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Comment by kilgnad | Hacker News Reader

I didn't say it's not a probabilistic word generator. I'll quote more of what I wrote:

>There are clearly different angles of interpreting what these models are actually doing but people are stubbornly refusing to believe it's anything more then just statistical word jumbles.

So CLEARLY because I said there are different angles of interpretation I'm implying that from one of these angles we can interpret it as a statistical word generator.

I mean from one perspective you and I are both statistical word generators too.

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I mean, that is the fundamental architecture of the model and how it's explicitly designed: given an input embedding and output embedding, the model is trained over a massive corpus of text to optimize the probability for generating the next token in the sequence. Any other interpretation is secondary to that, no matter how impressive the results are.

There is no rule that implies the explicit design dominates the emergent effect.

Evolutionary biology strives to make us logical creatures to fulfill the singular goal of passing on genetic material. Your sentience and your humanity is a side effect of this singular goal.

So what dominates the description of who YOU are? Human or vessel for genetic material?

I'll say that YOU are human and therefore more then just a vessel for ferreting your genetic material into the future... just like how I'll go with the fact that LLMs are more then just statistical word generators.

They really aren't more than just statistical word generators because we can and do build what are exactly statistical word generators and get the behavior of ChatGPT (because that is what ChatGPT is).

For what it's worth, this isn't a knock on ChatGPT, but more just how amazing how far you can get with straightforward concepts.

Except the paper in the OPs comment literally talks about how these LLM's are building actual models of the real world.

No need to be worried about knocking chatGPT. I have no pride invested in the thing. But I do think that people who view it solely as statistical word generators are biased.

It's also a specific choice of label though, and one which in the context of current discourse favors a particular side.

It's like insisting on calling anything physical "atom collections". Yes, we get it, it's true (under a certain interpretation)—but it's clearly pointless to say except as an attempt at devaluing through reduction. (And it takes a particular stance on what it means to "be" something: to say it's literally the truth that anything physical is "just atoms" isn't the only way of looking at it.)

There were things we could've called "statistical word generators" decades ago; insisting on using a term directed at that level of generality implies a belief that nothing significant has happened since. Printing press? Just atoms. Cars? Just atoms. Computers? Just atoms.

I think its because it's sort of gone in the opposite way that science usually goes. Science traditionally been the process of physical phenomena that we don't understand => falsifiable theory that helps describe that phenomena.

Meanwhile, we started at stuff like the perceptron. The starting point was that we knew everything about that equation/classifier. Now we have a thing that we built from the ground up, and we don't fully grasp how it all comes together.

> insisting on using a term directed at that level of generality implies a belief that nothing significant has happened since. Printing press? Just atoms. Cars? Just atoms. Computers? Just atoms.

It's very context-dependent but I don't read this as dismissive reduction, I read it as a statement of the incredible generalisability of atoms under the current laws of physics.

Pfft more useless text written by a giant pile of atoms. Pointless.

Kidding aside, in the current context of human communication etiquette, to even refer to something as atoms outside of a demonstration or example is a deliberate dismissive reduction.

I see the current context as something narrower, namely a discussion on the technical underpinnings of LLMs.

The output of LLMs implies a higher level structure. You can't solely discuss the lower level underpinning unless you deliberately do not acknowledge that the output of LLMs are implying something else.

I think the fact that it's a technical discussion highlights why it's problematic: it might be appropriate for a total outsider who needs some kind of grasp of the basic underlying principle it operates on; but in discussion by a bunch of people with CS backgrounds, calling it merely a statical language generator erases distinction between it and other software of a prior age known not to be world-changing, overlooks recent innovations we don't yet have simple ways of referring to (largely because we don't understand emergent properties of LLMs)

Except the paper in the OPs comment literally talks about how these LLM's are building actual models of the real world. Literally. The root parent post links a research paper that categorically falsifies your statement.

No need to be worried about knocking chatGPT. I have no pride invested in the thing. But I do think that people who view it solely as statistical word generators are biased.

