4 ms·

This is like claiming a photorestor controlled night light "understands when it is dark" or that a bimetallic strip thermostat "understands temperature". You c

This is like claiming a photorestor controlled night light "understands when it is dark" or that a bimetallic strip thermostat "understands temperature". You can say those words, and it's syntactically correct but entirely incorrect semantically.

aSanchezStern 1y ago
The post includes this caveat. Depending on your philosophical position about sentience you might say that LLMs can't possibly "understand" anything, and the post isn't trying to have that argument. But to the extent that an LLM can "understand" anything, you can study its understanding of nullability.
- keybored 1y ago
  People don’t use “understand” for machines in science because people may or may not believe in the sentience of machines. That would be a weird catering to panpsychism.
nsingh2 1y ago
Where is the boundary where this becomes semantically correct? It's easy for these kinds of discussions to go in circles, because nothing is well defined.
- nativeit 1y ago
  Hard to define something that science has yet to formally outline, and is largely still in the realm of religion.
  - EMIRELADERO 1y ago
    That depends entirely on whether you believe understanding requires consciousness. I believe that the type of understanding demonstrated here doesn't. Consciousness only comes into play when we become aware that such understanding has taken place, not on the process itself.
  - stefl14 1y ago
    Shameless plug of personal blog post, but relevant. Still not fully edited, so writing is a bit scattered, but crux is we now have the framework for talking about consciousness intelligently. It's not as mysterious as in the past, considering advances in non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the Free Energy Principle in particular. https://stefanlavelle.substack.com/p/i-am-therefore-i-feel https://stefanlavelle.substack.com/p/i-am-therefore-i-feel
robotresearcher 1y ago
You declare this very plainly without evidence or argument, but this is an age-old controversial issue. It’s not self-evident to everyone, including philosophers.
- mubou 1y ago
  It's not age-old nor is it controversial. LLMs aren't intelligent by any stretch of the imagination. Each word/token is chosen as that which is statistically most likely to follow the previous. There is no capability for understanding in the design of an LLM. It's not a matter of opinion; this just isn't how an LLM works. Any comparison to the human brain is missing the point that an LLM only simulates one small part, and that's notably not the frontal lobe. That's required for intelligence, reasoning, self-awareness, etc. So, no, it's not a question of philosophy. For an AI to enter that realm, it would need to be more than just an LLM with some bells and whistles; an LLM plus something else, perhaps, something fundamentally different which does not yet currently exist.
  - aSanchezStern 1y ago
    Many people don't think we have any good evidence that our brains aren't essentially the same thing: a stochastic statistical model that produces outputs based on inputs.
    - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
      Thats probably the case 99% of the time. But that 1% is pretty important. For example, they are dismal at math problems that aren't just slight variations of problems they've seen before. Here's one by blackandredpenn where ChatGPT insisted the solution to problem that could be solved by high school / talented middle school students was correct, even after trying to convince it it was wrong. https://youtu.be/V0jhP7giYVY?si=sDE2a4w7WpNwp6zU&t=837 https://youtu.be/V0jhP7giYVY?si=sDE2a4w7WpNwp6zU&t=837 Rewind earlier to see the real answer
      - LordDragonfang 1y ago
fallingknife 1y ago
Or like saying the photoreceptors in your retina understand when it's dark. Or like claiming the temperature sensitive ion channels in your peripheral nervous system understand how hot it is.
- throwuxiytayq 1y ago
  Or like saying that the tangled web of neurons receiving signals from these understands anything about these subjects.
- nativeit 1y ago
  Describing the mechanics of nervous impulses != describing consciousness.
  - LordDragonfang 1y ago
    Which is the point, since describing the mechanics of LLM architectures do not inherently grant knowledge of whether or not it is "conscious"
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- throw4847285 1y ago
  This is a fallacy I've seen enough on here that I think it needs a name. Maybe the fallacy of Theoretical Reducibility (doesn't really roll off the tongue)? When challenged, everybody becomes an eliminative materialist even if it's inconsistent with their other views. It's very weird.
dleeftink 1y ago
I'd say the opposite also applies: to the extent LLMs have an internal language, we understand very little of it.
dfilppi 1y ago
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aSanchezStern 1y ago

