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No. People have an inner monologue, partial results and ideas and they remember that. If they've worked some minutes/hours/weeks on something and you ask them

by bmacho 7d ago

No. People have an inner monologue, partial results and ideas and they remember that. If they've worked some minutes/hours/weeks on something and you ask them why did they do that, they will either answer honestly and truthfully, lie, or say "I missed that/didn't seem important so I just chose something at random". None of these cases are similar to how AI works.

supern0va 7d ago
>No. People have an inner monologue, partial results and ideas and they remember that. Yes, but the vast, vast majority of decisions you make either don't take place via an inner monologue, or include details that were not actively/consciously "thought" and reasoned with in your inner monologue. And yet, when asked why you did something, you're not likely to respond "sorry, that decision was made subconsciously". Instead, you use your inner monologue to try to backfill in a reason why. That reason may be correct, or it may not be. You don't actually know, since you have new data that may be updating your own internal state as you try to rationalize it after the fact.
- deleted 7d ago
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satvikpendem 7d ago
> People have an inner monologue Perhaps up to 50% of people actually don't have an inner monologue, much like many have aphantasia where they can't actually see anything in their mind either.
- archagon 7d ago
  That’s not how that works. I don’t usually have an inner monologue either, but I do have an abstract stream of thought. It’s not as if I am always acting on instinct.
saghm 7d ago
If you have examples of studies that verify that people are always aware of the gaps in their memories of why they did things rather than their memories sometimes "filling in the blanks", so to speak, I'd be interested. My impression is that the opposite has a lot more evidence in studies (e.g. around the reliability of eyewitness testimony). It's not clear to me whether you're aware of a rigorous basis for your claim or you're just inferring based on what you think makes sense, but I can't help but wonder if it's the later, in which case regardless of the mechanism, the outcome certainly seems to resemble what happens with LLMs.
- bmacho 7d ago
  It's obviously true that when people try to recall memories they either 1. recall them correctly 2. say they can't recall them 3. recall them incorrectly Are you asking me a study on when people say they remember something (cases 1 and 3) they are usually right or wrong?
  - saghm 7d ago
    No, I was asking why you were confident that 3 didn't exist because the comment you said before was that people will either recall correct, lie, or not remember. Lying is not the same as remembering incorrectly but not realizing it, so I agree with your relaxed list. I still don't understand how you think this is any different from an LLM though, which will also always give one of the three options you listed just now.
uliqquel 7d ago
Models with reasoning > Instant have an inner monologue and when asked why they did something they can deduce based on that monologue. I have asked things like "what steps did you take" and "what was your reasoning" and the answer matched the thinking output of the model.
yawnxyz 7d ago
I think this is true with some people, but I don't think this holds true for some (or even most) people across the US (at least not all the folks I've worked with)
croo 7d ago
Actually split brain experiments tells a different story. The left hemisphere actively confabulates, inventing plausible explanations for actions it didn’t initiate, suggesting that much of human self-narrative may be post-hoc storytelling.
- deleted 7d ago
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- satvikpendem 7d ago
  Indeed. People literally make stuff up when their corpus callosum is severed.
  - bmacho 7d ago
    Aand what if their corpus callosum isn't severed?
    - satvikpendem 7d ago
      They also make stuff up.
- bmacho 7d ago
  > The left hemisphere actively confabulates, inventing plausible explanations for actions it didn’t initiate, suggesting that much of human self-narrative may be post-hoc storytelling. Sounds like the left hemisphere usually uses something from the right hemisphere to answer those questions and it can't do that if it's been cut off? We know that our brains are capable of hallucinating due to substances (drugs), being asleep, brain damage (including split brain), hypnosis, etc. Just as RAM damage make your computer do weird shit. That doesn't mean it operates that way normally. You can't just remove a huge part of a system and then assume that the whole system behaves the same.
- Terr_ 7d ago
  Perhaps, but it's also a rather questionable achievement: We've already had several decades of program-output that can match humans with literal brain damage. If anything, biological comparisons should make us cautious. Consider the vast gulf that still exists between the finest artificial organ/limb versus the OEM parts of natural nanobots.

