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Based on my previous attempts with that other well noted LLM, I don't think these models are at all good at managing "theory of mind". They seem to not keep tra

Based on my previous attempts with that other well noted LLM, I don't think these models are at all good at managing "theory of mind". They seem to not keep track very well of which parties are privy to which information, which parties are supposed to be pursuing certain conversational objectives, and generally which direction information is supposed to be flowing. It often trips over itself at the level of 2 parties, and certainly trip over itself at the level of 3 parties. Additionally, I have not once seen it be able to do a form of recursive nesting wherein one of the two parties in a dialog begin to discuss verbatim a dialog between two additional people. I suspect these problems are deeply seated and intrinsic to the model, and will not be rectified under the "just train it more bro" refrain of AI evangelicals.

feintruled 3y ago
Nice observation, will help to formulate our Voight-Kampff tests. Might well get some false positives on neurodivergent humans though.
akio 3y ago
GPT-4: ---- Jane: John, I can't believe you're just going to leave me here in the middle of nowhere! This is so typical of you! John: Typical of me? Jane, this is exactly what you signed up for! Adventure, remember? It's not my fault that you're suddenly having second thoughts. Jane: Second thoughts? This isn't about having second thoughts, John! This is about you always charging ahead without considering the consequences or how others might feel! John: Oh, so now I'm inconsiderate? I recall someone saying they wanted to live on the edge, break away from the routine. Wasn't that you, Jane? Jane: Yes, I said that, but it doesn't mean you get to make all the decisions on your own, John! Adventure is about teamwork, not you dragging me behind like some sort of sidekick! John: Sidekick? No, Jane. I thought of us as partners. But you need to step up, take some risks. That's what being a partner is all about. If you can't handle that, maybe this isn't for you after all. ---- Now write a dialog between Alice and Bob discussing the dialog between Jane and John. ---- Alice: Bob, I feel like Jane was being a bit unfair to John. He was merely trying to live up to the adventurous spirit they both agreed on. He was pushing their boundaries, not just his own. Bob: I see your point, Alice, but I think Jane had a valid argument. While she did agree to an adventure, John should have been more considerate. He was making decisions without considering Jane's comfort and safety. Alice: I understand that, Bob, but isn't that the essence of adventure? Uncertainty, unexpected decisions, and stepping out of the comfort zone? John was trying to help Jane embrace that spirit. Bob: Alice, while I agree adventure involves some level of uncertainty, it doesn't mean one should disregard their partner's feelings. John could have communicated better, ensuring Jane was on board with his decisions. Alice: You're right about communication, Bob, but I still believe John's intentions weren't malicious. They were just misaligned. He thought he was encouraging her, while she felt he was being inconsiderate. Bob: Well, Alice, intentions don't always justify actions. Maybe John wasn't being malicious, but he was certainly being insensitive. Jane's feelings of being left behind are valid, regardless of John's intentions.
- akio 3y ago
  Now write a dialog between Mary and David discussing the dialog between Alice and Bob. ---- Mary: David, after listening to Alice and Bob's conversation, it seems to me that Alice is empathizing with John's intentions, while Bob is more focused on Jane's feelings. David: I see what you mean, Mary. But don't you think Bob was right to emphasize the importance of understanding Jane's perspective? John's actions had a clear impact on her. Mary: True, David, but Alice also made a valid point. Adventure often involves stepping out of one's comfort zone, and John was just trying to bring that element into their journey. David: I agree that Alice made a good point, Mary, but it's also essential to remember that adventure doesn't have to mean neglecting your partner's feelings. Bob was right to highlight that. Mary: Indeed, David, both Alice and Bob have valid perspectives. It seems to boil down to striking a balance between pushing one's boundaries and respecting the feelings of others. David: Absolutely, Mary. The balance between seeking adventure and maintaining empathy seems to be the key takeaway from both their conversations.
  - LesZedCB 3y ago
    the fact this came from a "stochastic parrot" still blows my mind.
    - akio 3y ago
      That is a clue that GPT-4 is not a stochastic parrot and does in fact possess an understanding of language and a model of the world.
      - coffeebeqn 3y ago
        How would we treat a parrot with GPT4s capability? I don’t think it’s a great metaphor because it ignores emergent behavior. Whatever the technical details are, GPT4 can hold a fairly satisfying conversation about almost any topic. If a parrot was 1000x better, it wouldn’t be a “parrot”.
        3y ago
bgirard 3y ago
> and will not be rectified under the "just train it more bro" refrain of AI evangelicals. You made a good point up until then but this kind of remark incredibly condescending and dismissive of other people's viewpoint. It's also quite possible that you're both right. That we'll need more training and new architecture breakthroughs. You could have left it at that you didn't think it would be solved by more training.
- IIAOPSW 3y ago
  I suppose it was not entirely clear that the viewpoint I'm mocking with "just train it more bro" is the extreme end of evangelists. The people who seem to believe LLM's are proof that we have fundamentally cracked the principle of cognition in the form of the neural network, and that there is nothing more to figure out other than just training it more, bro. We've all met a trainitmore bro. They are about as tedious as the statistical parrot parrots. Both of these extreme positions deserve some amount of dismissive mocking imo.
AshamedCaptain 3y ago
In my very first interaction with Bing's bot, I was asking some details about PC components, and e.g. it was common for bing to give back answers containing phrases like "as we tested in our previous article" (verbatim, even using the plural 1st person). It is obvious it is just parroting from the websites it scraped. PC hardware means benchmark results which means benchmark websites/blogs which means the "as we tested in our previous article" phrase is common so it will just put it there in the answer even if makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I really don't understand why people ascribe emergent behaviors to these systems such as "theory of mind". It's just randomness. I'm presuming there's just a lot of psycological pareidolia going around. It also got a significant chunk of the answers wrong, creative mode or not. Often, the Bing search it appeared to do actually showed the correct answer right in the snippet of the first result, yet it was not able to scrape that. More rarely but annoyingly frequently it would just search for the wrong thing (e.g. searched for "X vs Y" when it just didn't make sense since they were two layers of the same technology).
- flangola7 3y ago
  There's a research paper floating around...
- jjeaff 3y ago
  So, I certainly wouldn't ascribe any higher level thinking to these LLMs. But they do seem to have more capability than just regurgitating information. They have some logical thinking skills that I assume are not really emergent, but built into the system. For example, I was working on a configuration file for a somewhat new and esoteric firmware, so there isn't much info online about it. But I asked if a specific parameter could include more than one value and bing chat answered that it's assumption was no because it could find no mention anywhere of being able to use more than one value for that parameter. As far as I can tell, no one has answered a similar question anywhere online that it could have been regurgitating, so it seems to have deduced it.
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    I would be careful to draw that conclusion. Not all information LLMs are trained on is accessible to the wide public (e.g. ChatGPT has training data from closed sources). Regardless, If you share the details of your prompt, I’d be interested to see whether my Google-fu turns up information.
basch 3y ago
LLMs will become components of larger systems. They are an example of a situation where putting excess effort into a problem returns a plausible result, but from an efficiency and accuracy standpoint, parts of what they are accomplishing are better solved by simpler systems. As they act as an interpreter, they should be able to identify when to hand off tasks to subroutines, and then reincorporate the result. Just because LLMs can successfully output what they are doing, doesn't mean they are the best tool for the job. They are sort of like a CPU, good at generalist everything tasks, better when augmented with coprocessors.

