GPT-4 performs better at Theory of Mind tests than actual humans

I agree. Another way to come to this conclusion is that the GPT-4 model is on the order of 1000B parameters, or on the order of a terabyte of data.

That's not a lot of different sentences when you consider the combinatorical explosion.

I'm more in the former camp, and I would agree that if the computer passed this theoretical test, it could be considered thinking. We would also need to define what it means to think, since it's an ambiguous term; thinking could mean that you can explain your reasoning behind giving an answer (something ChatGPT can generally do), thinking could mean producing something novel based on your experiences/"training data" (something ChatGPT can't do), or it could mean something else, and I think if we define what it means to think, then we could probably create a test that can be used to consider something functionally thinking. Of course, this is getting into the realm of philosophy, and what does it mean to think, so there's not a simple answer here, but I'd generally say that thinking implies a degree of novel concept generation, which is why I wouldn't consider ChatGPT to think.

I could also understand an argument saying that it's impossible for a computer to think, but I don't think I'd agree with it.

I believe GPT-4 is able to perform some level of logical reasoning.

Simpler models look very good on the surface, but there are some examples where this starts to break own. Example:

"Is it legal for a man to marry his widow's sister?"

The catch here is the man is dead, which is the reason he can't marry. GPT-4 gets this right. Simpler models however can be prompted to perform step-by-step reasoning where they figure out that dead men can't marry, and that a "man's widow" means he's dead, but the model still can't be coaxed into figuring out that he can't marry in the scenario above.

I'm guessing GPT-4 still has similar hangups where it gets stuck and can't get out no matter the coaxing, although I don't have any examples handy. Anyone?

This doesn't mean GPT-4 is a stochastic parrot, just that there are still flaws in its reasoning abilities.

That question can't be answered reliably without knowing the training data used.

LLMs are great at being interfaces to the data they were trained on. Ask them anything beyond that, and it becomes clear they're not capable of thinking like humans do, i.e. producing novel ideas.

It's kind of absurd we're having this discussion, TBH. The only reason it's difficult to distinguish mimicry from thinking is because of the sheer volume of data we're talking about here, and some clever algorithms that find correlations in it, and can synthesize a human-like response.

This is exacerbated by the fact that human education is built around memorization, and that we equate intelligence with being able to regurgitate previously known facts. So if this is your measuring stick, then by all means LLMs can be considered intelligent agents capable of rational thought, when in reality this is far from the truth.

> If thinking/understanding/reasoning/whatever can be fake, it should be testable

I agree with everything else you said, but this is a point I disagree with.

Just because something isn't testable, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Theoretically, the state of facts could be such that 1) human minds can think (as in, have consciousness and perform the process that is known to us as "human thinking") and 2) machines cannot think (as in, they don't have consciousness, but are literally just mechanisms that appear to provide same output as humans for a certain set of inputs).

I don't think it's true, in fact, I don't think consciousness itself is anything more than a convenient illusion, but I still must point out that "what is real must be measurable" is not a valid argument.

A more precise formulation might be "if thinking can be fake, the only way we can prove it is if it's testable - otherwise it doesn't make sense to discuss it".

it is important in order for us to accept it as an agent that understands things, because self-reflection is so important and obvious to us.

"concept" is ill-defined , it s a subjective thing that humans invented. It is probably not possible to define it without a sense (a definition) of self.