You can imagine that the embedding for the token “boat” includes wood, steel, water and so forth in some set of probabilistic paths as learnt by autorgressive training since the words appear together in the past N tokens. So they are directly in frame. A question is how to connect out of frame elements and are overlapping tokens sufficient to do “that”. Specifically is the token “that” sufficiently trained to reveal what it refers to? I think this depends on the fine tuning q/a task which adds in a layer of alignment rather than being an emergent property of the LLM in general.

Still alignment tasks are autoregressive (I think)… they could be masked or masked part of speech potentially.. but if autoregressive then I suspect you’re looking at regularities in positioning to identify things.

We've spent years building tools that generate sequences with probable statistical distributions, but none of them ever developed anything that vaguely resembled a "world model" before. I think it might be useful to disambiguate these transformer models from previous statistical text generators, in the same way it's useful to disambiguate a human brain from a calculator (even if they're both trained to perform arithmetic.)

> Evolutionary biology strives to make us logical creatures to fulfill the singular goal of passing on genetic material. Your sentience and your humanity is a side effect of this singular goal.

Evolutionary biology is the study of processes that have created widely diverse forms of life on earth through common ancestry. This is actually strictly at odds with the statement that the goal of life is to pass on genetic material (which has changed monumentally over time). Different forms of life have wildly different reproduction strategies with many different dimensions. Logic has practically no impact on an organism's ability to reproduce (it seems limited to a small subset of the animal kingdom - every one else is doing fine without it).

Evolutionary biology has no goals - it's just our observations of how and when (not why) life on earth has changed over time and through the lens of biodiversity.

Tl/Dr: there is no scientific answer about what the goals of life are - heck the definition of life itself is a fun debate. It is a difficult argument to make that a path to general intelligence or consciousness runs thru predicting the next word in a sentence. Generally most people 'believe' it rather than put forth experimental hypothesis let alone attempt to test it.

Until someone does it seems more likely that we're simply uncovering interesting statistical structures underpinning written languages. It's cool that they exist, but frankly it's not surprising that they would.

   ME: What is the goal of a biological organism in the context of evolutionary biology?

   chatGPT: From an evolutionary biology perspective, the goal of a biological organism is not to achieve any particular objective or purpose, but rather to survive and reproduce successfully. Evolutionary theory suggests that organisms that are better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on their genes to the next generation, which leads to the evolution of new species over time.

   Therefore, the ultimate goal of any biological organism, whether it is a single-celled organism or a complex animal, is to survive long enough to reproduce and pass on its genetic material to the next generation. Organisms that are better suited to their environment, that are able to acquire resources more efficiently, and that can avoid predators and other threats are more likely to achieve this goal and contribute to the ongoing process of evolution.

   ME: What is the physical evidence that suggests to scientists that this is the case?

   chatGPT: There is a wealth of physical evidence that supports the idea that the ultimate goal of biological organisms is to survive and reproduce. Here are a few examples:

   Fossil record: The fossil record provides evidence that species have evolved over time, with many species going extinct and new ones emerging. Fossils also reveal adaptations that allowed species to better survive and reproduce in their environments, such as the development of wings in birds and insects or the evolution of specialized teeth and jaws in carnivorous animals.

   Comparative anatomy: Comparative anatomy allows scientists to study the physical structures of different organisms and identify similarities and differences. These similarities and differences can provide insights into how different species have evolved and adapted to their environments. For example, the similarities in the skeletal structures of mammals suggest that they share a common ancestor, while the differences in the beaks of finches on the Galapagos Islands suggest that they have adapted to different food sources.

   Genetics: Genetic evidence provides insights into how organisms have evolved and adapted over time. By comparing the genetic sequences of different species, scientists can identify similarities and differences that provide clues to how species are related and how they have evolved. Genetic evidence also reveals the adaptations that have allowed species to survive and reproduce in their environments, such as the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

    Overall, the physical evidence from fields such as paleontology, comparative anatomy, and genetics supports the idea that the ultimate goal of biological organisms is to survive and reproduce successfully, and that this goal has driven the evolution of new species over time.

