Carl T. BergstromMay 25, 2023

One of the decisive moments in my understanding of #LLMs and their limitations was when, last autumn, @emilymbender walked me through her Thai Library thought experiment.

She's now written it up as a Medium post, and you can read it here. The value comes from really pondering the question she poses, so take the time to think about it. What would YOU do in the situation she outlines?

https://medium.com/@emilymenonbender/thought-experiment-in-the-national-library-of-thailand-f2bf761a8a83

Show threadmarymessall
@ct_bergstrom @emilymbender It makes me think of Helen Keller... Nothing wrong with her brain, but because she couldn't see or hear, language remained inaccessible to her for a long time. She could feel objects and she could feel language (Braille, finger spelling.) But it took a brilliant tutor to connect them for her, spelling "water" into one hand while holding the other in water. An LLM is also blind and deaf, but how are you going to hold its hand?
May 25, 2023 at 10:22amWeb
Show threadProf. Emily M. Bender(she/her)May 25, 2023

@marymessall @ct_bergstrom

No, you really don't want to go there:

https://medium.com/@emilymenonbender/no-llms-arent-like-people-with-disabilities-and-it-s-problematic-to-argue-that-they-are-a2ac0df0e435

No, large language models aren’t like disabled people (and it’s problematic to argue that they are)

There’s a tendency I’ve observed where people trying to argue that language models “understand” language to draw analogies to the experience of disabled people (especially blind and Deafblind…

Medium
Show threadmarymessallMay 25, 2023

@emilymbender @ct_bergstrom

I think I am agreeing with your position: "How, exactly, is this [hypothetical deaf, blind, anosmic, ageusic, touchless] person supposed to read? How are they, with no way of sensing the world or other people in it, supposed to form the relationships that would let them learn language and learn from other people?"

It would be impossible, & that was my point. I don't want to be associated with anyone who tried to claim otherwise!

Show threadmarymessallMay 25, 2023
@emilymbender @ct_bergstrom The idea that language use is indistinguishable from thinking and vice versa is readily disproved by the existence of lots of nonverbal humans who are nevertheless clearly intelligent. Keller is a famous example because she was nonverbal and then acquired language and was able to tell us about the experience. But people who never acquire language still lead rich lives, expressing their desires and solving problems in other ways.