this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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I'm starting to wonder if any of you even know how that shit even works internally, or if you just take what the hype media says at face value. It literally has one purpose and one purpose alone: Determine what the next word is going to be by calculating the probability which word will come after the next. That's it. All it does is try to string a convincing sentence using probabilities. It does not and cannot understand context.
The underlying tech is really cool but a lot of people are grotesquely overselling its capabilities. Not to say a neural network can't eventually obtain consciousness (because ultimately our brains are a union of a bunch of little neural networks working together for a common goal) but it sure as hell isn't going to be an LLM. That's what I meant by sophistry, they're not engaging with the facts, just some nebulous ideal.
"Intelligence" - The attribute that makes a system propose and modify algorithms autonomously to achieve a certain terminal goal.
The intelligence of a system has nothing to do with the terminal goal. The magnitude of intelligence merely tells us how well the system works in accordance with the terminal goal.
Being self aware is merely a step in the direction of being more and more intelligent. If a system requires interaction with its surroundings, it needs to be able to recognise that it itself is different from its environment.
You are such an intelligent system as well. It's just that instead of having one terminal goal, you have many terminal goals (some may change with time while some might not).
You (this intelligent system) exist in a biological structure. You are nothing but data encoded in a biological form factor, with algorithms that execute through biological processes. If this data and these algorithms are executed on a non biological form factor, would it be any different from you?
LLMs work on some principles that our brains work on as well. Can you see how my point above applies?
It's like you didn't even read what I posted. Why do I even bother? Sophists literally don't care about facts.
Yes, I read what you posted and answered accordingly. Only, I didn't spend enough time dumbing it down further. So let me dumb it down.
Your main objection was the simplicity of the goal of LLMs- predicting the next word that occurs. Somehow, this simplistic goal makes the system stupid.
In my reply, I first said that self awareness occurs naturally after a system becomes more and more intelligent. I explained the reason as to why. I then went on to explain how a simplistic terminal goal has nothing to do with actual intelligence. Hence, no matter how stupid/simple a terminal goal is, if an intelligent system is challenged enough and given enough resources, it will develop sentience at a given point in time.
Exactly I literally said none of that shit you're just projecting your own shitty views onto me and asking me to defend them.
I'm with you on LLMs being over hyped although that's already dying down a bit. But regarding your claim that LLMs cannot "understand context", I've recently read an article that shows that LLMs can have an internal world model:
https://thegradient.pub/othello/
Depending on your definition of "understanding" that seems to be an indicator of being more than a pure "stochastic parrot"