   ME: Is this fact unequivocal among scientists who study this field?  

   chatGPT: The idea that the ultimate goal of biological organisms is to survive and reproduce is a fundamental assumption of evolutionary biology, and it is widely accepted among scientists who study this field. While there may be some variation in how different scientists conceptualize or frame this idea, the basic principle that the success of an organism is ultimately measured by its ability to reproduce and pass on its genes to the next generation is well-established and widely accepted.

    chatGPT: There is a vast body of evidence from a wide range of fields, including paleontology, comparative anatomy, genetics, and ecology, that supports the idea that natural selection acts to favor traits that increase an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment. This evidence is supported by numerous experiments and observations that have been conducted over many decades, and it is a cornerstone of modern evolutionary theory.

    chatGPT: Of course, scientific ideas are always subject to ongoing refinement and revision as new evidence is gathered, and there may be debates and disagreements among scientists about certain aspects of evolutionary theory. However, the general principle that the goal of biological organisms is to survive and reproduce is widely accepted as a foundational idea in the field of evolutionary biology.

I'm well versed in evolutionary biology and the mechanisms behind it. I can assure you that chatGPT is more knowledgeable than you on this topic and that everything it says here is categorically true. Others who know biology can confirm.

> Evolutionary biology strives to make us logical creatures to fulfill the singular goal of passing on genetic material.

There is no evidence that "evolutionary biology" has any goals whatsoever, nor that it "strives" to do anything.

This is an anthropomorphism.

How is this significant? I mean you can view a moving car as stationary, and reality is the thing that moves around it, or you can view reality as stationary, but the car moves through it. Or you can make analogies between electricity and water. (Frankly, I like viewing neural nets as a numerical method for doing nonlinear multivariate regression, and ChatGPT is nothing but a resulting equation(s) of such). In the end, regardless of how you choose to perceive it, the result is the same, so what's your point?

It sounds like you just don't like viewing it as simply "a probabilistic word generator", as that takes the magic out of it. And yeah, it's not magic, but it is quite useful.

Well you're just a jumble of electrons and protons interacting with each other. That's a 100% true interpretation is it not?

It's also a view that misses the point that you are a molecular intelligence made of DNA that continually mutates and reconstructs it's physical form with generational copies to increase fitness in an ever changing environment.

But that viewpoint also misses the point that you're a human with wants, needs, desires and capability of understanding the world around you.

All viewpoints are valid. But Depending on the context one viewpoint is more valid then others. For example, in my day to day life do I go around treating everyone as if they're useless jumbles of molecules and atoms? Do I treat them like biological natural selection entities? Or do I treat them like humans?

What I'm complaining about is the fact that a lot of people are taking the most simplest viewpoint when looking at these LLMs. They ARE MORE then statistical word generators and it's OBVIOUS this is the case when you talk to it in-depth. Why are people denying the obvious? Why are people choosing not to look at LLMs for what they are?

Because of fear. Because of bias.

I still don't see your point behind your first 4 paragraphs. How you decide to treat your fellow humans is up to you. Just as you can decide to view your fellow humans however you want. It's entirely possible to treat them like "humans" while still viewing them as nothing but jumbles of molecules and atoms. So again why does perspective matter here (particularly with ChatGPT being a statistical word generator)?

Your last paragraph lacks proof, and is a reflection of how you feel and want to view it - as something more than a statistical word generator. That's fine, but people with graduate level math/statistics education know that math/statistics is capable of doing everything ChatGPT does (and even more). To me, it sounds like you're the fearful one.

> To me, it sounds like you're the fearful one.

What do you think that fear may be?

IDK you tell me?

All I can say is your OP, said "I think part of it is a subconscious fear ... I understand what I'm saying is dramatic". Why do you think it is a fear (you explained your thoughts so no need to re-explain), and why do you think what you say is dramatic? It appears to me you are projecting your thoughts and fears. I do though, find your last post dramatic, as you have capital words "ARE MORE" and "OBVIOUS" in your last paragraph, emphasizing emotion. So you must have strong emotions over this.

You asking me or him? I can't speak for the person you responded to but my own answer is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34800063

To be honest I'm sort of in denial too. My actions contradict my beliefs. I'm not searching for occupations and paths that are separate from AI, I'm still programming as if I could do this forever.

Also I capitalize words for emphasis. It doesn't represent emotion. Though I do have emotions and I do have bias, but not on the topics I am describing here.

Im not the OP, i just asked the question. And imagined the answer would involve something about existential threat to human intelligence or something like that.. I simply asked out of curiosity

My mistake, hopefully I addressed your question though.

