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GPT-4 is not solving logic problems, it's doing an extremely good job of generating text based on recognizing familiar patterns. If you give it something weird

by TillE 3y ago

GPT-4 is not solving logic problems, it's doing an extremely good job of generating text based on recognizing familiar patterns. If you give it something weird and unfamiliar, it will absolutely fail.

tsunamifury 3y ago
I’m tired of this repetitive statement which is so ridiculous. That’s what you do to! You obviously have to reason using in the fly models on how to pick the next word.
- xanderlewis 3y ago
  That ‘that’s what humans do too’ is also a repetitive statement. The truth lies somewhere in between, as always: humans and LLMs are similar, but in their current state LLMs do have a serious problem with reasoning tasks — even ones children find trivial.
  - WhitneyLand 3y ago
    What reasoning problem do children find trivial and LLM’s have serious problems with? I can’t think of any off the top of my head. I also tried to get GPT4 to craft such a problem and it was unable to: https://chat.openai.com/share/c1d5af4b-1d45-41ed-8f5a-746ea09278e4 https://chat.openai.com/share/c1d5af4b-1d45-41ed-8f5a-746ea0...
    - RationalDino 3y ago
      Solving mazes. GTP4 got stuck at 7x7. https://ekzhu.medium.com/gpt-4s-maze-navigation-a-deep-dive-into-react-agent-and-llm-s-thoughts-b1823fb266ee https://ekzhu.medium.com/gpt-4s-maze-navigation-a-deep-dive-...
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        My 4.5 yo wouldn't solve a 7x7 maze zero-shot either, not off-hand. Not even given multiple examples. Especially if getting confused, frustrated, and giving up is a valid move. At which point and after how much training a kid becomes able to solve mazes like this? Also, given how one can pull a problem like this - any problem - out of their ass, describe it to GPT-4, and it has a good chance of solving it, that's quite amazing compared to children generally not being capable of this.
- roflyear 3y ago
  Arguably, but not absolutely.
- NineStarPoint 3y ago
  Given the amount of people who report not having an internal monologue at all, I don’t think human logic is predicated on using words. They definitely can make complex logic easier, but it’s not a requirement. The cabbage, wolf, goat problem is also an easy example of a problem that doesn't really need words to solve once you’ve conceptualized it. You can solve it by moving physical figures back and forth, either literally on a table or using the visual imagination part of your mind if you have one.
  - timschmidt 3y ago
    Not being aware of something is different from not having something. If said people still manage to carry on conversation, chances are good it's being generated somewhere internally. Everyone is self-aware to different extents and about different aspects of self.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    > Given the amount of people who report not having an internal monologue at all, What does this mean?
    - Filligree 3y ago
      What is an internal monologue, exactly? Certainly I've heard to words a lot, but... what is it? That thing. I don't do that.
      - yreg 3y ago
        It's thinking in words.
    - bongodongobob 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        No, that's called aphantasia, it's orthogonal to not having an inner monologue (the "voice in your head"), and there are in fact people who effectively hallucinate on demand. Which I suppose explains a lot of phrases that make little sense if they're only taken symbolically. Or why some people like long scenery descriptions in books - they can literally imagine it. Unfortunately, I'm aphantasic, so I can't.
- CrazyStat 3y ago
  > obviously This is not at all obvious to me. Symbolic reasoning feels quite different from picking the next word. Using physical demonstrations (or mental models of physical demonstrations) feels quite different from picking the next word. Over the years I’ve come to believe that claims that something is “obvious” tell you more about the claimant’s state of mind than about the thing being claimed.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Symbolic reasoning isn't an atomic action. I can't speak for you or anyone else, but at least for me, symbolic reasoning involves either cached conclusions, or a fuck ton of talking to myself in my head - and that part is effectively LLM-like. Which is why I'm still bewildered people expect LLMs to solve math and symbolic issues directly, when they're clearly (see e.g. "chain of thought") better treated as "inner voice" and used accordingly.
    - lovecg 3y ago
