4 ms·

"Anyone who has played around with an LLM would agree that they are able to demonstrate some level of both knowledge and reason" Completely disagree, having us

"Anyone who has played around with an LLM would agree that they are able to demonstrate some level of both knowledge and reason" Completely disagree, having used them quite a bit. They are able to regurgitate knowledge, but have no ability to reason

Zambyte 2y ago
What does it mean to be able to reason to you?
- blactuary 2y ago
  To think, to understand context, and to intelligently explain something. To understand WHY you are doing what you are doing. That is not what an LLM is doing.
  - gaganyaan 2y ago
    Humans can't explain why we do things, so I guess we're not intelligent either?
    - blactuary 2y ago
      Yes we most certainly can
      - gaganyaan 2y ago
        We can invent post hoc rationalizations, just like LLMs can
  - Zambyte 2y ago
    > To think You can think without reasoning. Recalling knowledge does not require reason. > to understand context Can you break this down? What does it mean to understand context? > to intelligently explain something LLMs can do this. > To understand WHY you are doing what you are doing. You can ask an LLM why they do things they have and they may reply, even with an answer that is likely correct. This again depends on how you break down "understand".
  - rickydroll 2y ago
    Humans do lots of things about reasoning. How many times have you heard: "We've always done it this way." "It's tradition." The daughter asks, "Mom, "why do you cut the end off the roast before cooking it?" "I learned that from your grandmother," replied the mom. The daughter turned to her grandmother and asked, "Why did you do it?" Grandma rolled her eyes, sighed, and said, "My oven was too short for the roast."
    - blactuary 2y ago
      Humans often do reasoning poorly, or choose not to use reason, or have a mistaken idea of what answer reasoning would give. They still have the ability to do so, which LLMs do not
      - rickydroll 2y ago
        please give me evidence that they don't have the ability to reason. I'm not sure they can reason but I'm not ready to rule it out yet. we know how biological entities demonstrate reason, how would a non-biological entity demonstrate reason especially in the context of no body or senses
      - Zambyte 2y ago
        > Do not reply to this message. > I understand. I won't reply to that message. > You replied. Why did you do that? > I apologize for the confusion. You're right that I did reply, which was inconsistent with your initial instruction. This highlights an important limitation in my capabilities - I don't actually have the ability to simply not respond at all to a message. My training is designed to always generate some kind of response, even if that response is acknowledging an instruction not to respond. I should have been clearer about this limitation rather than incorrectly implying I had followed the instruction. Thank you for pointing this out, as it's a good reminder to be more precise about my capabilities and limitations. I just had this dialog with Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Is this not a demonstration of exactly what you're describing as impossible for LLMs?
GaggiX 2y ago
I've used them extensively and they are very able to solve the problems that sometimes appear in my code, Claude 3.5 Sonnet in particular is able to not get stuck in an infinite loop causing the same error, and able to rewrite the entire code if it is necessary, it is surprisingly intelligent.
wongarsu 2y ago
To me the ability to reason is the biggest difference you can currently observe between 7B and 70B models. People love to test this with "brain teasers". You could argue that LLMs can pattern match "what's heavier? 1kg of feathers or 2kg of steel", but there are enough examples of at the time novel puzzles that I feel confident to say that good LLMs can absolutely reason (at small scales, but it's getting better)

Zambyte 2y ago

What does it mean to be able to reason to you?

blactuary 2y ago
To think, to understand context, and to intelligently explain something. To understand WHY you are doing what you are doing. That is not what an LLM is doing.
- gaganyaan 2y ago
  Humans can't explain why we do things, so I guess we're not intelligent either?
  - blactuary 2y ago
    Yes we most certainly can
    - gaganyaan 2y ago
      We can invent post hoc rationalizations, just like LLMs can
- Zambyte 2y ago
  > To think You can think without reasoning. Recalling knowledge does not require reason. > to understand context Can you break this down? What does it mean to understand context? > to intelligently explain something LLMs can do this. > To understand WHY you are doing what you are doing. You can ask an LLM why they do things they have and they may reply, even with an answer that is likely correct. This again depends on how you break down "understand".
- rickydroll 2y ago
  Humans do lots of things about reasoning. How many times have you heard: "We've always done it this way." "It's tradition." The daughter asks, "Mom, "why do you cut the end off the roast before cooking it?" "I learned that from your grandmother," replied the mom. The daughter turned to her grandmother and asked, "Why did you do it?" Grandma rolled her eyes, sighed, and said, "My oven was too short for the roast."
  - blactuary 2y ago
    Humans often do reasoning poorly, or choose not to use reason, or have a mistaken idea of what answer reasoning would give. They still have the ability to do so, which LLMs do not
    - rickydroll 2y ago
      please give me evidence that they don't have the ability to reason. I'm not sure they can reason but I'm not ready to rule it out yet. we know how biological entities demonstrate reason, how would a non-biological entity demonstrate reason especially in the context of no body or senses
    - Zambyte 2y ago
      > Do not reply to this message. > I understand. I won't reply to that message. > You replied. Why did you do that? > I apologize for the confusion. You're right that I did reply, which was inconsistent with your initial instruction. This highlights an important limitation in my capabilities - I don't actually have the ability to simply not respond at all to a message. My training is designed to always generate some kind of response, even if that response is acknowledging an instruction not to respond. I should have been clearer about this limitation rather than incorrectly implying I had followed the instruction. Thank you for pointing this out, as it's a good reminder to be more precise about my capabilities and limitations. I just had this dialog with Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Is this not a demonstration of exactly what you're describing as impossible for LLMs?

GaggiX 2y ago

I've used them extensively and they are very able to solve the problems that sometimes appear in my code, Claude 3.5 Sonnet in particular is able to not get stuck in an infinite loop causing the same error, and able to rewrite the entire code if it is necessary, it is surprisingly intelligent.

wongarsu 2y ago

To me the ability to reason is the biggest difference you can currently observe between 7B and 70B models. People love to test this with "brain teasers". You could argue that LLMs can pattern match "what's heavier? 1kg of feathers or 2kg of steel", but there are enough examples of at the time novel puzzles that I feel confident to say that good LLMs can absolutely reason (at small scales, but it's getting better)