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> autocomplete word salad generators People get very hung up on this "autocomplete" idea, but language is a linear stream. How else are you going to generate t
by chimprich 2y ago
> autocomplete word salad generators
People get very hung up on this "autocomplete" idea, but language is a linear stream. How else are you going to generate text except for one token at a time, building on what you have produced already?
That's what humans do after all (at least with speech/language; it might be a bit less linear if you're writing code, but I think it's broadly true).
- ben_w 2y agoI generally have an internal monologue turning my thoughts into words; sometimes my consciousness notices the though fully formed and without needing any words, but when my conscious self decides I can therefore skip the much slower internal monologue, the bit of me that makes the internal monologue "gets annoyed" in a way that my conscious self also experiences due to being in the same brain.
- ImHereToVote 2y agoDoesn't the inner monologue also get formed one word at a time?
- ben_w 2y agoIt doesn't feel like it is one word at a time. It feels more like how the "model synthesis" algorithm looks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_synthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_synthesis It might actually be linear — how minds actually function is in many cases demonstrably different to how it feels like to the mind doing the functioning — but it doesn't feel like it is linear.
- ImHereToVote 2y agoFacts don't care about your feelings lol.
- ben_w 2y agoThe technology doesn't yet exist to measure the facts that generate the feelings to determine whether the feelings do or don't differ from those facts. Nobody even knows where, specifically, qualia exist in order to be able to direct technological advancement in that area.
- notachatbot123 2y agoLanguage is not thought or consciousness. Language is our means of consciously formulate things we want to communicate in a structured way.
- SiempreViernes 2y ago> language is a linear stream. How else are you going to generate text except for one token at a time Is this you trying to humblebrag that you are such a talented writer you never need to edit things your write?
- famouswaffles 2y agoThat's still one at a time. Backtracking, editing, all that still happens one piece at a time.
- int_19h 2y agoAnd it can, in fact, be encoded as a linear token stream (you just need special tokens to indicate edits to previously output tokens).
- suddenlybananas 2y agoSpoken language is linear but it is a way of displaying hierarchal, nonlinear information. Sign languages occasionally exploit the fact they aren't constrained by linear order in the same way to do multiple things simultaneously.
- Terr_ 2y ago> but language is a linear stream But ideas are not. The serialization-format is not the in-memory model. Humans regularly pause (or insert delaying filler) while converting nonlinear ideas into linear sounds, sentences, etc. That process is arguably the main limiting factor in how fast we communicate, since there's evidence that all spoken languages have a similar bit-throughput, and almost everyone can listen to speech at a faster rate than they can generate it. (And written text is an extension of the verbal process.) Also, even comparatively simple ideas can be expressed (and understood) with completely different linear encodings: "The dog ate my homework", "My homework was eaten by the dog", and even "Eaten, my homework was, the dog, I blame."