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Nice article. >Whether and how an LLM actually "thinks" is a separate discussion. The "whether" is hardly a discussion at all. Or, at least one that was settl
by ngneer 2y ago
Nice article.
>Whether and how an LLM actually "thinks" is a separate discussion.
The "whether" is hardly a discussion at all. Or, at least one that was settled long ago.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
--Edsger Dijkstra
- cwillu 2y agoThe document that quote comes from is hardly a definitive discussion of the topic. “[…] it tends to divert the research effort into directions in which science can not—and hence should not try to—contribute.” is a pretty myopic take. --http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd08xx/EWD898.PDF http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd08xx/EWD898.PDF
- ngneer 2y agoDijkstra myopic. Got it.
- alonsonic 2y agoDijkstra is clearly approaching the subject from an engineer/scientist more practical pov. His focus is on the application of the technology to solve problems, from that pov whether AI fits the definition of "human thinking" is indeed uninteresting.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoIt's interesting if you're asking the computer to think, which we are. It's not interesting if you're asking it to count to a billion.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- root_axis 2y agoThat doesn't really settle it, just dismiss the question. The submarine analogy could be interpreted to support either conclusion.
- nicce 2y agoWasn’t the point that process does not matter if we can’t distinguish the end results?
- omnicognate 2y agoI doubt Dijkstra was unable to distinguish between a submarine and a swimmer.
- nicce 2y agoThe end result here is to move in the water. Both swimmer and submarine can do that. Whether submarine can swim like human, is irrelevant.
- goatlover 2y agoIt's relevant if the claim is stronger than the submarine moves in water. If instead one were to say the submarine mimics human swimming, that would be false. Which is what we often see with claims regarding AGI. In that regard, it's a bit of a false analogy, because submarines were never meant to mimic human swimming. But AI development often has that motivation. We could just say we're developing powerful intelligence amplification tools for use by humans, but for whatever reason, everyone prefers the scifi version. Augumented Intelligence is the forgotten meaning of AI. Submarines never replaced human swimming (we're not whales), they enabled human movement under water in a way that wasn't possible before.
- ngneer 2y agoYou might be conflating the epistemological point with Turing's test, et cetera. I could not agree more that indistinguishability is a key metric. These days, it is quite possible (at least for me) to distinguish LLM outputs from those of a thinking human, but in the future that could change. Whether LLMs "think" is not an interesting question because these are algorithms, people. Algorithms do not think.
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago"A witty saying proves nothing" -- Voltaire, Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767): Deuxième Entretien