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No. We know exactly what "text generators" do and we also know that is not what the brain does. That can be true even if you don't fully understand what the br

by RC_ITR 3y ago

No. We know exactly what "text generators" do and we also know that is not what the brain does. That can be true even if you don't fully understand what the brain does. An easy way to prove the two are different is 'What is the equivalent to the endocrine system for an LLM and why doesn't it get tired like a mind?' The logical problems that a lot of people run into are twofold: 1) At a very basic level, we modeled these architectures on brains (and named them after our brains), so at a very very basic metaphorical level, you can say 'these things are acting like our brains act.' This ignores the complexity of the brain. 2) We like to think that inconveniences of our minds (like the need for sleep) are "problems" that we can engineer away, rather than intrinsic components of the process. People won't like hearing this, but there's no formal reason why 'the need to sleep' is not a necessary criteria for 'being conscious,' because as far as we know, the only conscious beings out there also sleep. It's just human nature to assume we can engineer the 'good' parts of a biological system while avoiding the 'bad' while still essentially replicating the system, but that's usually not the case. [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2525690/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2525690/

nomel 3y ago
> What is the equivalent to the endocrine system for an LLM Are you suggesting that the brain is the only implementation that can “think”? Or that an endocrine system is required? The difference isn’t the interesting, or necessarily useful, part; the practical similarities of the output are. If we can make a system that appears to "think", I can’t understand how it can be so easily dismissed when we don’t know what’s going on in it or us.
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  I do think nervous systems (the brain being the most complex example we know of) are the only things that do what we call thinking. What else does (please do not mention any deterministic counting machines like semiconductors - neurons are not deterministic and thought isn’t a deterministic set of calculations). I would argue that the difference in process is extremely important, as evidenced by how easily we are fooled by optical illusions. Just because we think two things appear the same does not mean they are, and understanding why they appear the same but are different relies on a study of the “how” To put your argument differently - “if we can make drawings that appear to be three dimensional to our eyes, why bother understanding the difference between 2-D and 3-D space?”
  - nomel 3y ago
    > please do not mention any deterministic counting machines like semiconductors - neurons are not deterministic and thought isn’t a deterministic set of calculations I have to mention it, because it's physics, and related to the current implementation of LLMs: random numbers are possible, and used to break determinism. Intel CPUs use thermal noise to generate random numbers [1]. With silicon, randomness is a free choice, not an impossibility. LLMs front ends, like anything from OpenAI, use random numbers to get non-deterministic output, which is also the input of the next word, and the context of the next response, resulting in output that's not deterministic, with broad divergence [2]. Both systems are somewhat bound by the "sensibility"/logic of the output though, of course. > as evidenced by how easily we are fooled by optical illusions This isn't neccesarily unique to humans [3]. Do you have a specific illusion in mind? Many are related to active "baselining", and other time response things, that happens in our eyes, with others being an incorrect resolution of real ambiguity, from a two sensor system, that any sensor system will struggle with. > Just because we think two things appear the same does not mean they are I don't think anyone is suggesting they're the same, but I see many people suggesting, with seemingly undue confidence, that they're completely unrelated, which would require an understanding of either system that we don't have. > To put your argument differently - ... My argument is, if it's 3d to your eyes, then that understanding, and relation, between 2d and 3d space already exists in the system, to some degree. [1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/guide/intel-digital-random-number-generator-drng-software-implementation-guide.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/g... [2] https://www.coltsteele.com/tips/understanding-openai-s-temperature-parameter https://www.coltsteele.com/tips/understanding-openai-s-tempe... [3] https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/04/26/artificial-intelligence-tricked-by-optical-illusion-just-like-humans/ https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/04/26/artificial-intellige...
    - RC_ITR 3y ago
      I know that there are various strategies for picking pseudo random numbers, but what I mean by determinism is that as far as we can tell, the activation trigger for a neuron is highly dependent on outside signals like hormones. That means that a biological “dot product” will be different if you are tired vs. well rested. A dot product run on Intel CPUs are intended to always be the same no matter what. The heat signature stuff isn’t changing the way circuits do math. As to optical illusions, the point I was making was that “the way humans practically perceive something” is not a sufficient way to measure the similarness of two things, since our perceptions are so often tricked (LLMs are literally trained specifically to trick you into thinking you’re talking to sentience). I also don’t think they are completely unrelated at all. As I said I know we designed one to be like the other. It’s just by no means “the same.” AI may one day do convergent evolution toward how brains think, but it’s still important to recognize that’s convergent evolution.
warkdarrior 3y ago
The endocrime system is a tool to manage/regulate the operation of a physical object (the human body). LLMs do not have a body or other physical object to manage, so they do not need endocrime systems.
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  The endocrine system has a huge impact on your brain and thought process.
maxdoop 3y ago
We know exactly what an LLM does? How does that differ from a brain?
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  One does deterministic matrix math and the other doesn’t. It’s a common experience that candy tasted sweeter to you as a child, right? How does that work in a transformer?

