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This is why I am asking you to define understanding: your definition of understanding and mine seem to be very different. I agree it's the "first" definition of

This is why I am asking you to define understanding: your definition of understanding and mine seem to be very different. I agree it's the "first" definition of understanding, not "process and analyze that data, recognize patterns, and generate relevant responses." LLMs can certainly analyze data, do pattern matching, and generate responses. I would not consider that "understanding" - but if you do, sure.

auggierose 3y ago
Understanding is hard to define. I would not include consciousness in its definition, or emotions, etc. For me, understanding means being able to respond to my queries in a way that would be impossible for a human without the human understanding what I am saying. In fact, I think that is a pretty good definition.
- roflyear 3y ago
  If you make up definitions, anything can be anything. Words have meanings and should be used precisely, or if used in a different context or a different way, they should be explained. This helps people understand you, and allows them to interact with you in good faith. Unless you are not interested in having discussions with people in good faith, otherwise, I guess you can do whatever you want. It's just like interacting with an LLM. You have to use things as "they understand them" - try to make up your own definitions to a word and see if an LLM can make sense of you. Of course they cannot (unless you do something like "this word now means this other word" which is pretty impressive, I have to say!) The literal definition of "understanding" is "the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars" (webster) which is expanded on by wikipedia "a cognitive process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to use concepts to model that object." I would agree that a "model" is important here. I can model out code flow. A LLM doesn't seem to do this: it uses the code to predict more code (based on training data). This is painfully obvious in some cases, where no matter what you do, an LLM will start to "oscillate" between two wrong answers, or when you're trying to do something novel: LLMs can't come up with new concepts or new ways to apply existing concepts. Now, talking about understanding a specific thing muddies the waters I think. There are plenty of things I do not "understand" or only "understand partially" but do I have the capability of general understanding? Of course. I argue that an LLM doesn't have understanding, but it can mimic understanding. In practice this may mean very little (LLMs certainly have more knowledge than I do on almost all subjects lol) but I think over time this will lead to a "wall" these systems will hit (if they haven't already). It gets worse, that whenever someone comes up with a counterexample saying an LLM lacks understanding, the response is always "well, it just hasn't been trained enough, yet!" Like, we agree - but for different reasons. I agree you can train it on that example (in the way that GPT4 seems to have been trained on chess games) and then it will start to look like it is "understanding" but I disagree it is capable of a intrinsic understanding. You can't teach LLMs a new grammar, for example.
  - auggierose 3y ago
    Oh, but you can teach LLMs a new grammar. I've done that for my new logic. Works great. I don't think we agree at all. I think LLMs do understand, you think they don't. Most things are not well-defined, and if you want to be precise, you have to adapt your definition to the situation. That happens all the time even in mathematics. I think I gave you a pretty good one for understanding though: Let's assume we know what understanding means for humans, and then just use that knowledge to define understanding for an LLM. And if you use that definition, there is no way you can deny that LLMs do understand. But even if we use your webster definition "the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars", yes, LLMs do have that capacity. They are great at 1-shot, even 0-shot. That's exactly that.
    - roflyear 3y ago
      1) What do you think the phrase "the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars" means? 2) Can you give me an example of you teaching an LLM a grammar?
    - auggierose 3y ago
      @roflyear for 2): no, I don't want to share that for now. for 1): *user*: What does "the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars" mean? -------------------- *assistant*: "The capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars" refers to the ability to understand or grasp the broader or overall connections or relationships between specific or individual elements or details. This involves being able to see patterns, trends, or commonalities among individual pieces of information, and to understand how they relate to each other in a larger context or framework. -------------------- *user*: Do you think you have that capacity? -------------------- *assistant*: As an artificial intelligence, I have the ability to analyze and identify patterns and relationships in the data I process. However, my understanding is based on programmed algorithms and does not involve personal experience or intuition like a human's understanding would. So, while I can identify and explain relationships in data, my capacity is different from human capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars. -------------------- *user*: I don't see me asking if this is different from a human capacity or not. A simple yes or no answer is enough. -------------------- *assistant*: Yes, as an AI, I have the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars.