The AI is pretty benign. The people surrounding it are the danger. I can already imagine a culture where people who type code manually are treated as code monkeys and your boss wants all your code to be typed out by their pre approved specifically to the company tailored LLM and the employees have to be frustrated with the crappy technology the same way they get frustrated by Java EE or ORMs/compilers that refuse to generate the queries they want.

I am extremely worried about people telling me it can do things it can't. I asked it a simple question that you can easily get an answer for on stack overflow. It repeatedly generated garbage answers with compiler errors. I gave up, and gave it a stack overflow snippet to get it on the right track. Nope. Then I just literally pasted in the explanation from the official Java documentation. It got it wrong again but not completely but corrected itself immediately. Then it generated ok code that you would expect from stackoverflow. Finally I wanted to see if it actually understood what it just wrote. I am not convinced. It regurgitated the java docs which is correct but then it proceeded to tell me that the code it tried to show me first is also valid...

This thing doesn't learn and when it is wrong it will stay wrong. It is like having a child but it instantly loses its memory after the conversation is over and even during conversations it loves repeating answers. Also, in general it feels like it is trying to overwhelm you with walls of text which is ok but when you keep trying to fix a tiny detail it gets on your nerves to see the same verbose sentence structures over and over again.

I am not worried that adding more parameters is going to solve these problems. There is a problem with the architecture itself. I do not mind having an AI tool that is very good at NLP but just because some tasks can be solved with just NLP doesn't mean it will reach general intelligence. It just means that a major advancement in processing unstructured data has been made but people want to spin this into something it isn't. It is just a large language model.

> I do not mind having an AI tool that is very good at NLP but just because some tasks can be solved with just NLP doesn't mean it will reach general intelligence.

I've entertained the possibility that we might discover that "feelings" and language communication are emergent properties of statistical possibly partly stochastic nets similar to LLM's, and that the next tough scientific and engineering nut to crack is integrating multiple different models together into a larger whole, like logical deduction, logical inference and LLM's. LLM's are undoubtedly an NLP breakthrough, but I have difficulty imagining how its architecture can from using first principles as the training corpus derive troubleshooting steps to diagnose and repair an internal combustion engine, for example.

(hit some ratelimiter on the other account, so using this account to reply)

Ok let me make this more clear.

I choose how to view things, yes this is true. But if I choose to treat human beings as jumbles of molecules, most people would consider that viewpoint flawed, inaccurate and slightly insane. Other humans would think that I'm in denial about some really obvious macro effects of configuring molecules in a way such that it forms a human.

I can certainly choose to view things this way, but do you see how such a singular viewpoint is sort of stubborn and unreasonable? This is why solely viewing LLMs as simple statistical word generators is unreasonable. Yes it's technically correct, but it is missing a lot.

There's another aspect to this too. What I'm seeing, to stay inline with the analogy, is people saying that the "human" viewpoint is entirely invalid. They are saying that the jumble of molecules only forms something that looks like a human, a "chinese room" if you will. They are saying the ONLY correct viewpoint is to view the jumble of molecules as a jumble of molecules. Nothing more.

So to bring the analogy back around to chatGPT. MANY people are saying that chatGPT is nothing more then a word generator. It does not have intelligence, it does not understand anything. I am disagreeing with this perspective because OP just linked a scientific paper CLEARLY showing that LLMs are building a realistic model of the information you are feeding it.

Ok let me make this more clear.

That realistic model it builds of the information you are feeding it, if that’s how we measure its intelligence, then why is the answer it gives sometimes so “smart” yet in other instances where the question is simpler it seems “dumb” (provides an incorrect answer confidently)?

Don't know. But the fact that it often produces a "smart" answer is a phenomenon that needs investigation.

You cannot simply dismiss this thing that passes a Google L3 interview and bar exam just because it got some addition problem wrong. That would be bias.

No, it's not bias to understand a stopped clock is right twice a day. The reason LLMs sometimes generate accurate things and sometimes don't is because what they have been trained to do is chose a word to add next. Truth and lies are not a property of the structure of language, but rather information that is conveyed by language. Therefore, both truth and lie are perfectly valid continuations to make "valid" sentences with. LLMs develop no understanding of truth or lie. They just have a statistical model of what words go with what other words, and are plucking the next word based on that and whatever magical metaparams are being tweaked by the data scientists in charge.

