Hi, I work with generative machines. Everything from Markov chain generators to GPT-3. I’ve trained and tuned many models with GPT2 and 3, all with the intent of simulating human interaction.
I know a fair bit about generative machines, both how they work, and how to tune and interact with them to get particular results.
I need you to hear this: they do not know or understand anything. They are complex probability tables.
1/
Thanks to very clever programming and increasingly powerful GPUs, they are deeply complex and precise probability tables, but they are still only inferring based on what they’ve seen in the past.
We don’t understand how organic brains learn. Building an electronic brain remains science fiction.
LLMs produce an impressive simulacra of human language, but there is no there there.
I jokingly say that they “make shit up,” but that implies intent and ability to conceptualize.
2/
These machines can do neither. They produce strings of tokens that statistically appear like they were produced by a human.
To an LLM the statements “Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon” and “Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on Mars” are differentiated only in that more people have written the former than the latter.
That’s it.
AI doesn’t exist and companies letting what we DO have make decisions is just a way to avoid culpability for the results.
3/3
@ieatkillerbees
I agree with this. But it also shows that no "intelligence" is needed for nearly every under grad essay. You just need some nice structure and regurgitate what other people have said (with sources)
I still think the more we learn about "AI" the narrower whatever true intelligence is becomes.
"But it also shows that no "intelligence" is needed for nearly every under grad essay."
By that token no intelligence is needed for many math problems. (though GPT like system seem to suck at word problems)
But this goes back to "what is the purpose of homework?"
Do I give homework because it's work I want someone else to do? Do I like homework and want people to give me stack of it. Heavens no.
The value of an essay for a student is just as a column of sums for a 3rd grader: exercise.
No one has ever suggested that no one needs to learn to add because there are calculators. (though it's true being fast and accurate are less important than they once were, especially with very large numbers)
Students will still need to practice writing and get feedback and then write more.
psychopomp disaster
Jfrench
myrmepropagandist
Felicitas Macgilchrist
LucyKemnitzer