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Most humans don't completely understand the things that they read or the words they utter. Why would we expect different from artificial intelligence? Underst

Most humans don't completely understand the things that they read or the words they utter. Why would we expect different from artificial intelligence? Understanding things is computationally expensive from both a biological and digital perspective.

droopyEyelids 3y ago
This seems like changing the subject from whether LLMs understand to a comparison between LLMs and people.
sgt101 3y ago
I am astonished that I read so many people saying this. Why do you think this? When your mum or dad talks about their day or the show they are watching do you really think that they have no underlying theory of what is going on that they are expressing? What is the agenda behind casting other people as idiots & zombies? Is the idea that it makes it ok to kill them and then move to Mars? Or is there something less sinister that drives this?
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  I often wonder if this is just the logical extreme form of "fundamental attribution error". You know the sort of thing. Two people smash a glass on the floor. One of them is me. I am a decent person and I smashed the glass on the floor because I had a bad day. I am more likely to think the other person smashed the glass on the floor because they are a thoughtless person or have an anger management problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error What if the logical conclusion is metaphysical solipsism: I did XYZ because I am a thinking person. They did XYZ because they are unthinking products of their environment and training?
- zopa 3y ago
  Can't speak for what the person you're replying to meant (lol), but no, of course it's not nearly that stark. There's a continuum. Concrete everyday topic that comes up frequently? Everyone's going to know what they mean by what they say there. But we've all been in business meetings where people were just putting words together in a plausible way; we've probably all been the people speaking at those meetings. The fact that it's possible to say things that make no sense, without knowing that they make no sense, proves the point. You or I can come up with a phrase like "the barber of Seville shaves all the people who do not shave themselves," and we can come up with paradoxical phrases without realizing that they are nonsensical. Neither of those would be possible if there were always a strict, one-to-one relationship between speech utterances and facts about the world. Sometimes we have a specific idea of what we mean by what we say, sometimes we're just putting words together, often it's somewhere in between.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > and we can come up with paradoxical phrases without realizing that they are nonsensical Sometimes we have difficulty even noticing that a phrase is paradoxical even when pointed out. "More people have been to Berlin than I have."
- ravenstine 3y ago
  > When your mum or dad talks about their day or the show they are watching do you really think that they have no underlying theory of what is going on that they are expressing? I didn't suggest anything like that. > What is the agenda behind casting other people as idiots & zombies? Show us where I suggested that people are "idiots" and "zombies". You're attributing qualities to my comment that are not there. > Is the idea that it makes it ok to kill them and then move to Mars? No. > Or is there something less sinister that drives this? No.
- ben_w 3y ago
  The first sentence is: > Most humans don't completely understand the things that they read or the words they utter. As a kid, I watched Star Trek VI. I enjoyed it at a superficial level: explosion, ship go woosh, look at that silly person saying Shakespeare is best in the original Klingon, ooh plot twist, prison/escape, dramatic defeat of hidden foe, dramatic rescue of important person. I didn't get any of the historical context, the Cold War themes, "better dead than red", the American experiences of racism, etc., until re-watching it in my 30s. And if that anecdote isn't a suitable example for your astonishment about people not "completely" understanding the things that they read, well, my failure to understand you in this instance should be one all by itself, no? Note that none of this requires us to be idiots or zombies.

droopyEyelids 3y ago

This seems like changing the subject from whether LLMs understand to a comparison between LLMs and people.

sgt101 3y ago

I am astonished that I read so many people saying this. Why do you think this? When your mum or dad talks about their day or the show they are watching do you really think that they have no underlying theory of what is going on that they are expressing? What is the agenda behind casting other people as idiots & zombies? Is the idea that it makes it ok to kill them and then move to Mars? Or is there something less sinister that drives this?

bemusedthrow75 3y ago
I often wonder if this is just the logical extreme form of "fundamental attribution error". You know the sort of thing. Two people smash a glass on the floor. One of them is me. I am a decent person and I smashed the glass on the floor because I had a bad day. I am more likely to think the other person smashed the glass on the floor because they are a thoughtless person or have an anger management problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error What if the logical conclusion is metaphysical solipsism: I did XYZ because I am a thinking person. They did XYZ because they are unthinking products of their environment and training?
zopa 3y ago
Can't speak for what the person you're replying to meant (lol), but no, of course it's not nearly that stark. There's a continuum. Concrete everyday topic that comes up frequently? Everyone's going to know what they mean by what they say there. But we've all been in business meetings where people were just putting words together in a plausible way; we've probably all been the people speaking at those meetings. The fact that it's possible to say things that make no sense, without knowing that they make no sense, proves the point. You or I can come up with a phrase like "the barber of Seville shaves all the people who do not shave themselves," and we can come up with paradoxical phrases without realizing that they are nonsensical. Neither of those would be possible if there were always a strict, one-to-one relationship between speech utterances and facts about the world. Sometimes we have a specific idea of what we mean by what we say, sometimes we're just putting words together, often it's somewhere in between.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > and we can come up with paradoxical phrases without realizing that they are nonsensical Sometimes we have difficulty even noticing that a phrase is paradoxical even when pointed out. "More people have been to Berlin than I have."
ravenstine 3y ago
> When your mum or dad talks about their day or the show they are watching do you really think that they have no underlying theory of what is going on that they are expressing? I didn't suggest anything like that. > What is the agenda behind casting other people as idiots & zombies? Show us where I suggested that people are "idiots" and "zombies". You're attributing qualities to my comment that are not there. > Is the idea that it makes it ok to kill them and then move to Mars? No. > Or is there something less sinister that drives this? No.
ben_w 3y ago
The first sentence is: > Most humans don't completely understand the things that they read or the words they utter. As a kid, I watched Star Trek VI. I enjoyed it at a superficial level: explosion, ship go woosh, look at that silly person saying Shakespeare is best in the original Klingon, ooh plot twist, prison/escape, dramatic defeat of hidden foe, dramatic rescue of important person. I didn't get any of the historical context, the Cold War themes, "better dead than red", the American experiences of racism, etc., until re-watching it in my 30s. And if that anecdote isn't a suitable example for your astonishment about people not "completely" understanding the things that they read, well, my failure to understand you in this instance should be one all by itself, no? Note that none of this requires us to be idiots or zombies.