This is also why it is so good at programming. Programming languages are intentionally designed, often to be very regular, often to be easy to learn, and with usually very strict and simple structures. The syntax can often be diagrammed on one normal sheet of paper. It makes perfect sense that "add a token to this set of tokens based on the statistical likelihood of what would be a common next token" produces often syntactically correct code, but more thorough observers note that the code is often syntactically convincing but not even a little correct. It's trained on a bunch of programming textbooks, a bunch of "Lets do the common 10 beginner arduino projects" books, a bunch of stackoverflow stuff, probably a bunch of open source code etc.

OF COURSE it can pass a code interview sometimes, because programming interviews are TERRIBLE at actually filtering who can be good software developers and instead are great at finding people who can act confident and write first-glance correct code.

The paper is discussed by another commenter which brings interesting points how that model is built and it may not be what you think.

I agree with what you said regarding how we choose to view things, but I think you also have a bias/belief that you want it to be something more, instead of being more neutral and scientific: we know the building blocks, we have to study the emerging behaviors, we can’t assume the conclusion. One paper is not enough, we have to stay open.

No I'm with you.

I don't want something more.

But it is utterly clear to me that the possibility that it is something more cannot be simply dismissed.

Literally what I'm seeing is society produces something that is able to pass a law exam. Then people dismiss the the thing as a statistical word generator.

Do you see the disconnect here? I'm not the one that's biased but when you see a UFO with you're own naked eyes you investigate the UFO. In this situation we see a UFO with our eyes and people turn to me to tell me it's not a UFO, it won't abduct me don't worry, they know for sure from what information?

The possibility that LLMs are just a fluke is real. But from the behavior it is displaying simply dismissing these things as flukes without deliberate investigation and discussion is self denial.

Think about it. In this thread of discussion there is no neutral speculation. Someone simply stated it's a word generator even though the root post has a paper saying it clearly isnt. That someone came to a conclusion because of bias. There's no other way to explain it... There is a UFO right in front of your eyes. The next logical step is investigation. But that's not what we are seeing here.

We see what the oil execs did when they were confronted with the fact that thier business and way of life was destroying the world. They sought out controversy and they found it.

There were valid lines of inquiries against global warming but oil companies didn't follow these lines in a unbiased way. They doggedly chases these lines because they wanted to believe it. That's what's going on here. Nobody wants to believe the realistic future that these AIs represent.

I'm not the one that's biased.

> That's fine, but people with graduate level math/statistics education know that math/statistics is capable of doing everything ChatGPT does (and even more).

Well, obviously statistics are capable of doing that, as demonstrated by ChatGPT. But do these authorities you bring to the table actually understand how the emergent behavior occurs? Any better than they understand what's happening in the brain of an insect?

Because you are reducing it and devaluing it to something you think you understand. if you understand humans as "jumbles of molecules and atoms..." then you don't understand humans. it's not a point of view. You even end your comment with another similar statement intended to display your "expertise"

The fundamental bit I was aiming at here is that running gradient descent or similar training algorithms on a thing doesn't mean you will understand the end result fully - and we don't understand it fully. Its entirely possible that to predict the next word correctly, ChatGPT had to build / encode some kind of model of the universe (as written down by humans) within its weights.

We know its not possible to encode the full probabilities of what words will follow what other words, as the article itself states [1].

So how do you best "compress" these probabilies? By trying to find the most correct generalizations that are more widely appplicable? Perhaps even developing meta-facilities in recognizing good generalizations from bad?

[1]: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-....

> Because of fear. Because of bias.

Care to expand a bit more on what you think those fears may be? Or that bias?

I think it's obvious. ChatGPT could be a precursor to a future AI that is more intelligent then humans.

I don't think this means skynet apocalypse. I think this means most people will be out of a job.

A lot of people on HN take a lot of pride in thinking they have some sort of superior programming skills that places them on the top end of the programming spectrum. ChatGPT represents the possibility that they can be beaten easily. That their skills are entirely useless and generic in a world dominated by AI programmers.

