4 ms·

> > "there is no understanding, only prediction" > I have no idea what this means. You can throw a ball up in the air and predict that it will fall again and

> > "there is no understanding, only prediction" > I have no idea what this means. You can throw a ball up in the air and predict that it will fall again and bounce. You have no understanding of mass, gravity, acceleration, momentum, impulse, elasticity... You can press a button that makes an Uber car appear in reality and take you home. You have no understanding of apps, operating systems, radio, internet, roads, wheels, internal combustion engines, driving, GPS, maps... This confusion of understanding and prediction affects a lot of people who use technology in a "machine-like" way, purely instrumental and utilitarian... "how does this get me what I want immediately?" You can take any complex reality and deflate it, abstract it, reduce it down to a mere set of predictions that preserve all the utility for a narrow task (in this case visual facsimile) but strip away all depth of meaning. The models, of both the system and the internal working model of the user are flattened. In this sense "AI" is probably the greatest assault on actual knowledge since the book burning under totalitarian regimes of the mid 20th century.

GaggiX 2y ago
What if the model actually understands that the ball will fall and bounce because of mass, gravity, acceleration, momentum, impulse, elasticity? I mean you can just ask ChatGPT and Claude, I guess you would answer that in this case it's just prediction, but if they were human then it would be understanding.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  > I guess you would answer that in this case it's just prediction, No I would answer that it is indeed understanding, to upend your "guess" (prediction) and so prove that while you think you can "predict" the next answer you lack understanding of what the argument is really about :)
  - GaggiX 2y ago
    I think I understand the topic quite well, since you deliberately deviate from answering the question. You made a practical example that doesn't really work in practice.
binary132 2y ago
I think GP is saying that understanding is measured by predictive capability of the theory and in case you hadn’t noticed, that kind of uncomprehending slopthink has been going on for a lot longer than the AI fad

GaggiX 2y ago

What if the model actually understands that the ball will fall and bounce because of mass, gravity, acceleration, momentum, impulse, elasticity? I mean you can just ask ChatGPT and Claude, I guess you would answer that in this case it's just prediction, but if they were human then it would be understanding.

nonrandomstring 2y ago
> I guess you would answer that in this case it's just prediction, No I would answer that it is indeed understanding, to upend your "guess" (prediction) and so prove that while you think you can "predict" the next answer you lack understanding of what the argument is really about :)
- GaggiX 2y ago
  I think I understand the topic quite well, since you deliberately deviate from answering the question. You made a practical example that doesn't really work in practice.

binary132 2y ago

I think GP is saying that understanding is measured by predictive capability of the theory and in case you hadn’t noticed, that kind of uncomprehending slopthink has been going on for a lot longer than the AI fad