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> 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
by 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 agoParrots certainly do experience social needs
- AlexandrB 3mo agoThe "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 agoOr perhaps tape recorder would reflect the linearity of the input/output strings
- TonyAlicea10 3mo agoFair but not the human sociology I mean.