by RC_ITR 3y ago

nomel 3y ago

> What is the equivalent to the endocrine system for an LLM Are you suggesting that the brain is the only implementation that can “think”? Or that an endocrine system is required? The difference isn’t the interesting, or necessarily useful, part; the practical similarities of the output are. If we can make a system that appears to "think", I can’t understand how it can be so easily dismissed when we don’t know what’s going on in it or us.

RC_ITR 3y ago
I do think nervous systems (the brain being the most complex example we know of) are the only things that do what we call thinking. What else does (please do not mention any deterministic counting machines like semiconductors - neurons are not deterministic and thought isn’t a deterministic set of calculations). I would argue that the difference in process is extremely important, as evidenced by how easily we are fooled by optical illusions. Just because we think two things appear the same does not mean they are, and understanding why they appear the same but are different relies on a study of the “how” To put your argument differently - “if we can make drawings that appear to be three dimensional to our eyes, why bother understanding the difference between 2-D and 3-D space?”
- nomel 3y ago
  > please do not mention any deterministic counting machines like semiconductors - neurons are not deterministic and thought isn’t a deterministic set of calculations I have to mention it, because it's physics, and related to the current implementation of LLMs: random numbers are possible, and used to break determinism. Intel CPUs use thermal noise to generate random numbers [1]. With silicon, randomness is a free choice, not an impossibility. LLMs front ends, like anything from OpenAI, use random numbers to get non-deterministic output, which is also the input of the next word, and the context of the next response, resulting in output that's not deterministic, with broad divergence [2]. Both systems are somewhat bound by the "sensibility"/logic of the output though, of course. > as evidenced by how easily we are fooled by optical illusions This isn't neccesarily unique to humans [3]. Do you have a specific illusion in mind? Many are related to active "baselining", and other time response things, that happens in our eyes, with others being an incorrect resolution of real ambiguity, from a two sensor system, that any sensor system will struggle with. > Just because we think two things appear the same does not mean they are I don't think anyone is suggesting they're the same, but I see many people suggesting, with seemingly undue confidence, that they're completely unrelated, which would require an understanding of either system that we don't have. > To put your argument differently - ... My argument is, if it's 3d to your eyes, then that understanding, and relation, between 2d and 3d space already exists in the system, to some degree. [1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/guide/intel-digital-random-number-generator-drng-software-implementation-guide.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/g... [2] https://www.coltsteele.com/tips/understanding-openai-s-temperature-parameter https://www.coltsteele.com/tips/understanding-openai-s-tempe... [3] https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/04/26/artificial-intelligence-tricked-by-optical-illusion-just-like-humans/ https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/04/26/artificial-intellige...
  - RC_ITR 3y ago
    I know that there are various strategies for picking pseudo random numbers, but what I mean by determinism is that as far as we can tell, the activation trigger for a neuron is highly dependent on outside signals like hormones. That means that a biological “dot product” will be different if you are tired vs. well rested. A dot product run on Intel CPUs are intended to always be the same no matter what. The heat signature stuff isn’t changing the way circuits do math. As to optical illusions, the point I was making was that “the way humans practically perceive something” is not a sufficient way to measure the similarness of two things, since our perceptions are so often tricked (LLMs are literally trained specifically to trick you into thinking you’re talking to sentience). I also don’t think they are completely unrelated at all. As I said I know we designed one to be like the other. It’s just by no means “the same.” AI may one day do convergent evolution toward how brains think, but it’s still important to recognize that’s convergent evolution.

warkdarrior 3y ago

The endocrime system is a tool to manage/regulate the operation of a physical object (the human body). LLMs do not have a body or other physical object to manage, so they do not need endocrime systems.

RC_ITR 3y ago
The endocrine system has a huge impact on your brain and thought process.

maxdoop 3y ago

We know exactly what an LLM does? How does that differ from a brain?

RC_ITR 3y ago
One does deterministic matrix math and the other doesn’t. It’s a common experience that candy tasted sweeter to you as a child, right? How does that work in a transformer?