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In my mind LLMs are already fatally compromised. Proximity matching via vector embeddings that offer no guarantees of completeness or correctness have already

In my mind LLMs are already fatally compromised. Proximity matching via vector embeddings that offer no guarantees of completeness or correctness have already surrendered the essential advantage of technological advances. Imagine a dictionary where the words are only mostly in alphabetical order. If you look up a word and don't find it, you can't be certain it's not in there. It's as useful as asking someone else, or several other people, but it's value as a reference is zero, and there's no shortage of other people on the planet.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
> Proximity matching via vector embeddings that offer no guarantees of completeness or correctness have already surrendered the essential advantage of technological advances. On the contrary, it's arguably the breakthrough that allowed us to model concepts and meaning in computers. A sufficiently high-dimensional embedding space can model arbitrary relationships between embedded entities, which allows each of them to be defined in terms of its associations to all the others. This is more-less how we define concepts too, if you dig down into it. > Imagine a dictionary where the words are only mostly in alphabetical order. If you look up a word and don't find it, you can't be certain it's not in there. It's already the case with dictionaries. Dictionaries have mistakes, words out of order; they get outdated, and most importantly, they're descriptive. If a word isn't in it, or isn't defined in particular way, you cannot be certain it doesn't exist or doesn't mean anything other than the dictionary says it does. > It's as useful as asking someone else, or several other people Which is very useful, because it saves you the hassle of dealing with other people. Especially when it's as useful as asking an expert, which saves you the effort of finding one. Now scale that up to being able to ask about whole topics of interest, instead of single words. > it's value as a reference is zero Obviously. So is the value of asking even an expert for an immediate, snap answer, and going with that. > and there's no shortage of other people on the planet Again, dealing with people is stupidly expensive in time, energy and effort, starting with having to find the right people. LLM is just a function call away.
- fatbird 2y ago
  Technology advances by supplanting human mechanisms, not by amplifying or cheapening them. A loom isn't a more nimble hand, it's a different mechanical approach to weaving. Wheels and roads aren't better legs, they're different conveyances. LLMs as a replacement for dealing with people but offering only the same certainty aren't an advance. LLMs do math by trying to match an answer to a prompt. Mathematica does better than that.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    Wheels and roads do the same thing as legs in several major use cases, only they do it better. Sane with jet engines and flapping wings. Same with loom vs. hand, and same with LLMs vs. people. > LLMs do math by trying to match an answer to a prompt. Mathematica does better than that. Category error. Pencil and paper or theorem prover are better at doing complex math than snap judgment of an expert, but an expert using those tools according to their judgement is the best. LLMs compete with snap judgement, not heavily algorithmic tasks. Still, it's a somewhat pointless discussion, because the premise behind your argument is that LLMs aren't a big breakthrough, which is in disagreement with facts obvious to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past year.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> Proximity matching via vector embeddings that offer no guarantees of completeness or correctness have already surrendered the essential advantage of technological advances. On the contrary, it's arguably the breakthrough that allowed us to model concepts and meaning in computers. A sufficiently high-dimensional embedding space can model arbitrary relationships between embedded entities, which allows each of them to be defined in terms of its associations to all the others. This is more-less how we define concepts too, if you dig down into it. > Imagine a dictionary where the words are only mostly in alphabetical order. If you look up a word and don't find it, you can't be certain it's not in there. It's already the case with dictionaries. Dictionaries have mistakes, words out of order; they get outdated, and most importantly, they're descriptive. If a word isn't in it, or isn't defined in particular way, you cannot be certain it doesn't exist or doesn't mean anything other than the dictionary says it does. > It's as useful as asking someone else, or several other people Which is very useful, because it saves you the hassle of dealing with other people. Especially when it's as useful as asking an expert, which saves you the effort of finding one. Now scale that up to being able to ask about whole topics of interest, instead of single words. > it's value as a reference is zero Obviously. So is the value of asking even an expert for an immediate, snap answer, and going with that. > and there's no shortage of other people on the planet Again, dealing with people is stupidly expensive in time, energy and effort, starting with having to find the right people. LLM is just a function call away.

fatbird 2y ago
Technology advances by supplanting human mechanisms, not by amplifying or cheapening them. A loom isn't a more nimble hand, it's a different mechanical approach to weaving. Wheels and roads aren't better legs, they're different conveyances. LLMs as a replacement for dealing with people but offering only the same certainty aren't an advance. LLMs do math by trying to match an answer to a prompt. Mathematica does better than that.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Wheels and roads do the same thing as legs in several major use cases, only they do it better. Sane with jet engines and flapping wings. Same with loom vs. hand, and same with LLMs vs. people. > LLMs do math by trying to match an answer to a prompt. Mathematica does better than that. Category error. Pencil and paper or theorem prover are better at doing complex math than snap judgment of an expert, but an expert using those tools according to their judgement is the best. LLMs compete with snap judgement, not heavily algorithmic tasks. Still, it's a somewhat pointless discussion, because the premise behind your argument is that LLMs aren't a big breakthrough, which is in disagreement with facts obvious to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past year.