      A lot of this kind of reasoning is very visual to me and involves no inner monologue of any kind - just visualizations flying around in my brain in complete silence. The translation into words happens later as a separate step. I wonder if this is not a universal experience.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        Some people have no inner monolog, something that blew my mind. When I work on problems I don't understand I'll monolog it internally. Now when I'm doing things I understand well I have some kind of internal shortcut language (my own token set I guess), that can sometimes make it difficult to explain to other people.
      - Davidzheng 3y ago
        Can you describe how you would reason about say a paragraph of code--something which is very language based?
golergka 3y ago
> solving logic problems > generating text based on recognizing familiar patterns That's the same thing.
- i_call_solo 3y ago
  Yes, but it's only able to solve problems that humans have already solved. The Eureka moment is when it starts solving problems that humans have not.
- epiccoleman 3y ago
  It really isn't.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  This is as insightful/true as saying logic is computation and GPT since does some computation, GPT can do all logic.
- aetherson 3y ago
  Here is me asking ChatGPT the classic simple wolf/sheep/cabbage logic question, but changing things so that the sheep eats the wolf, the wolf eats the rutabega, and the rutabega eats the sheep. ChatGPT immediately screws it up because it isn't actually solving the logic problem, it's just pattern-matching, and the strong pattern is for the wolf to eat the sheep. https://chat.openai.com/share/e9b88c45-e69b-4da4-b423-004d07879f7f https://chat.openai.com/share/e9b88c45-e69b-4da4-b423-004d07... EDIT: As noted in a subthread, I outclevered myself and also a bunch of human commentators, as the problem I proposed doesn't have a solution and neither ChatGPT, I, and also other presumably human commentators correctly identified that -- I had everything eat something, and the normal wolf/sheep/cabbage of course has the cabbage eating nothing. When I tried again with sheep-eats-wolf, wolf-eats-rutabaga, rutabaga-eats-nothing, it correctly solved the problem on the first try. https://chat.openai.com/share/5a2700de-1850-4f25-8adf-2d2b978bccaf https://chat.openai.com/share/5a2700de-1850-4f25-8adf-2d2b97...
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    Great, now try it with the current version. ------------------ The scenario you've described is a variation of a classic river crossing puzzle. Here's a step-by-step solution to get the wolf, sheep, and rutabaga across the river safely: First Trip: Take the sheep across the river and leave it on the other side. Return alone to the original side. Current status: Sheep is on the opposite side. Wolf and rutabaga are on the original side. Second Trip: Take the rutabaga across the river. Leave the rutabaga on the other side, but take the sheep back with you to the original side. Current status: Rutabaga is on the opposite side. Wolf and sheep are on the original side. Third Trip: Take the wolf across the river and leave it there. Return alone to the original side. Current status: Wolf and rutabaga are on the opposite side. Sheep is on the original side. Fourth Trip: Finally, take the sheep across the river. Result: All three (wolf, sheep, and rutabaga) are on the opposite side of the river safely. This solution ensures that at no point are the sheep and rutabaga left alone together (since the rutabaga would eat the sheep), nor are the wolf and rutabaga left alone (since the wolf would eat the rutabaga). Likewise, the sheep and wolf are not left alone without the rutabaga, which would result in the sheep eating the wolf.
Enginerrrd 3y ago
That's simply not true. I've invented totally novel logical problems in the form of stories for it to solve and it has done so successfully. It doesn't get it everytime in the first way that I ask but it absolutely will get with relatively modest rewriting of the prompt. In one case it finally had to ask me why I was asking it, and offered a couple of suggestions including "is this a way to test my reasoning capabilities?". Once it understood the context and intent of my question, it solved it easily. I think the people who dismiss this are simply ones that stopped at the first "gotcha" and moved on. They forget that GPT4 is not human and so it doesn't always understand things in the same way a human would. But once it understands the underlying concept, it can indeed solve novel problems.
- dkqmduems 3y ago
  Ask it to prove the existence of solutions to the navier Stokes equations.
- dilyevsky 3y ago
  There’s a much simpler explanation - your “invetions” are not that original I “invent” stuff at my dayjob all the time, then i find that at least 10 people already did that on github
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- what 3y ago
  Can you share some of your novel logic problems?

