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Comment by goncharom | Hacker News Reader

Every time I see comments like these I think about this research from anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/research/mapping-mind-language-mod...

LLMs activate similar neurons for similar concepts not only across languages, but also across input types. I’d like to know if you’d consider that as a good representation of “understanding” and if not, how would you define it?

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Anthropic is pretty notorious for peddling hype. This is a marketing article - it has not undergone peer-review and should not be mistaken for scientific research.

it has a proper paper attached right at the beginning of the article

It’s not peer-reviewed, and was never accepted by a scientific journal. It’s a marketing paper masquerading as science.

If i could understand what the brain scans actually meant, I would consider it a good representation. I don't think we know yet what they mean. I saw some headline the other day about a person with "low brain activity" and said person was in complete denial about it, I would be too.

As I said then, and probably echoing what other commenters are saying - what do you mean by understanding when you say computers understand nothing? do humans understand anything? if so, how?

Does a computer understand how hot or cold it is outside? Does it understand that your offspring might be cranky because they’re hungry? Or not hungry, just tired? Can it divine the difference?

Does a computer know if your boss is mad at you or if they had a fight with their spouse last night, or whatever other reason they may be grumpy?

Can a computer establish relationships… with anything?

How about when a computer goes through puberty? Or menopause? Or a car accident? How do those things affect them?

Don’t bother responding, I think you get the point.

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