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I don't think there's anything wrong with people trying to see what, if anything, differentiates ChatGPT from humans. Curing cancer etc. is useful, as is ChatGP

by tines 4y ago

I don't think there's anything wrong with people trying to see what, if anything, differentiates ChatGPT from humans. Curing cancer etc. is useful, as is ChatGPT, regardless of how it achieves these results. But how it achieves them is important to many people, including myself. If it's no different from humans, then we need to treat it like a human---well no, strike that, we need to treat it _well_ and protect it and give it rights and so on. If it's a fancy calculator, then we don't.

danenania 4y ago
I don't think there's anything wrong with it either. It's an important debate. I just think the arguments usually become very circular and repetitive. If there's nothing an AI could ever do to convince you that it's thinking or reasoning, then really you should be explicit and say "I don't believe an AI can produce human thought or human reasoning" or "an AI is not a human" and nobody will disagree with you on those points.
- tines 4y ago
  > and nobody will disagree with you on those points But that's the point, they do. Even on HN there are many comments saying that humans are just fancy autocomplete, i.e. there's no fundamental difference between humans and LLMs.
  - danenania 4y ago
    "there's no fundamental difference between humans and LLMs." I think that's a straw man. No one disagrees that humans and LLMs produce cognition differently. One uses a wet, squishy brain. The other uses silicon chips. There's no disagreement here.
    - tines 4y ago
      > One uses a wet, squishy brain. The other uses silicon chips. Well then, that settles the debate!
      - danenania 4y ago
        My point is that's not a debate anyone is having. No one claims that ChatGPT is human! The claim is merely that ChatGPT is engaging in (non-human) forms of reasoning, abstraction, creativity, and so on, with varying levels of ability. There's a separate debate on whether the brain produces human thoughts in a similar way to ChatGPT's non-human thought. The question here is whether brains are essentially biological LLMs, and whether GPT's current limitations relative to humans could be overcome simply by scaling up the number of GPT's parameters to match or exceed the number of neurons in the human brain. But whether or not that turns out to be the case, it would not mean that AIs are the same as humans, or use exactly the same processes to think and reason, and no one is claiming that.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        staticman2 4y ago
        The word "thought" means something. When you use it to describe ChatGPT, you have in fact argued "there's no fundamental difference between humans and LLMs."
        danenania 4y ago
        That presupposes that the only thought that exists or can exist is human thought. You can define it that way if you like, but it’s not the only definition.
        staticman2 4y ago
        I'm not saying the only thought that exists is human thought. (I believe animals can think). I'm saying using a word invented to describe animals behavior, "thought" to describe a large language model has no discernible meaning other than you think it works like an animal brain. If you think it's an open question whether it works like an animal, you should find a better word than "thought".
  - giardini 4y ago
    tines says>"Even on HN there are many comments saying that humans are just fancy autocomplete, i.e. there's no fundamental difference between humans and LLMs."< LLMs'may prove a useful analogy as to how parts of human intelligence operate, an analogy that, at the very least, should be thoroughly researched.

by tines 4y ago

danenania 4y ago

I don't think there's anything wrong with it either. It's an important debate. I just think the arguments usually become very circular and repetitive. If there's nothing an AI could ever do to convince you that it's thinking or reasoning, then really you should be explicit and say "I don't believe an AI can produce human thought or human reasoning" or "an AI is not a human" and nobody will disagree with you on those points.

tines 4y ago
> and nobody will disagree with you on those points But that's the point, they do. Even on HN there are many comments saying that humans are just fancy autocomplete, i.e. there's no fundamental difference between humans and LLMs.
- danenania 4y ago
  "there's no fundamental difference between humans and LLMs." I think that's a straw man. No one disagrees that humans and LLMs produce cognition differently. One uses a wet, squishy brain. The other uses silicon chips. There's no disagreement here.
  - tines 4y ago
    > One uses a wet, squishy brain. The other uses silicon chips. Well then, that settles the debate!
    - danenania 4y ago
      My point is that's not a debate anyone is having. No one claims that ChatGPT is human! The claim is merely that ChatGPT is engaging in (non-human) forms of reasoning, abstraction, creativity, and so on, with varying levels of ability. There's a separate debate on whether the brain produces human thoughts in a similar way to ChatGPT's non-human thought. The question here is whether brains are essentially biological LLMs, and whether GPT's current limitations relative to humans could be overcome simply by scaling up the number of GPT's parameters to match or exceed the number of neurons in the human brain. But whether or not that turns out to be the case, it would not mean that AIs are the same as humans, or use exactly the same processes to think and reason, and no one is claiming that.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - staticman2 4y ago
        The word "thought" means something. When you use it to describe ChatGPT, you have in fact argued "there's no fundamental difference between humans and LLMs."
        danenania 4y ago
        That presupposes that the only thought that exists or can exist is human thought. You can define it that way if you like, but it’s not the only definition.
        staticman2 4y ago
        I'm not saying the only thought that exists is human thought. (I believe animals can think). I'm saying using a word invented to describe animals behavior, "thought" to describe a large language model has no discernible meaning other than you think it works like an animal brain. If you think it's an open question whether it works like an animal, you should find a better word than "thought".
- giardini 4y ago
  tines says>"Even on HN there are many comments saying that humans are just fancy autocomplete, i.e. there's no fundamental difference between humans and LLMs."< LLMs'may prove a useful analogy as to how parts of human intelligence operate, an analogy that, at the very least, should be thoroughly researched.