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Demonstrating reasoning and language capabilities in computers alters our understanding of self, even if we don't particularly like the alteration

This is the crux of the debate, right? Whether it's doing mimicry or reasoning. I struggle to see how you could view it as purely mimicry. It has to tie together multiple novel thoughts in a logical construction to create its responses.

when you speak to other people, do you gauge your words based upon the statistical probability that the next word you say is the word the other wants to hear, or do you gauge them based upon your own desires, interests, and opinions?

re: mimicry vs reasoning. the machine chooses words based upon statistical probabilities that a word, phrase, or concept may link to a previous set of words. we don't do that when we communicate. we don't have statistics engines in our heads.

youre describing the math behind it, not the logic of why it works

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I'm arguing that this is not a machine capable of human reason because it does not form language the way that we do. it forms a facsimile of language through mathematical assumptions, whereas for us, language is the tool we use to understand and negotiate reality.

an LLM may look like it reasons, but it can't because it doesn't exist as a being structured in reality by language. it can only recreate the appearance of reason which is so far from the same thing as to be dangerously unreliable.

not to be uhh. controversial. have either of you learned how any of this works? (its completely fine if not) But like, linear regression, non linear solutions w/ conv networks, I’m talking the basis of neural networks that lead to modern LLM’s and why its statistically based and grounded in NLM

I boardly understand the ideas of the stacking MLPs, the attention heads, back propagation to train the weights, tokenization, vector embeddings, etc. But I am far from an ML or LLM researcher

we’re probably in a similar space then, my last exposure to the space was a battle of wills between capsule networks, convolutional networks and RNN’s which lead to where we are now, focusing on a single use of AI. There are likely things other networks do better as tools, for a robust LLM.

I’ve been far removed in making a living elsewhere lands, and tbh we could use a good ole alexnet to llm youtube video series if anyone is bored.