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Comment by methodical | Hacker News Reader

Not at all. Being able to give an example of something or spit something out that resembles a concept is not the same thing as understanding it, at least in my opinion. Keyword being true understanding, although I'll concede that it might have arguably basic understanding of such concepts.

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You need to define "true understanding" in some concrete, measurable way, or accept that you're just using it to avoid thinking clearly about AI capabilities.

The difficulty with that is that trying to define "true understanding" crosses deeply into the philosophical realm. Moreover, a lack of ability to define a term does not invalidate my position. That being said, I'll instead present you with a question intended to display what I believe is the difference between the two. If I write an example of an integral, it clearly shows that I know what an integral is, but does that mean that I understand integrals? Even if I could concisely answer any question you asked about integrals (i.e. an all-knowing AI), that is not the same as my definition of "truly understanding" integrals. To pose another philosophical question which highlights what I believe it is to "truly understand" something: Does the library of babel understand? I would say that despite it having the answer to any question you ask, it does not "truly understand" anything. I wish that I could put the difference between these two into concise wording, but alas I've been unable to quite put my finger on it despite having spent some good part of the day giving thought to it.

Some of these concepts are explained/explored much better than I could do on the wikipedia[0] page for understanding, particularly the "Assessment" section.

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

What about the AP-Calc student that has "merely" practiced hundreds of integrals and is therefore equipped, not just to pass the examination, but to use integrals as part of more complex theories down the line?

If they know only enough to apply the concept successfully without knowing its fundamentals, have they "understood" it?

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