5 ms·

> only because they contributed some magical ingredient from their souls, which didn't exist anywhere in the world's collected pre-Rust printed materials You'r

> only because they contributed some magical ingredient from their souls, which didn't exist anywhere in the world's collected pre-Rust printed materials You're focusing on the example too much. Here are more examples illustrating the question. It's doubtful that LLMs could infer solutions that lie outside their statistical models trained on existing data. "In 1597 John Thorpe is the first recorded architect to replace multiple connected rooms with rooms along a corridor each accessed by a separate door" [1] "Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no theoretical explanation for his findings" [2] "Button-like objects of stone, glass, bone, ceramic, and gold have been found at archaeological sites dating as early as 2000 b.c.e... One of the earliest extant pieces of clothing to show the use of buttons as fastenings is the pourpoint of Charles of Blois (c. 1319–1364)." [3] And so on. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallway?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallway?wprov=sfti1 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis?wprov=sfti1 [3] https://www.encyclopedia.com/sports-and-everyday-life/fashion-and-clothing/clothing-jewelry-and-personal-adornment/button https://www.encyclopedia.com/sports-and-everyday-life/fashio...

generalizations 4y ago
What you're saying makes sense, and I think I appreciate the point behind the examples you provided. I think it would help your argument if you could point to such an example from the last couple of years, after the cutoff point of the LLM training data. Maybe though, nothing has been invented since then that is sufficiently unique. If there is something like that, I suppose it would be possible to try and prompt the LLM to create it. That would make your argument falsifiable and I'd be really curious to know the outcome.
- illiarian 4y ago
  The sum total of human knowledge has increased exponentially, so it's harder to come up with an example for that :)
fenomas 4y ago
Sorry, I don't follow at all. We can assume that every concept humans have conceived of was at some point conceived of for the first time, there's no need to list examples. But how does that relate to the claim here, that purports to constrain what outputs AIs are and aren't capable of generating?
- illiarian 4y ago
  LLMs currently statistically regurgitate existing data. An LLM in 1600s would tell you that a house layout is "rooms connected to each other" because that would be its pre-existing data. It remains to be seen if LLMs can come up with "oh wait? we can create a passageway, and have rooms open into that" based on satistical models of pre-existing data. Can it come up with a corridor when it has no idea that such a concept exists? That remains to be seen.
  - fenomas 4y ago
    > LLMs currently statistically regurgitate existing data. This is clearly not true in any meaningful sense - c.f. the Othello paper, examples from the top of this very comment thread, etc. > Can it come up with a corridor when it has no idea that such a concept exists? Unless I'm missing something, the person I replied to is claiming that it categorically cannot come up with a concept it hasn't been trained on. I'm disagreeing - if a model knows about rooms and doors and floorplans, there's no obvious reason why it mightn't think up an arrangement of those things that would be novel to the people who trained it. If you think the matter remains to be seen, then I'm not sure what you disagree with me about.
    - tudorw 4y ago
      In my experience, it can certainly be coaxed into discussing novel concepts that transcend existing knowledge. I'm having fun getting it to explain what a hybrid of a Nelson Enfilade data structure combined with a tensegrity data structure is and if that system is novel and brings any benefits, very interesting and novel afaik.

generalizations 4y ago

What you're saying makes sense, and I think I appreciate the point behind the examples you provided. I think it would help your argument if you could point to such an example from the last couple of years, after the cutoff point of the LLM training data. Maybe though, nothing has been invented since then that is sufficiently unique. If there is something like that, I suppose it would be possible to try and prompt the LLM to create it. That would make your argument falsifiable and I'd be really curious to know the outcome.

illiarian 4y ago
The sum total of human knowledge has increased exponentially, so it's harder to come up with an example for that :)

fenomas 4y ago

Sorry, I don't follow at all. We can assume that every concept humans have conceived of was at some point conceived of for the first time, there's no need to list examples. But how does that relate to the claim here, that purports to constrain what outputs AIs are and aren't capable of generating?

illiarian 4y ago
LLMs currently statistically regurgitate existing data. An LLM in 1600s would tell you that a house layout is "rooms connected to each other" because that would be its pre-existing data. It remains to be seen if LLMs can come up with "oh wait? we can create a passageway, and have rooms open into that" based on satistical models of pre-existing data. Can it come up with a corridor when it has no idea that such a concept exists? That remains to be seen.
- fenomas 4y ago
  > LLMs currently statistically regurgitate existing data. This is clearly not true in any meaningful sense - c.f. the Othello paper, examples from the top of this very comment thread, etc. > Can it come up with a corridor when it has no idea that such a concept exists? Unless I'm missing something, the person I replied to is claiming that it categorically cannot come up with a concept it hasn't been trained on. I'm disagreeing - if a model knows about rooms and doors and floorplans, there's no obvious reason why it mightn't think up an arrangement of those things that would be novel to the people who trained it. If you think the matter remains to be seen, then I'm not sure what you disagree with me about.
  - tudorw 4y ago
    In my experience, it can certainly be coaxed into discussing novel concepts that transcend existing knowledge. I'm having fun getting it to explain what a hybrid of a Nelson Enfilade data structure combined with a tensegrity data structure is and if that system is novel and brings any benefits, very interesting and novel afaik.