3 ms·

The term is not very useful since most humans are stochastic parrots... At least most of the time. Not suggesting that I don't say stuff on autopilot sometimes

The term is not very useful since most humans are stochastic parrots... At least most of the time. Not suggesting that I don't say stuff on autopilot sometimes but for many people, it's their only mode of operation. They never actually think about anything from first principles. Their whole approach to language is just chaining catchphrases together. It's how a toddler thinks; it seems like many people never moved past that stage of development.

lennoff 3mo ago
i think it actually makes sense, an LLM just imitates human communication, which happens to be useful from time to time.
elysianfields 3mo ago
It sometimes feels same as with the models, especially in corporate: - Lots of Haiku around, many mistakes unless process is very clear - Some Sonnets, still do mistakes but can adapt - Some Opus, able to improvise and think outside the box. But even the Human Opus/Mythos are hilariously wrong sometimes.
GolfPopper 3mo ago
Conversely, that the most prominent proponents of LLMs call them artificial intelligence and then treat them like slaves they're free to abuse ought to be horrifying.
- jeremyjh 3mo ago
  Nothing in that term implies sentience.
TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
> most humans are stochastic parrots There's a lot more happening behind the scenes when a human repeats phrases than what's happening in an LLM. Sociological phenomenon. The desire to be liked, successful, or popular. The feeling that those phrases brings up. LLMs are not experiencing any of that. As far as we know, neither is a parrot.
- xgulfie 3mo ago
  Parrots certainly do experience social needs
  - AlexandrB 3mo ago
    The "parrot" part of "stochastic parrot" is quite an ambiguous choice. Taken literally, it's referencing an animal that's actually quite intelligent and capable of complex, novel tasks but has no way to connect those to human language. How I've always read this though is the more literary meaning of "parrot" as "a thing that repeats words with no context". Perhaps "stochastic photocopier" would be a clearer metaphor.
    - xgulfie 3mo ago
      Or perhaps tape recorder would reflect the linearity of the input/output strings
  - TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
    Fair but not the human sociology I mean.
Diogenesian 3mo ago
Humans are not stochastic parrots. You are 100% wrong about toddlers. This was clearly explained by St. Augustine 1500 years ago: Did I not, then, as I grew out of infancy, come next to boyhood, or rather did it not come to me and succeed my infancy? My infancy did not go away (for where would it go?). It was simply no longer present; and I was no longer an infant who could not speak, but now a chattering boy. I remember this, and I have since observed how I learned to speak. My elders did not teach me words by rote, as they taught me my letters afterward. But I myself, when I was unable to communicate all I wished to say to whomever I wished by means of whimperings and grunts and various gestures of my limbs (which I used to reinforce my demands), I myself repeated the sounds already stored in my memory by the mind which thou, O my God, hadst given me. When they called some thing by name and pointed it out while they spoke, I saw it and realized that the thing they wished to indicate was called by the name they then uttered. And what they meant was made plain by the gestures of their bodies, by a kind of natural language, common to all nations, which expresses itself through changes of countenance, glances of the eye, gestures and intonations which indicate a disposition and attitude--either to seek or to possess, to reject or to avoid. So it was that by frequently hearing words, in different phrases, I gradually identified the objects which the words stood for and, having formed my mouth to repeat these signs, I was thereby able to express my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me the verbal signs by which we express our wishes and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending all the while upon the authority of my parents and the behest of my elders. [https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/conf.pdf https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/conf.pdf] Humans learn language opportunistically. Toddlers start with a powerful "superchimpanzee" understanding of the real world, and use that to learn words in order to satisfy their needs and desires. Statistical frequency is incidental to what words a toddler learns: what matters is the real-world context. Also note how important it is that infants instinctively understand nonverbal communication. The most depressing thing about the 2020s AI summer is watching ignorant tech workers use the success of LLMs to launder their own ignorant misanthropy. Your views are many many centuries out of date.
- delis-thumbs-7e 3mo ago
  I really appreciate the effort you put in to this post. Posts like these are what makes HN great. Thank you.
tsimionescu 3mo ago
This is a complete misunderstanding of how even idiots function in the real world. There is a lot of thinking that goes into living a human (or even animal) life that models are nowhere near ready to model yet. Even ignoring the physical interaction side, the way any human sets and achieves long term goals (such as getting and maintaining a job), interacting with the huge amount of systems present in day to day life, and learning new tools along the way for decades is far beyond the current abilities of these models - even if they handily beat 90-100% of humanity on some tasks normally considered much harder.