by bmacho 7d ago

supern0va 7d ago

>No. People have an inner monologue, partial results and ideas and they remember that. Yes, but the vast, vast majority of decisions you make either don't take place via an inner monologue, or include details that were not actively/consciously "thought" and reasoned with in your inner monologue. And yet, when asked why you did something, you're not likely to respond "sorry, that decision was made subconsciously". Instead, you use your inner monologue to try to backfill in a reason why. That reason may be correct, or it may not be. You don't actually know, since you have new data that may be updating your own internal state as you try to rationalize it after the fact.

deleted 7d ago
[deleted]

satvikpendem 7d ago

> People have an inner monologue Perhaps up to 50% of people actually don't have an inner monologue, much like many have aphantasia where they can't actually see anything in their mind either.

archagon 7d ago
That’s not how that works. I don’t usually have an inner monologue either, but I do have an abstract stream of thought. It’s not as if I am always acting on instinct.

saghm 7d ago

If you have examples of studies that verify that people are always aware of the gaps in their memories of why they did things rather than their memories sometimes "filling in the blanks", so to speak, I'd be interested. My impression is that the opposite has a lot more evidence in studies (e.g. around the reliability of eyewitness testimony). It's not clear to me whether you're aware of a rigorous basis for your claim or you're just inferring based on what you think makes sense, but I can't help but wonder if it's the later, in which case regardless of the mechanism, the outcome certainly seems to resemble what happens with LLMs.

bmacho 7d ago
It's obviously true that when people try to recall memories they either 1. recall them correctly 2. say they can't recall them 3. recall them incorrectly Are you asking me a study on when people say they remember something (cases 1 and 3) they are usually right or wrong?
- saghm 7d ago
  No, I was asking why you were confident that 3 didn't exist because the comment you said before was that people will either recall correct, lie, or not remember. Lying is not the same as remembering incorrectly but not realizing it, so I agree with your relaxed list. I still don't understand how you think this is any different from an LLM though, which will also always give one of the three options you listed just now.

uliqquel 7d ago

Models with reasoning > Instant have an inner monologue and when asked why they did something they can deduce based on that monologue. I have asked things like "what steps did you take" and "what was your reasoning" and the answer matched the thinking output of the model.

yawnxyz 7d ago

I think this is true with some people, but I don't think this holds true for some (or even most) people across the US (at least not all the folks I've worked with)

croo 7d ago

Actually split brain experiments tells a different story. The left hemisphere actively confabulates, inventing plausible explanations for actions it didn’t initiate, suggesting that much of human self-narrative may be post-hoc storytelling.

deleted 7d ago
[deleted]
satvikpendem 7d ago
Indeed. People literally make stuff up when their corpus callosum is severed.
- bmacho 7d ago
  Aand what if their corpus callosum isn't severed?
  - satvikpendem 7d ago
    They also make stuff up.
bmacho 7d ago
> The left hemisphere actively confabulates, inventing plausible explanations for actions it didn’t initiate, suggesting that much of human self-narrative may be post-hoc storytelling. Sounds like the left hemisphere usually uses something from the right hemisphere to answer those questions and it can't do that if it's been cut off? We know that our brains are capable of hallucinating due to substances (drugs), being asleep, brain damage (including split brain), hypnosis, etc. Just as RAM damage make your computer do weird shit. That doesn't mean it operates that way normally. You can't just remove a huge part of a system and then assume that the whole system behaves the same.
Terr_ 7d ago
Perhaps, but it's also a rather questionable achievement: We've already had several decades of program-output that can match humans with literal brain damage. If anything, biological comparisons should make us cautious. Consider the vast gulf that still exists between the finest artificial organ/limb versus the OEM parts of natural nanobots.