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> now we have a second example of a system that uses language, and it is dumbfounding An LLM 'uses' language, in the same sense that a calculator 'uses' arithm
by lottin 2y ago
> now we have a second example of a system that uses language, and it is dumbfounding
An LLM 'uses' language, in the same sense that a calculator 'uses' arithmetic. It's a figure of speech.
- andrewla 2y agoThat's not the sense of the metaphor that I'm applying when I say "uses language". That's closer to saying that "Alexa uses language", where "uses" here is analogous to what a calculator does. To avoid using anthropomorphic terms, an LLM can take natural language from a human, integrate information from those expressions together with information held in its (opaque) store, and return natural language that a human can understand that reflects that information. I am not aware of any other systems besides humans that can accomplish that task. Some animals can be trained to do some parts of this, but really until now humans are the only ones that could do the full loop.
- lottin 2y agoOkay... but computers perform many other tasks that only humans can perform, for example, do square roots or play chess. The point being LLMs are just another program running on an integrated circuit. In short, I fail to see how LLMs blur the line between man and machine but pocket calculators do not.