3 ms·
LLMs do not understand language. They simulate language. Does language understand itself? Some of it does, and some of it doesn't. Remember, LLMs aren't the p
by thomastjeffery 3y ago
LLMs do not understand language. They simulate language.
Does language understand itself? Some of it does, and some of it doesn't.
Remember, LLMs aren't the person writing.
- janalsncm 3y agoWhat does it mean to understand language, and can you test your definition? I say this because statements like yours are a bit like saying calculators don’t understand arithmetic. In some sense maybe they don’t. But in another sense, they actually understand arithmetic better than anyone on the planet. So maybe ChatGPT does understand language. Maybe it understands language better than anyone. What it doesn’t have are real-world experiences.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoPerformance is not understanding. The difference is objectivity: a calculator does not think about arithmetic, it performs it. A large language model is a collection of relationships between "tokens" (arbitrary groups of characters, similar to words). This is intended to exist in the same conceptual place that language does; language being defined as a collection of relationships between words and punctuation.
- janalsncm 3y agoYes, this is why I asked you how you would test your definition. All of our tests of understanding are performances.