It's so funny to me that people are still adamant about this like two years after it's become a completely moot point.
My point is, the question if an LLM reasons the same way a human does is about as useful as "does a submarine swim" or "can a telephone talk". The results speak for themselves.
There have been enough cases of models providing novel results that it's clear that whatever human trait they supposedly lack they don't really need. A car does not need legs, it does things differently. Having legs would even be a major detriment and would hold it back from achieving its top performance.
That's what those brain simulating projects are conceptually btw: cars with legs or planes with flapping wings. That's why they all fail, the approach makes no sense.
Even if we're to humor the "novel" part, have they actually come up with anything truly novel? New physics? New proofs of hard math problems that didn't exist before?
[0] https://research.google/blog/ai-as-a-research-partner-advanc...
>They are a parrot
Is it really much different from most people? The average Joe doesn't produce novel theories every day - he just rehashes what he's heard. Now the new goalpost seems to be that we can only say an LLM can "reason" if it matches Fields Medalists.
You've presented a false choice.
However the average Joe does indeed produce unique and novel thoughts every day. If it were not the case he would be brain dead. Each decision - wearing blue or red today - every tiny thought, action, feeling, indecision, crisis, or change of heart these are just as important.
The jury maybe out on how to judge what 'thought' actually is. However what it is not is perhaps easier to perceive. My digital thermometer does not think when it tells me the temperature.
My paper and pen version of the latest LLM (quite a large bit of paper and certainly a lot of ink I might add) also does not think.
I am surprised so many in the HN community have so quickly taken to assuming as fact that LLM's think or reason. Even anthropomorphising LLM's to this end.
For a group inclined to quickly calling out 'God of the gaps' they have quite quickly invented their very own 'emergence'.
Those are some mighty parrots there, if they managed to get gold at IMO, IoI, and so on...
That sounds like a false "both sides"-ing.
It's not symmetrical, there's a lot more money (and potential to grift) hyping things up as miracle machines.
In contrast, most of the pessimists don't have a discernible profit motive.
You have artists who've lost work due to diffusion models, teachers who can't assign homework essays anymore, people who hate Microsoft Copilot, just anyone not wanting to be replaced by a bot or being forced to use the tech to avoid being outcompeted, people set in their ways who don't want change or imagine it being destructive, etc. It's a large crowd that one can appeal to for personal gain, politics 101. Anyone with half believable credentials can go on a talk show and say the things people want to hear, maybe sell a book or two afterwards.
Are today's models on the brink of some exponential self perpetuating shot towards superintelligence? Obviously not. Are they overhyped glorified lookup tables? Also no. Are there problems? Definitely. But I don't think it's entirely fair to dismiss a tech based on someone misappropriating it in monopolistic endeavours instead of directing dismissal towards those people themselves.
Like, similar to how Elon's douchebaggery has tainted EVs for lots of people for no practical reason, the same has Altman's done for LLMs.
Imagine somebody in 2007: "It's so funny to me that people are still adamant about mortgage default risk after it's become a completely moot point because nobody cares in this housing market."
Diving into how well/badly anybody predicted a certain economic future is a whole different can of worms.
That said: "The market can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent." :p
It’s pretty clear to me there is a collective desire to ignore the problems to sell more GPU, close the next round, get that high paying AI job.
Part of me wishes humans would show the same dedication to fight climate change…