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Just like they "know" English. "know" is quite an anthropomorphization. As long as an LLM will be able to describe what an evaluation is (why wouldn't it?) ther
by random3 1y ago
Just like they "know" English.
"know" is quite an anthropomorphization. As long as an LLM will be able to describe what an evaluation is (why wouldn't it?) there's a reasonable expectation to distinguish/recognize/match patterns for evaluations. But to say they "know" is plenty of (unnecessary) steps ahead.
- sidewndr46 1y agoThis was my thought as well when I read this. Using the word 'know' implies an LLM has cognition, which is a pretty huge claim just on its own.
- gameman144 1y agoDoes it though? I feel like there's a whole epistemological debate to be had, but if someone says "My toaster knows when the bread is burning", I don't think it's implying that there's cognition there. Or as a more direct comparison, with the VW emissions scandal, saying "Cars know when they're being tested" was part of the discussion, but didn't imply intelligence or anything. I think "know" is just a shorthand term here (though admittedly the fact that we're discussing AI does leave a lot more room for reading into it.)
- bediger4000 1y agoThe toaster thing is more as admission that the speaker doesn't know what the toaster does to limit charring the bread. Toasters with timers, thermometers and light sensors all exist. None of them "know" anything.
- gameman144 1y agoYeah, I agree, but I think that's true all the way up the chain -- just like everything's magic until you know how it works, we may say things "know" information until we understand the deterministic machinery they're using behind the scenes.
- timschmidt 1y agoI'm in the same camp, with the addition that I believe it applies to us as well since we're part of the system too, and to societies and ecologies further up the scale.
- lamename 1y agoI agree with your point except for scientific papers. Let's push ourselves to use precise, non-shorthand or hand waving in technical papers and publications, yes? If not there, of all places, then where?
- fenomas 1y ago"Know" doesn't have any rigorous precisely-defined senses to be used! Asking for it not to be used colloquially is the same as asking for it never to be used at all. I mean - people have been saying stuff like "grep knows whether it's writing to stdout" for decades. In the context of talking about computer programs, that usage for "know" is the established/only usage, so it's hard to imagine any typical HN reader seeing TFA's title and interpreting it as an epistemological claim. Rather, it seems to me that the people suggesting "know" mustn't be used about LLMs because epistemology are the ones departing from standard usage.
- random3 1y agocolloquial use of "know" implies anthropomorphisation. Arguing that usign "knowing" in the title and "awarness" and "superhuman" in the abstract is just colloquial for "matching" is splitting hairs to an absurd degree.
- fenomas 1y agoYou missed the substance of my comment. Certainly the title is anthropomorphism - and anthropomorphism is a rhetorical device, not a scientific claim. The reader can understand that TFA means it non-rigorously, because there is no rigorous thing for it to mean. As such, to me the complaint behind this thread falls into the category of "I know exactly what TFA meant but I want to argue about how it was phrased", which is definitely not my favorite part of the HN comment taxonomy.
- random3 1y agoI see. Thanks for clarifying. I did want to argue about how it was phrased and what is alluding to. Implying increased risk from "knowing" the eval regime is roughly as weak as the definition of "knowing". It can be equaly a measure of general detection capability, as it can about evaluation incapability - i.e. unlikely news worthy, unless it reached top HN because of the "know" in the title.
- viccis 1y agoI think you should be more precise and avoid anthropomorphism when talking about gen AI, as anthropomorphism leads to a lot of shaky epistemological assumptions. Your car example didn't imply intelligence, but we're talking about a technology that people misguidedly treat as though it is real intelligence.
- exe34 1y agoWhat does "real intelligence" mean? I fear that any discussion that starts with the assumption such a thing exists will only end up as "oh only carbon based humans (or animals if you happen to be generous) have it".
- viccis 1y agoAny intelligence that can synthesize knowledge with or without direct experience.
- exe34 1y agoSo ChatGPT? Or maybe that can't "really synthesize"?
- viccis 1y agoHow would ChatGPT come up with something truly novel, not related to anything it's ever seen before?
- exe34 1y agoHas a human ever done that?
- viccis 1y agoWe obviously can, otherwise where do our myriad of complex concepts, many of which aren't empirical, come from? How could we have modern mathematics unless some thinker had devised the various ways of conceptualizing and manipulating numbers? This is a very old question [1] with a number of good answers as to how a human can [2]. 1: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/#CopyPrin https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/#CopyPrin 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic%E2%80%93synthetic_distinction#The_ease_of_knowing_analytic_propositions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic%E2%80%93synthetic_dis...
