if giving chatGPT the ability to prompt itself recursively results in any surprising emergent reasoning behaviors. With respect to that, it really doesn't matter the details of how it was piped back into itself.