auggierose 3y ago

Understanding is hard to define. I would not include consciousness in its definition, or emotions, etc. For me, understanding means being able to respond to my queries in a way that would be impossible for a human without the human understanding what I am saying. In fact, I think that is a pretty good definition.

roflyear 3y ago
If you make up definitions, anything can be anything. Words have meanings and should be used precisely, or if used in a different context or a different way, they should be explained. This helps people understand you, and allows them to interact with you in good faith. Unless you are not interested in having discussions with people in good faith, otherwise, I guess you can do whatever you want. It's just like interacting with an LLM. You have to use things as "they understand them" - try to make up your own definitions to a word and see if an LLM can make sense of you. Of course they cannot (unless you do something like "this word now means this other word" which is pretty impressive, I have to say!) The literal definition of "understanding" is "the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars" (webster) which is expanded on by wikipedia "a cognitive process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to use concepts to model that object." I would agree that a "model" is important here. I can model out code flow. A LLM doesn't seem to do this: it uses the code to predict more code (based on training data). This is painfully obvious in some cases, where no matter what you do, an LLM will start to "oscillate" between two wrong answers, or when you're trying to do something novel: LLMs can't come up with new concepts or new ways to apply existing concepts. Now, talking about understanding a specific thing muddies the waters I think. There are plenty of things I do not "understand" or only "understand partially" but do I have the capability of general understanding? Of course. I argue that an LLM doesn't have understanding, but it can mimic understanding. In practice this may mean very little (LLMs certainly have more knowledge than I do on almost all subjects lol) but I think over time this will lead to a "wall" these systems will hit (if they haven't already). It gets worse, that whenever someone comes up with a counterexample saying an LLM lacks understanding, the response is always "well, it just hasn't been trained enough, yet!" Like, we agree - but for different reasons. I agree you can train it on that example (in the way that GPT4 seems to have been trained on chess games) and then it will start to look like it is "understanding" but I disagree it is capable of a intrinsic understanding. You can't teach LLMs a new grammar, for example.
- auggierose 3y ago
  Oh, but you can teach LLMs a new grammar. I've done that for my new logic. Works great. I don't think we agree at all. I think LLMs do understand, you think they don't. Most things are not well-defined, and if you want to be precise, you have to adapt your definition to the situation. That happens all the time even in mathematics. I think I gave you a pretty good one for understanding though: Let's assume we know what understanding means for humans, and then just use that knowledge to define understanding for an LLM. And if you use that definition, there is no way you can deny that LLMs do understand. But even if we use your webster definition "the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars", yes, LLMs do have that capacity. They are great at 1-shot, even 0-shot. That's exactly that.
  - roflyear 3y ago
    1) What do you think the phrase "the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars" means? 2) Can you give me an example of you teaching an LLM a grammar?
  - auggierose 3y ago
    @roflyear for 2): no, I don't want to share that for now. for 1): *user*: What does "the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars" mean? -------------------- *assistant*: "The capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars" refers to the ability to understand or grasp the broader or overall connections or relationships between specific or individual elements or details. This involves being able to see patterns, trends, or commonalities among individual pieces of information, and to understand how they relate to each other in a larger context or framework. -------------------- *user*: Do you think you have that capacity? -------------------- *assistant*: As an artificial intelligence, I have the ability to analyze and identify patterns and relationships in the data I process. However, my understanding is based on programmed algorithms and does not involve personal experience or intuition like a human's understanding would. So, while I can identify and explain relationships in data, my capacity is different from human capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars. -------------------- *user*: I don't see me asking if this is different from a human capacity or not. A simple yes or no answer is enough. -------------------- *assistant*: Yes, as an AI, I have the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars.