I guess it comes down to a philosophical question as to what “know” actually means.
But from my perspective is that it certainly knows some things. It knows how to determine what I’m asking, and it clearly knows how to formulate a response by stitching together information. Is it perfect? No. But neither are humans, we mistakenly believe we know things all the time, and miscommunications are quite common.
But this is why I asked the follow up question…what’s the effective difference? Don’t get me wrong, they clearly have a lot of flaws right now. But my 8 year old had a lot of flaws too, and I assume both will get better with age.
“(…) perception, attention, thought, imagination, intelligence, comprehension, the formation of knowledge, memory and working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and computation, problem-solving and decision-making (…)”
Someone in the chinese room would not know anything about their in- or output. Sure you memorized that a certain set of symbols means your output should contain another set of symbols, but what do you actually “know” about these symbols.
But you have no idea what it’s about. Is it a greeting? A recipe for some pasta? Instructions to build a bomb?
Could be anything.
I’m pretty well steeped in this question, from both a technological and philosophical perspective.
And it’s funny to see all of these posters, who are upvoting comments that expose a fundamental lack of understanding about how LLMs and ai work, acting like the book is already closed on the answer.
Yeah, it’s a philosophical question, which means you need a philosophical answer. Spitballing won’t help you figure shit out a priori because it turns out that learning how to think a priorieffectively takes years of hard graft and is called “studying philosophy”. You should be asking people like me what “know” means in this context and what distinguishes memory in human beings from “memory” in an LLM (a great deal, as it happens!)
Nothing to do with this comment, but since c/sneerclub literally bans anyone who doesn’t agree with the mods’ opinions, I just wanted to respond to your comment there. You say I’m a weirdo for thinking that llms will help teachers grade homework. Khan from Khan Academy has talked extensively about how this already happening. It isn’t some weird fantasy it is modern-day reality.
LLMs know nothing. literally. they cannot.
Yeah but neither did Socrates
but he at least was smug about it
@mawhrin @EatATaco https://mastodon.me.uk/@pikesley/110077525298973789
I guess it comes down to a philosophical question as to what “know” actually means.
But from my perspective is that it certainly knows some things. It knows how to determine what I’m asking, and it clearly knows how to formulate a response by stitching together information. Is it perfect? No. But neither are humans, we mistakenly believe we know things all the time, and miscommunications are quite common.
But this is why I asked the follow up question…what’s the effective difference? Don’t get me wrong, they clearly have a lot of flaws right now. But my 8 year old had a lot of flaws too, and I assume both will get better with age.
no, it doesn’t, and it’s not a philosophical question (and neither is this a question of philosophy).
the software simply has no cognitive capabilities.
I’m not sure I agree, but then it goes to my second question:
What’s the effective difference?
don’t know why you got downvoted, an LLM is essentially a chinese room, and whether such a room “knows” is still the question.
no, it fucking isn’t. (see the postscript in linked article.)
Thanks for that read.
why the visceral reaction?
Good god it’s a hydra
Someone in the chinese room would not know anything about their in- or output. Sure you memorized that a certain set of symbols means your output should contain another set of symbols, but what do you actually “know” about these symbols.
But you have no idea what it’s about. Is it a greeting? A recipe for some pasta? Instructions to build a bomb? Could be anything.
don’t know why you got banned
???
I’m pretty well steeped in this question, from both a technological and philosophical perspective.
And it’s funny to see all of these posters, who are upvoting comments that expose a fundamental lack of understanding about how LLMs and ai work, acting like the book is already closed on the answer.
nearly every word of your post demonstrates a comprehensively thorough lack of understanding of how this shit works
it also demonstrates why you’re lost about the “effective difference”
I don’t mean this aggressively, but you really don’t have any concrete idea of wtf you’re talking about, and it shows
Yeah, it’s a philosophical question, which means you need a philosophical answer. Spitballing won’t help you figure shit out a priori because it turns out that learning how to think a priori effectively takes years of hard graft and is called “studying philosophy”. You should be asking people like me what “know” means in this context and what distinguishes memory in human beings from “memory” in an LLM (a great deal, as it happens!)
Nothing to do with this comment, but since c/sneerclub literally bans anyone who doesn’t agree with the mods’ opinions, I just wanted to respond to your comment there. You say I’m a weirdo for thinking that llms will help teachers grade homework. Khan from Khan Academy has talked extensively about how this already happening. It isn’t some weird fantasy it is modern-day reality.
don’t compare your child to a chatbot wtf
The dehumanization that happens just because people think LLMs are impressive (they are, just not that impressive) is insane.
need to be able to think LLM’s are impressive, probably
surely tech will save us all, right?