lennoff 3mo ago

i think it actually makes sense, an LLM just imitates human communication, which happens to be useful from time to time.

elysianfields 3mo ago

It sometimes feels same as with the models, especially in corporate: - Lots of Haiku around, many mistakes unless process is very clear - Some Sonnets, still do mistakes but can adapt - Some Opus, able to improvise and think outside the box. But even the Human Opus/Mythos are hilariously wrong sometimes.

GolfPopper 3mo ago

Conversely, that the most prominent proponents of LLMs call them artificial intelligence and then treat them like slaves they're free to abuse ought to be horrifying.

jeremyjh 3mo ago
Nothing in that term implies sentience.

TonyAlicea10 3mo ago

> most humans are stochastic parrots There's a lot more happening behind the scenes when a human repeats phrases than what's happening in an LLM. Sociological phenomenon. The desire to be liked, successful, or popular. The feeling that those phrases brings up. LLMs are not experiencing any of that. As far as we know, neither is a parrot.

xgulfie 3mo ago
Parrots certainly do experience social needs
- AlexandrB 3mo ago
  The "parrot" part of "stochastic parrot" is quite an ambiguous choice. Taken literally, it's referencing an animal that's actually quite intelligent and capable of complex, novel tasks but has no way to connect those to human language. How I've always read this though is the more literary meaning of "parrot" as "a thing that repeats words with no context". Perhaps "stochastic photocopier" would be a clearer metaphor.
  - xgulfie 3mo ago
    Or perhaps tape recorder would reflect the linearity of the input/output strings
- TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
  Fair but not the human sociology I mean.

Diogenesian 3mo ago

Humans are not stochastic parrots. You are 100% wrong about toddlers. This was clearly explained by St. Augustine 1500 years ago: Did I not, then, as I grew out of infancy, come next to boyhood, or rather did it not come to me and succeed my infancy? My infancy did not go away (for where would it go?). It was simply no longer present; and I was no longer an infant who could not speak, but now a chattering boy. I remember this, and I have since observed how I learned to speak. My elders did not teach me words by rote, as they taught me my letters afterward. But I myself, when I was unable to communicate all I wished to say to whomever I wished by means of whimperings and grunts and various gestures of my limbs (which I used to reinforce my demands), I myself repeated the sounds already stored in my memory by the mind which thou, O my God, hadst given me. When they called some thing by name and pointed it out while they spoke, I saw it and realized that the thing they wished to indicate was called by the name they then uttered. And what they meant was made plain by the gestures of their bodies, by a kind of natural language, common to all nations, which expresses itself through changes of countenance, glances of the eye, gestures and intonations which indicate a disposition and attitude--either to seek or to possess, to reject or to avoid. So it was that by frequently hearing words, in different phrases, I gradually identified the objects which the words stood for and, having formed my mouth to repeat these signs, I was thereby able to express my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me the verbal signs by which we express our wishes and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending all the while upon the authority of my parents and the behest of my elders. [https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/conf.pdf https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/conf.pdf] Humans learn language opportunistically. Toddlers start with a powerful "superchimpanzee" understanding of the real world, and use that to learn words in order to satisfy their needs and desires. Statistical frequency is incidental to what words a toddler learns: what matters is the real-world context. Also note how important it is that infants instinctively understand nonverbal communication. The most depressing thing about the 2020s AI summer is watching ignorant tech workers use the success of LLMs to launder their own ignorant misanthropy. Your views are many many centuries out of date.

delis-thumbs-7e 3mo ago
I really appreciate the effort you put in to this post. Posts like these are what makes HN great. Thank you.

tsimionescu 3mo ago

This is a complete misunderstanding of how even idiots function in the real world. There is a lot of thinking that goes into living a human (or even animal) life that models are nowhere near ready to model yet. Even ignoring the physical interaction side, the way any human sets and achieves long term goals (such as getting and maintaining a job), interacting with the huge amount of systems present in day to day life, and learning new tools along the way for decades is far beyond the current abilities of these models - even if they handily beat 90-100% of humanity on some tasks normally considered much harder.