5 ms·

Despite the appearance, they do: despite the training, neurons, transformers and all, ultimately it is a program running in a turing machine.

aljarry 2y ago
But it is only a program computing numbers. The code itself has nothing to do with the reasoning capabilities of the model.
- xpe 2y ago
  Nothing to do with it? You certainly don’t mean that. The software running an LLM is causally involved. Perhaps you can explain your point in a different way? Related: would you claim that the physics of neurons has nothing to do with human intelligence? Certainly not. You might be hinting at something else: perhaps different levels of explanation and/or prediction. These topics are covered extensively by many thinkers. Such levels of explanation are constructs used by agents to make sense of phenomena. These explanations are not causal; they are interpretative.
  - aljarry 2y ago
    > Nothing to do with it? You certainly don’t mean that. The software running an LLM is causally involved. Not in the way that would apply problem of non-computability of Turing machine. > Perhaps you can explain your point in a different way? LLM is not a logic program finding perfect solution to a problem, it's a statistical model to find next possible word. The model code does not solve a (let's say) NP problem to find solution to a puzzle, the only thing is doing is finding next best possible word through statistical models built on top of neural networks. This is why I think Gödel's theorem doesn't apply here, as the LLM does not encode strict and correct logical or mathematical theorem, that would be incomplete. > Related: would you claim that the physics of neurons has nothing to do with human intelligence? Certainly not. I agree with you, though I had different angle in mind. > You might be hinting at something else: perhaps different levels of explanation and/or prediction. These topics are covered extensively by many thinkers. > Such levels of explanation are constructs used by agents to make sense of phenomena. These explanations are not causal; they are interpretative. Thank you, that's food for thought.
empath75 2y ago
Well, if you break everything down to the lowest level of how the brain works, then so do humans. But I think there's a relevant higher level of abstraction in which it isn't -- it's probabilistic and as much intuition as anything else.

aljarry 2y ago

But it is only a program computing numbers. The code itself has nothing to do with the reasoning capabilities of the model.

xpe 2y ago
Nothing to do with it? You certainly don’t mean that. The software running an LLM is causally involved. Perhaps you can explain your point in a different way? Related: would you claim that the physics of neurons has nothing to do with human intelligence? Certainly not. You might be hinting at something else: perhaps different levels of explanation and/or prediction. These topics are covered extensively by many thinkers. Such levels of explanation are constructs used by agents to make sense of phenomena. These explanations are not causal; they are interpretative.
- aljarry 2y ago
  > Nothing to do with it? You certainly don’t mean that. The software running an LLM is causally involved. Not in the way that would apply problem of non-computability of Turing machine. > Perhaps you can explain your point in a different way? LLM is not a logic program finding perfect solution to a problem, it's a statistical model to find next possible word. The model code does not solve a (let's say) NP problem to find solution to a puzzle, the only thing is doing is finding next best possible word through statistical models built on top of neural networks. This is why I think Gödel's theorem doesn't apply here, as the LLM does not encode strict and correct logical or mathematical theorem, that would be incomplete. > Related: would you claim that the physics of neurons has nothing to do with human intelligence? Certainly not. I agree with you, though I had different angle in mind. > You might be hinting at something else: perhaps different levels of explanation and/or prediction. These topics are covered extensively by many thinkers. > Such levels of explanation are constructs used by agents to make sense of phenomena. These explanations are not causal; they are interpretative. Thank you, that's food for thought.

empath75 2y ago

Well, if you break everything down to the lowest level of how the brain works, then so do humans. But I think there's a relevant higher level of abstraction in which it isn't -- it's probabilistic and as much intuition as anything else.