feintruled 3y ago

Nice observation, will help to formulate our Voight-Kampff tests. Might well get some false positives on neurodivergent humans though.

akio 3y ago

GPT-4: ---- Jane: John, I can't believe you're just going to leave me here in the middle of nowhere! This is so typical of you! John: Typical of me? Jane, this is exactly what you signed up for! Adventure, remember? It's not my fault that you're suddenly having second thoughts. Jane: Second thoughts? This isn't about having second thoughts, John! This is about you always charging ahead without considering the consequences or how others might feel! John: Oh, so now I'm inconsiderate? I recall someone saying they wanted to live on the edge, break away from the routine. Wasn't that you, Jane? Jane: Yes, I said that, but it doesn't mean you get to make all the decisions on your own, John! Adventure is about teamwork, not you dragging me behind like some sort of sidekick! John: Sidekick? No, Jane. I thought of us as partners. But you need to step up, take some risks. That's what being a partner is all about. If you can't handle that, maybe this isn't for you after all. ---- Now write a dialog between Alice and Bob discussing the dialog between Jane and John. ---- Alice: Bob, I feel like Jane was being a bit unfair to John. He was merely trying to live up to the adventurous spirit they both agreed on. He was pushing their boundaries, not just his own. Bob: I see your point, Alice, but I think Jane had a valid argument. While she did agree to an adventure, John should have been more considerate. He was making decisions without considering Jane's comfort and safety. Alice: I understand that, Bob, but isn't that the essence of adventure? Uncertainty, unexpected decisions, and stepping out of the comfort zone? John was trying to help Jane embrace that spirit. Bob: Alice, while I agree adventure involves some level of uncertainty, it doesn't mean one should disregard their partner's feelings. John could have communicated better, ensuring Jane was on board with his decisions. Alice: You're right about communication, Bob, but I still believe John's intentions weren't malicious. They were just misaligned. He thought he was encouraging her, while she felt he was being inconsiderate. Bob: Well, Alice, intentions don't always justify actions. Maybe John wasn't being malicious, but he was certainly being insensitive. Jane's feelings of being left behind are valid, regardless of John's intentions.