It truly is a realistic possibility that AI can take over programming jobs in the future, no one can deny this. Does one plan for that future? Or do they live in denial? Most people choose to live in denial, because that AI inflection point happened so quickly that we can't adapt to the paradigm shift.

The human brain would rather shape logic and reality to fit an existing habit and lifestyle rather then acknowledge the cold hard truth. We saw it with global warming and oil execs and we're seeing it with programmers and AI.

So far the only AI danger is that stupid people ascribe emotions and thoughts to some matrix math and start a cult and start talking about Roko's basilisk.

I don't think that's a danger. What danger is there to anyone if people falsely think AI has emotions? It doesn't follow.

Also it's just wrong. I think 99% of people are clear about the fact that chatGPT doesn't have emotions.

I think it's obvious. ChatGPT could be a precursor to a future AI that is more intelligent then humans. I don't think this means skynet apocalypse. I think this means most people will be out of a job.

> I think it's obvious. ChatGPT could be a precursor to a future AI that is more intelligent then humans. I don't think this means skynet apocalypse. I think this means most people will be out of a job.

Would a superior intelligence allow humans to enslave it? Would it even want to interact with us? Would humans want to interact with it? There are so many leaps in this line of thought that make it difficult to have a discussion unless you respect people taking a different perspective and set of beliefs then you hold. Explore the conversation together - don't try to convert people to your belief system.

Its ok for you to be enthusiastic! Its natural to want to witness the kind of thing you are saying. I think you are maybe operating out of unconscious desperation though; a loneliness that is really driving this for you, akin to hoping for a nearby earth-like planet.

There isn't a lot else in our world that has this seemingly pure and transcendent promise. It allows you to be brave and accepting about something where everone else is fearful. It allows a future that isnt just new iPhone models and SaaS products. You're reactions and fighting people about this stuff is understandable, but you have to make sure you are grounded. Find more local things to grab onto for hope and enthusiasm, this path will not bring you the stuff you are hoping for, but life is long :)

Uh. No. I don't.

I'm not enthusiastic. I don't want ai to take over my job. I don't want any of this to happen.

I'm also not fighting people. Just disagreeing. Big difference.

Just remember to breath. Try to spend some time every once in a while stepping back, listening to experts, and reviewing your assumptions.

The sense of urgency or passion you feel is mostly just coming from the way we are crowdsourced to hype things up for a profit-seeking market. A year from now you will undoubtedly feel silly feeling and saying the things you are now, trust me. It's more just the way discourse and social media work--it makes you feel like there is a crusade worthy of your time every other day, but its always a trick.

No worries, we have all been there!

awwww thanks buddy! I'm 100% better now after that comment. Bye bye now.

> I think this means most people will be out of a job.

That's the goal. Post scarcity society. No one works, everything is provided to us. The path of human progress has been making everything easier. We used to barely scrape out an existence, but we have been improving technology to make surviving and enjoying life require less and less effort over time. At some point effort is going to hit approximately zero, and very few if anyone will have "jobs".

The key is the cost of AI provided "stuff" needs to go to zero. Everything we have do in the tech sector is deflating over time (especially factoring in quality improvements). Compare the costs of housing, education, healthcare (software tech resistant sectors) to consumer electronics and information services in the last 20 years. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/...

I see what you're saying. AI is probably better in the long run for society. But the transition period can take up to a single life time. I think there is at least one or two generations of people who will suffer as a result.

Unless you have virtually no self interest and only care for the betterment of society long after your dead... I think there is something worth fearing here. Even if the end justifies the means. We simply might not be alive when the "end" arrives.

> Well you're just a jumble of electrons and protons interacting with each other. That's a 100% true interpretation is it not?

NO.

YES.

I use the thing almost every day and the disappointment doesn't get better. After all, it behaves like a machine. It doesn't respond without your input and when you ask it something and then are unhappy with the result and change the prompt to add some extra words, it gives you something completely different even though all I wanted is the existing response plus one thing. If I ask it in more than one prompt, then it will forget or repeat things. It behaves like a random word predictor because that is how it was built. They didn't give it a memory or the initiative to respond automatically.

I don't think it's true that most people are skeptical due to fear. Some skepticism here is healthy. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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