On Form versus Meaning

scottaaronson.blog

19 points·mathgenius··7 comments

> AI system would not be able to understand what a chair is…

As per the Yoneda lemma [0] I've studied A Chair from all possible perspectives, but still do not truly understand it.

If I, say, take 3 atoms out of it — does it stop being a chair? And if not — what's the true limit of its chairness [1]?

I suspect the AI is, ironically, the only hope on the matter.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoneda_lemma

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

The meaning of words arises from the pragmatic context of their use: the speaker's intentions, the shared social and linguistic conventions, illocution, etc

AI, and especially the abstract and disembodied software artefacts that make up the more advanced AI we have developed, has almost nothing to do with any of that.

This has to be a Vsauce reference https://youtu.be/fXW-QjBsruE

Super. Loving this. The thing is, meaning has to be expressed somehow, otherwise it doesn't exist. This expression necessarily has a form then. And there we go. So can meaning be viewed as a linked network of forms? It definitely seems so.

Is there a place I can go to play with GPT-3? Like a web form where I can just put in a query and get an answer.

Now ask it what its favourite colour is.

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