3 ms·

What you're missing is that we now understand things about the functional nature of language itself that nobody had the faintest clue about in 1980. I was big

What you're missing is that we now understand things about the functional nature of language itself that nobody had the faintest clue about in 1980. I was big into writing text adventures in those days, where the central problem was how to get the computer to understand what the user was saying. It was common for simple imperative sentences to be misinterpreted in ways that made players want to scream in frustration. Even the best text parsers — written by the greatest minds in the business — could seem incredibly obtuse, because they were. Now the computer is writing the fucking game. You had to be there to understand what a big deal this is, I guess. If you went back in time and brought even our current primitive LLM tech with you, you'd be lucky not to be burned at the stake. NLP is indeed 'solved,' in that it is now more of a development problem than a research problem. The Turing Test has been passed: you can't say for sure if you're arguing with a bot right now. That's pretty cool.

namaria 2y ago
You assume a lot about me. But you're right. The NLP interface is cool. It's kinda like VR. It would be awesome if it worked the way we dream it could. Maybe that's why we keep getting hung up on implementations that make it seem like they got it figured out. Even when they clearly haven't, we still avert our eyes from the fraying edges and make believe. Maybe that's why both fields are giant money pits.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  You assume a lot about me. ... which is my point as well. You can no longer tell if your interlocutor is even human, and yet you're still thinking and talking about books written in the 1980s. (NLP wasn't much of a money pit back in the 80s, I know that much. If it was, somebody else must've been getting all the money...)
  - namaria 2y ago
    > ... which is my point as well. You can no longer tell if your interlocutor is even human I don't really think modern chatbots pass the Turing test. It's not that hard to figure it out. > (NLP wasn't much of a money pit back in the 80s, I know that much. If it was, somebody else must've been getting all the money...) No, the point is that it's become one now that LLMs make it seem like we finally got the NLP interfaces we've been dreaming about for decades.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      I don't really think modern chatbots pass the Turing test. It's not that hard to figure it out. A lot of people on Reddit didn't figure it out, if you've followed that story ( https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1k8b2hj/meta_unauthorized_experiment_on_cmv_involving/ https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1k8b2hj/meta_... ). You can file that under the apparently-infinite set of Things That Are Only Going to Get Worse.

namaria 2y ago

You assume a lot about me. But you're right. The NLP interface is cool. It's kinda like VR. It would be awesome if it worked the way we dream it could. Maybe that's why we keep getting hung up on implementations that make it seem like they got it figured out. Even when they clearly haven't, we still avert our eyes from the fraying edges and make believe. Maybe that's why both fields are giant money pits.

CamperBob2 2y ago
You assume a lot about me. ... which is my point as well. You can no longer tell if your interlocutor is even human, and yet you're still thinking and talking about books written in the 1980s. (NLP wasn't much of a money pit back in the 80s, I know that much. If it was, somebody else must've been getting all the money...)
- namaria 2y ago
  > ... which is my point as well. You can no longer tell if your interlocutor is even human I don't really think modern chatbots pass the Turing test. It's not that hard to figure it out. > (NLP wasn't much of a money pit back in the 80s, I know that much. If it was, somebody else must've been getting all the money...) No, the point is that it's become one now that LLMs make it seem like we finally got the NLP interfaces we've been dreaming about for decades.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    I don't really think modern chatbots pass the Turing test. It's not that hard to figure it out. A lot of people on Reddit didn't figure it out, if you've followed that story ( https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1k8b2hj/meta_unauthorized_experiment_on_cmv_involving/ https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1k8b2hj/meta_... ). You can file that under the apparently-infinite set of Things That Are Only Going to Get Worse.