akio 3y ago
Now write a dialog between Mary and David discussing the dialog between Alice and Bob. ---- Mary: David, after listening to Alice and Bob's conversation, it seems to me that Alice is empathizing with John's intentions, while Bob is more focused on Jane's feelings. David: I see what you mean, Mary. But don't you think Bob was right to emphasize the importance of understanding Jane's perspective? John's actions had a clear impact on her. Mary: True, David, but Alice also made a valid point. Adventure often involves stepping out of one's comfort zone, and John was just trying to bring that element into their journey. David: I agree that Alice made a good point, Mary, but it's also essential to remember that adventure doesn't have to mean neglecting your partner's feelings. Bob was right to highlight that. Mary: Indeed, David, both Alice and Bob have valid perspectives. It seems to boil down to striking a balance between pushing one's boundaries and respecting the feelings of others. David: Absolutely, Mary. The balance between seeking adventure and maintaining empathy seems to be the key takeaway from both their conversations.
- LesZedCB 3y ago
  the fact this came from a "stochastic parrot" still blows my mind.
  - akio 3y ago
    That is a clue that GPT-4 is not a stochastic parrot and does in fact possess an understanding of language and a model of the world.
    - coffeebeqn 3y ago
      How would we treat a parrot with GPT4s capability? I don’t think it’s a great metaphor because it ignores emergent behavior. Whatever the technical details are, GPT4 can hold a fairly satisfying conversation about almost any topic. If a parrot was 1000x better, it wouldn’t be a “parrot”.
      - 3y ago

bgirard 3y ago

> and will not be rectified under the "just train it more bro" refrain of AI evangelicals. You made a good point up until then but this kind of remark incredibly condescending and dismissive of other people's viewpoint. It's also quite possible that you're both right. That we'll need more training and new architecture breakthroughs. You could have left it at that you didn't think it would be solved by more training.

IIAOPSW 3y ago
I suppose it was not entirely clear that the viewpoint I'm mocking with "just train it more bro" is the extreme end of evangelists. The people who seem to believe LLM's are proof that we have fundamentally cracked the principle of cognition in the form of the neural network, and that there is nothing more to figure out other than just training it more, bro. We've all met a trainitmore bro. They are about as tedious as the statistical parrot parrots. Both of these extreme positions deserve some amount of dismissive mocking imo.

AshamedCaptain 3y ago

In my very first interaction with Bing's bot, I was asking some details about PC components, and e.g. it was common for bing to give back answers containing phrases like "as we tested in our previous article" (verbatim, even using the plural 1st person). It is obvious it is just parroting from the websites it scraped. PC hardware means benchmark results which means benchmark websites/blogs which means the "as we tested in our previous article" phrase is common so it will just put it there in the answer even if makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I really don't understand why people ascribe emergent behaviors to these systems such as "theory of mind". It's just randomness. I'm presuming there's just a lot of psycological pareidolia going around. It also got a significant chunk of the answers wrong, creative mode or not. Often, the Bing search it appeared to do actually showed the correct answer right in the snippet of the first result, yet it was not able to scrape that. More rarely but annoyingly frequently it would just search for the wrong thing (e.g. searched for "X vs Y" when it just didn't make sense since they were two layers of the same technology).

flangola7 3y ago
There's a research paper floating around...
jjeaff 3y ago
So, I certainly wouldn't ascribe any higher level thinking to these LLMs. But they do seem to have more capability than just regurgitating information. They have some logical thinking skills that I assume are not really emergent, but built into the system. For example, I was working on a configuration file for a somewhat new and esoteric firmware, so there isn't much info online about it. But I asked if a specific parameter could include more than one value and bing chat answered that it's assumption was no because it could find no mention anywhere of being able to use more than one value for that parameter. As far as I can tell, no one has answered a similar question anywhere online that it could have been regurgitating, so it seems to have deduced it.
- andsoitis 3y ago
  I would be careful to draw that conclusion. Not all information LLMs are trained on is accessible to the wide public (e.g. ChatGPT has training data from closed sources). Regardless, If you share the details of your prompt, I’d be interested to see whether my Google-fu turns up information.

basch 3y ago

LLMs will become components of larger systems. They are an example of a situation where putting excess effort into a problem returns a plausible result, but from an efficiency and accuracy standpoint, parts of what they are accomplishing are better solved by simpler systems. As they act as an interpreter, they should be able to identify when to hand off tasks to subroutines, and then reincorporate the result. Just because LLMs can successfully output what they are doing, doesn't mean they are the best tool for the job. They are sort of like a CPU, good at generalist everything tasks, better when augmented with coprocessors.