- Qwertious 1y agos/knows/detects/
- random3 1y agoand s/superhuman//
- blackoil 1y agoIf it talks like duck and walks like duck...
- signa11 1y agothinks like a duck, thinks that it is being thought of like a duck…
- downboots 1y agoDigests like a duck? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digesting_Duck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digesting_Duck If the woman weighs the same as a duck, then she is a witch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Emporium_of_Benevolent_Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Emporium_of_Benevole...
- ninetyninenine 1y ago[flagged]
- devmor 1y agoWords have definitions for a reason. It is important to define concepts and exclude things from that definition that do not match. No matter how emotional it makes you to be told a weighted randomization lookup doesn’t know things, it still doesn’t - because that’s not what the word “know” means.
- timschmidt 1y ago> No matter how emotional it makes you to be told a weighted randomization lookup doesn’t know things, it still doesn’t - because that’s not what the word “know” means. You sound awful certain that's not functionally equivalent to what neurons are doing. But there's a long history of experimentation, observation, and cross-pollination as fundamental biological research and ML research have informed each other.
- devmor 1y agoA long history of researching and understanding photosynthesis went into developing and maximizing the efficiency of solar panels. Both produce energy from sunlight. But they are not the same thing and have meaningfully different uses, even if from a casual observer they appear to serve the same function.
- timschmidt 1y ago> A long history of researching and understanding photosynthesis went into developing and maximizing the efficiency of solar panels. I don't think that's accurate. Some of the very first semiconductors were observed to exhibit the photoelectric effect. Nowhere in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#Research_in_solar_cells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#Research_in_solar_c... will you find mention of chloroplasts. Optimizing solar cells has mostly been a materials science problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-inspired_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-inspired_computing on the other hand "trace[es] back to 1936 and the first description of an abstract computer" and we have literally dissected, probed, and measured countless neurons in the course of attempting to figure out how they work to replicate them within the computer.
- scotty79 1y agoThe app knows your name. Not sure why people who see llms as just yet another app suddenly get antsy about colloquialism.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- downboots 1y agoCommunication is to vibration as knowledge is to resonance (?). From the sound of one hand clapping to the secret name of Ra.
- random3 1y agoI resonate with this vibe
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bradley13 1y agoBut do you know what it means to know? I'm only being slightly sarcastic. Sentience is a scale. A worm has less than a mouse, a mouse has less than a dog, and a dog less than a human. Sure, we can reset LLMs at will, but give them memory and continuity, and they definitely do not score zero on the sentience scale.
- DougN7 1y agoIt probably scores about the same as a calculator, which I’d say is zero.
- ofjcihen 1y agoIf I set an LLM in a room by itself what does it do?
- abrookewood 1y agoYes, that's my fall back as well. If it receives zero instructions, will it take any action?
- nhod 1y agoHelen Keller famously said that before she had language (the first word of which was “water”) she had nothing, a void, and the minute she had language, “the whole world came rushing in.” Perhaps we are not so very different?
- fmbb 1y agoAll LLMs have seen more words than any human will ever experience. Yet they cannot take action themselves.
- nhod 1y agoThat’s a safety thing that we have placed upon some LLM’s. If we designed them to have an infinite for loop, the ability to learn and improve, access to mobility and a bunch of sensors, and crypto, what do you think would happen?
- unparagoned 1y agoI think people are overpromorphazing humans. What's does it mean for a human to "know" they are seeing "Halle Berry". Well it's just a single neuron being active. "Single-Cell Recognition: A Halle Berry Brain Cell" https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/single-cell-recognition-halle-berry-brain-cell-1013 https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/single-cell-recognition-h... It seems like people are giving attributes and powers to humans that just don't exist.
- exe34 1y agooverpomorphization sounds slightly better than I used to say: "anthropomorphizing humans". The act of ascribing magical faculties that are reserved for imagined humans to real humans.
- golemotron 1y agoIf you know enough cognitive science, you have a choice. You either say that they "know" or that humans don't. It's like the critique "it's only matching patterns." Wait until you realize how the brain works.
- cluckindan 1y ago(sees FSV UI on computer screen) "It's a UNIX system! I know this!"