by TillE 3y ago

tsunamifury 3y ago

I’m tired of this repetitive statement which is so ridiculous. That’s what you do to! You obviously have to reason using in the fly models on how to pick the next word.

xanderlewis 3y ago
That ‘that’s what humans do too’ is also a repetitive statement. The truth lies somewhere in between, as always: humans and LLMs are similar, but in their current state LLMs do have a serious problem with reasoning tasks — even ones children find trivial.
- WhitneyLand 3y ago
  What reasoning problem do children find trivial and LLM’s have serious problems with? I can’t think of any off the top of my head. I also tried to get GPT4 to craft such a problem and it was unable to: https://chat.openai.com/share/c1d5af4b-1d45-41ed-8f5a-746ea09278e4 https://chat.openai.com/share/c1d5af4b-1d45-41ed-8f5a-746ea0...
  - RationalDino 3y ago
    Solving mazes. GTP4 got stuck at 7x7. https://ekzhu.medium.com/gpt-4s-maze-navigation-a-deep-dive-into-react-agent-and-llm-s-thoughts-b1823fb266ee https://ekzhu.medium.com/gpt-4s-maze-navigation-a-deep-dive-...
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      My 4.5 yo wouldn't solve a 7x7 maze zero-shot either, not off-hand. Not even given multiple examples. Especially if getting confused, frustrated, and giving up is a valid move. At which point and after how much training a kid becomes able to solve mazes like this? Also, given how one can pull a problem like this - any problem - out of their ass, describe it to GPT-4, and it has a good chance of solving it, that's quite amazing compared to children generally not being capable of this.
roflyear 3y ago
Arguably, but not absolutely.
NineStarPoint 3y ago
Given the amount of people who report not having an internal monologue at all, I don’t think human logic is predicated on using words. They definitely can make complex logic easier, but it’s not a requirement. The cabbage, wolf, goat problem is also an easy example of a problem that doesn't really need words to solve once you’ve conceptualized it. You can solve it by moving physical figures back and forth, either literally on a table or using the visual imagination part of your mind if you have one.
- timschmidt 3y ago
  Not being aware of something is different from not having something. If said people still manage to carry on conversation, chances are good it's being generated somewhere internally. Everyone is self-aware to different extents and about different aspects of self.
- bmitc 3y ago
  > Given the amount of people who report not having an internal monologue at all, What does this mean?
  - Filligree 3y ago
    What is an internal monologue, exactly? Certainly I've heard to words a lot, but... what is it? That thing. I don't do that.
    - yreg 3y ago
      It's thinking in words.
  - bongodongobob 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      No, that's called aphantasia, it's orthogonal to not having an inner monologue (the "voice in your head"), and there are in fact people who effectively hallucinate on demand. Which I suppose explains a lot of phrases that make little sense if they're only taken symbolically. Or why some people like long scenery descriptions in books - they can literally imagine it. Unfortunately, I'm aphantasic, so I can't.
CrazyStat 3y ago
> obviously This is not at all obvious to me. Symbolic reasoning feels quite different from picking the next word. Using physical demonstrations (or mental models of physical demonstrations) feels quite different from picking the next word. Over the years I’ve come to believe that claims that something is “obvious” tell you more about the claimant’s state of mind than about the thing being claimed.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Symbolic reasoning isn't an atomic action. I can't speak for you or anyone else, but at least for me, symbolic reasoning involves either cached conclusions, or a fuck ton of talking to myself in my head - and that part is effectively LLM-like. Which is why I'm still bewildered people expect LLMs to solve math and symbolic issues directly, when they're clearly (see e.g. "chain of thought") better treated as "inner voice" and used accordingly.
  - lovecg 3y ago
    A lot of this kind of reasoning is very visual to me and involves no inner monologue of any kind - just visualizations flying around in my brain in complete silence. The translation into words happens later as a separate step. I wonder if this is not a universal experience.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Some people have no inner monolog, something that blew my mind. When I work on problems I don't understand I'll monolog it internally. Now when I'm doing things I understand well I have some kind of internal shortcut language (my own token set I guess), that can sometimes make it difficult to explain to other people.
    - Davidzheng 3y ago
      Can you describe how you would reason about say a paragraph of code--something which is very language based?