The post includes this caveat. Depending on your philosophical position about sentience you might say that LLMs can't possibly "understand" anything, and the post isn't trying to have that argument. But to the extent that an LLM can "understand" anything, you can study its understanding of nullability.

keybored 1y ago
People don’t use “understand” for machines in science because people may or may not believe in the sentience of machines. That would be a weird catering to panpsychism.

nsingh2 1y ago

Where is the boundary where this becomes semantically correct? It's easy for these kinds of discussions to go in circles, because nothing is well defined.

nativeit 1y ago
Hard to define something that science has yet to formally outline, and is largely still in the realm of religion.
- EMIRELADERO 1y ago
  That depends entirely on whether you believe understanding requires consciousness. I believe that the type of understanding demonstrated here doesn't. Consciousness only comes into play when we become aware that such understanding has taken place, not on the process itself.
- stefl14 1y ago
  Shameless plug of personal blog post, but relevant. Still not fully edited, so writing is a bit scattered, but crux is we now have the framework for talking about consciousness intelligently. It's not as mysterious as in the past, considering advances in non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the Free Energy Principle in particular. https://stefanlavelle.substack.com/p/i-am-therefore-i-feel https://stefanlavelle.substack.com/p/i-am-therefore-i-feel

robotresearcher 1y ago

You declare this very plainly without evidence or argument, but this is an age-old controversial issue. It’s not self-evident to everyone, including philosophers.

mubou 1y ago
It's not age-old nor is it controversial. LLMs aren't intelligent by any stretch of the imagination. Each word/token is chosen as that which is statistically most likely to follow the previous. There is no capability for understanding in the design of an LLM. It's not a matter of opinion; this just isn't how an LLM works. Any comparison to the human brain is missing the point that an LLM only simulates one small part, and that's notably not the frontal lobe. That's required for intelligence, reasoning, self-awareness, etc. So, no, it's not a question of philosophy. For an AI to enter that realm, it would need to be more than just an LLM with some bells and whistles; an LLM plus something else, perhaps, something fundamentally different which does not yet currently exist.
- aSanchezStern 1y ago
  Many people don't think we have any good evidence that our brains aren't essentially the same thing: a stochastic statistical model that produces outputs based on inputs.
  - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
    Thats probably the case 99% of the time. But that 1% is pretty important. For example, they are dismal at math problems that aren't just slight variations of problems they've seen before. Here's one by blackandredpenn where ChatGPT insisted the solution to problem that could be solved by high school / talented middle school students was correct, even after trying to convince it it was wrong. https://youtu.be/V0jhP7giYVY?si=sDE2a4w7WpNwp6zU&t=837 https://youtu.be/V0jhP7giYVY?si=sDE2a4w7WpNwp6zU&t=837 Rewind earlier to see the real answer
    - LordDragonfang 1y ago

fallingknife 1y ago

Or like saying the photoreceptors in your retina understand when it's dark. Or like claiming the temperature sensitive ion channels in your peripheral nervous system understand how hot it is.

throwuxiytayq 1y ago
Or like saying that the tangled web of neurons receiving signals from these understands anything about these subjects.
nativeit 1y ago
Describing the mechanics of nervous impulses != describing consciousness.
- LordDragonfang 1y ago
  Which is the point, since describing the mechanics of LLM architectures do not inherently grant knowledge of whether or not it is "conscious"
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
throw4847285 1y ago
This is a fallacy I've seen enough on here that I think it needs a name. Maybe the fallacy of Theoretical Reducibility (doesn't really roll off the tongue)? When challenged, everybody becomes an eliminative materialist even if it's inconsistent with their other views. It's very weird.

dleeftink 1y ago

I'd say the opposite also applies: to the extent LLMs have an internal language, we understand very little of it.

dfilppi 1y ago

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