I know you are, but the argument that an LLM doesn’t understand context is incorrect. It’s not human level understanding, but it’s been demonstrated that they do have a level of understanding.
And to be clear, I’m not talking about consciousness or sapience.
A better mathematical system of storing words does not mean the LLM understands any of them. It just has a model that represents the relation between words that it uses.
If I put 10 minus 8 into my calculator I get 2. The calculator doesn’t actually understand what 2 means, or what subtracting represents, it just runs the commands that gives the appropriate output.
That’s a bad analogy, because the calculator wasn’t trained using an artificial neural network literally designed by studying biological brains (aka biological neutral networks).
And “understand” doesn’t equate to consciousness or sapience. For example, it is entirely and factually correct to state that an LLM is capable of reasoning. That’s not even up for debate. The accuracy of an LLM’s reasoning capability is one of the fundamental benchmarks used for evaluating its quality.
But that doesn’t mean it’s “thinking” in the way most people consider.
it is entirely and factually correct to state that an LLM is capable of reasoning
Citation needed.
If you’re going to tell me LLMs are modeled after biological brains and capable of reasoning then I call bullshit on your claims that you actually work in AI.
Imagine you put a man in an enclosed room. There is a slot in the wall where messages get passed through written in Chinese. The man does not speak Chinese or even recognize the written language, he just thinks they’re weird symbols.
First the man is shown examples of sequences of symbols to train him. Then he is shown incomplete sequences and asked which symbol comes next. If incorrect he is corrected, if correct he gets cookie. Eventually this man is able to carry on “conversations” with people in Chinese through continued practice.
This man still does not speak Chinese, he is not having reasoned, rational arguments with the people he is conversing with, and if you told him it was a language he’s look at you like your crazy. “There’s no language here, just if I have these symbols and I next put the one that looks like a man wearing a hat they give me a cookie.”
Thinking LLMs are capable of reasoning is the digital equivalent of putting eyes on a pencil then feeling bad when it gets broken in half.
In machine learning, a neural network (also artificial neural network or neural net, abbreviated ANN or NN) is a model inspired by the structure and function of biological neural networks in animal brains
Thinking LLMs are capable of reasoning is the digital equivalent of putting eyes on a pencil then feeling bad when it gets broken in half.
In this paper, we present Reasoning via Planning (RAP), a novel LLM reasoning framework that equips LLMs with an ability to reason akin to human-like strategic planning
I know you are, but the argument that an LLM doesn’t understand context is incorrect
Emphasis mine. I am talking about the textual output. I am not talking about context.
It’s not human level understanding
Additionally, your obnoxiously insistent comparison between LLMs and human beings boils down to a red herring.
Not wasting my time further with you.
[For others who might be reading this: sorry for the blatantly rude tone but I got little to no patience towards people who distort what others say, like the one above.]
I got little to no patience towards people who distort what others say,
My original reply was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I guess I forgot about Poe’s law. I’m not a layman, for the record. I’ve worked with AI for over a decade
I’m autistic and sometimes I feel like an ai bot spewing out garbage in social situations. If I do what people normally do and make it sound believable, maybe no one will notice.
The issue with your assertion is that people don’t actually work a similar way. Have you ever met someone who was clearly taught "garbage’?
I’m talking about LLMs, not about people.
I know you are, but the argument that an LLM doesn’t understand context is incorrect. It’s not human level understanding, but it’s been demonstrated that they do have a level of understanding.
And to be clear, I’m not talking about consciousness or sapience.
Citation needed
Here you go
https://youtu.be/gQddtTdmG_8
A better mathematical system of storing words does not mean the LLM understands any of them. It just has a model that represents the relation between words that it uses.
If I put 10 minus 8 into my calculator I get 2. The calculator doesn’t actually understand what 2 means, or what subtracting represents, it just runs the commands that gives the appropriate output.
That’s a bad analogy, because the calculator wasn’t trained using an artificial neural network literally designed by studying biological brains (aka biological neutral networks).
And “understand” doesn’t equate to consciousness or sapience. For example, it is entirely and factually correct to state that an LLM is capable of reasoning. That’s not even up for debate. The accuracy of an LLM’s reasoning capability is one of the fundamental benchmarks used for evaluating its quality.
But that doesn’t mean it’s “thinking” in the way most people consider.
Citation needed.
If you’re going to tell me LLMs are modeled after biological brains and capable of reasoning then I call bullshit on your claims that you actually work in AI.
Imagine you put a man in an enclosed room. There is a slot in the wall where messages get passed through written in Chinese. The man does not speak Chinese or even recognize the written language, he just thinks they’re weird symbols.
First the man is shown examples of sequences of symbols to train him. Then he is shown incomplete sequences and asked which symbol comes next. If incorrect he is corrected, if correct he gets cookie. Eventually this man is able to carry on “conversations” with people in Chinese through continued practice.
This man still does not speak Chinese, he is not having reasoned, rational arguments with the people he is conversing with, and if you told him it was a language he’s look at you like your crazy. “There’s no language here, just if I have these symbols and I next put the one that looks like a man wearing a hat they give me a cookie.”
Thinking LLMs are capable of reasoning is the digital equivalent of putting eyes on a pencil then feeling bad when it gets broken in half.
Certainly!
In machine learning, a neural network (also artificial neural network or neural net, abbreviated ANN or NN) is a model inspired by the structure and function of biological neural networks in animal brains
Source
A neural network is a method in artificial intelligence that teaches computers to process data in a way that is inspired by the human brain.
Source
A neural network is a machine learning program, or model, that makes decisions in a manner similar to the human brain
Source
*A neural network, or artificial neural network, is a type of computing architecture that is based on a model of how a human brain functions *
Source
Would you like some more citations?
In this paper, we present Reasoning via Planning (RAP), a novel LLM reasoning framework that equips LLMs with an ability to reason akin to human-like strategic planning
Source - Reasoning with Language Model is Planning with World Model
Motivated by the observation that adding more concise CoT examples in the prompt can improve LLM reasoning performance
Source - Microsoft Research
LegalBench - a tool to evaluate the reasoning performance of an LLM in the legal domain.
A paper on benchmarking an LLMs temporal reasoning.
Shall I provide some more?
Emphasis mine. I am talking about the textual output. I am not talking about context.
Additionally, your obnoxiously insistent comparison between LLMs and human beings boils down to a red herring.
Not wasting my time further with you.
[For others who might be reading this: sorry for the blatantly rude tone but I got little to no patience towards people who distort what others say, like the one above.]
My original reply was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I guess I forgot about Poe’s law. I’m not a layman, for the record. I’ve worked with AI for over a decade
Ditto. Have a nice day.
I’m autistic and sometimes I feel like an ai bot spewing out garbage in social situations. If I do what people normally do and make it sound believable, maybe no one will notice.