golergka 3y ago

> solving logic problems > generating text based on recognizing familiar patterns That's the same thing.

i_call_solo 3y ago
Yes, but it's only able to solve problems that humans have already solved. The Eureka moment is when it starts solving problems that humans have not.
epiccoleman 3y ago
It really isn't.
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
This is as insightful/true as saying logic is computation and GPT since does some computation, GPT can do all logic.
aetherson 3y ago
Here is me asking ChatGPT the classic simple wolf/sheep/cabbage logic question, but changing things so that the sheep eats the wolf, the wolf eats the rutabega, and the rutabega eats the sheep. ChatGPT immediately screws it up because it isn't actually solving the logic problem, it's just pattern-matching, and the strong pattern is for the wolf to eat the sheep. https://chat.openai.com/share/e9b88c45-e69b-4da4-b423-004d07879f7f https://chat.openai.com/share/e9b88c45-e69b-4da4-b423-004d07... EDIT: As noted in a subthread, I outclevered myself and also a bunch of human commentators, as the problem I proposed doesn't have a solution and neither ChatGPT, I, and also other presumably human commentators correctly identified that -- I had everything eat something, and the normal wolf/sheep/cabbage of course has the cabbage eating nothing. When I tried again with sheep-eats-wolf, wolf-eats-rutabaga, rutabaga-eats-nothing, it correctly solved the problem on the first try. https://chat.openai.com/share/5a2700de-1850-4f25-8adf-2d2b978bccaf https://chat.openai.com/share/5a2700de-1850-4f25-8adf-2d2b97...
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  Great, now try it with the current version. ------------------ The scenario you've described is a variation of a classic river crossing puzzle. Here's a step-by-step solution to get the wolf, sheep, and rutabaga across the river safely: First Trip: Take the sheep across the river and leave it on the other side. Return alone to the original side. Current status: Sheep is on the opposite side. Wolf and rutabaga are on the original side. Second Trip: Take the rutabaga across the river. Leave the rutabaga on the other side, but take the sheep back with you to the original side. Current status: Rutabaga is on the opposite side. Wolf and sheep are on the original side. Third Trip: Take the wolf across the river and leave it there. Return alone to the original side. Current status: Wolf and rutabaga are on the opposite side. Sheep is on the original side. Fourth Trip: Finally, take the sheep across the river. Result: All three (wolf, sheep, and rutabaga) are on the opposite side of the river safely. This solution ensures that at no point are the sheep and rutabaga left alone together (since the rutabaga would eat the sheep), nor are the wolf and rutabaga left alone (since the wolf would eat the rutabaga). Likewise, the sheep and wolf are not left alone without the rutabaga, which would result in the sheep eating the wolf.

Enginerrrd 3y ago

That's simply not true. I've invented totally novel logical problems in the form of stories for it to solve and it has done so successfully. It doesn't get it everytime in the first way that I ask but it absolutely will get with relatively modest rewriting of the prompt. In one case it finally had to ask me why I was asking it, and offered a couple of suggestions including "is this a way to test my reasoning capabilities?". Once it understood the context and intent of my question, it solved it easily. I think the people who dismiss this are simply ones that stopped at the first "gotcha" and moved on. They forget that GPT4 is not human and so it doesn't always understand things in the same way a human would. But once it understands the underlying concept, it can indeed solve novel problems.

dkqmduems 3y ago
Ask it to prove the existence of solutions to the navier Stokes equations.
dilyevsky 3y ago
There’s a much simpler explanation - your “invetions” are not that original I “invent” stuff at my dayjob all the time, then i find that at least 10 people already did that on github
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
what 3y ago
Can you share some of your novel logic problems?