D Do large language models understand us? Blog post by Blaise | Data Scientology

D Do large language models understand us?

Blog post by Blaise Aguera y Arcas.

Summary

Large language models (LLMs) represent a major advance in artificial intelligence (AI), and in particular toward the goal of human-like artificial general intelligence (AGI). It’s sometimes claimed, though, that machine learning is “just statistics”, hence that progress in AI is illusory with regard to this grander ambition. Here I take the contrary view that LLMs have a great deal to teach us about the nature of language, understanding, intelligence, sociality, and personhood. Specifically: statistics do amount to understanding, in any falsifiable sense. Furthermore, much of what we consider intelligence is inherently dialogic, hence social; it requires a theory of mind. Since the interior state of another being can only be understood through interaction, no objective answer is possible to the question of when an “it” becomes a “who” — but for many people, neural nets running on computers are likely to cross this threshold in the very near future.

https://medium.com/@blaisea/do-large-language-models-understand-us-6f881d6d8e75

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https://redd.it/riqxrq