2 ms·

LLM's reason and think in the way that boats "swim" and planes "fly". It is an analogy. But nevertheless, planes do take you where you want to go, and so do L

LLM's reason and think in the way that boats "swim" and planes "fly". It is an analogy. But nevertheless, planes do take you where you want to go, and so do LLMs. I think we are in sort of the place where before the invention of planes, the only things that "flew" were animals with wings that flapped. The flapping wings might seem to be a core part of the process of flight, and that if you lacked flapping wings, you were doing something other than flying. But maybe the point is moving through the air under your own power. Balloons fly, planes fly, helicopters fly. They just do it in a different way from birds and insects.

drob518 2mo ago
Clearly, words morph over time. A “computer” used to refer to a human who would make numeric calculations with a pencil and paper. Maybe we’re at that point with “thinking” and “reasoning.”
boomlinde 2mo ago
Planes fly. They're up in the air passing through it. It's not an analogy; that's what flying is. Long before planes, balloons and helicopters, objects other than birds, bats and insects were considered to fly if for example they were thrown. At no point in human history has flying been restricted to animals. "Flying" as a concept in that sense predates the English word for it. The sort of place we're actually in is one where astronomical sums of money have been invested in this technology, creating an unprecedented incentive to hype and overstate its fundamental capabilities. They're large language models and their analyses are based on language statistics, not logic, comprehension and knowledge, all of which they are fundamentally incapable of, and all of which are fundamental to reasoning. They don't reason in the literal sense that planes fly. I don't doubt that there could be a reasoning machine, but LLMs are not it.

2 ms·

LLM's reason and think in the way that boats "swim" and planes "fly". It is an analogy. But nevertheless, planes do take you where you want to go, and so do L

by empath75 2mo ago

drob518 2mo ago
Clearly, words morph over time. A “computer” used to refer to a human who would make numeric calculations with a pencil and paper. Maybe we’re at that point with “thinking” and “reasoning.”
boomlinde 2mo ago
Planes fly. They're up in the air passing through it. It's not an analogy; that's what flying is. Long before planes, balloons and helicopters, objects other than birds, bats and insects were considered to fly if for example they were thrown. At no point in human history has flying been restricted to animals. "Flying" as a concept in that sense predates the English word for it. The sort of place we're actually in is one where astronomical sums of money have been invested in this technology, creating an unprecedented incentive to hype and overstate its fundamental capabilities. They're large language models and their analyses are based on language statistics, not logic, comprehension and knowledge, all of which they are fundamentally incapable of, and all of which are fundamental to reasoning. They don't reason in the literal sense that planes fly. I don't doubt that there could be a reasoning machine, but LLMs are not it.