[ExI] Emily M. Bender — Language Models and Linguistics (video interview)

[Gordon Swobe]

On Sun, Mar 26, 2023 at 8:42 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I was hoping most of all you would get a chance to see and respond to this:
>
> Page 51 of this PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.12712.pdf
>
> As this might be the most important and convincing page in the document
> for the purposes of our discussion. To me this proves without a doubt they
> GPT-4 has overcome the symbol grounding problem. That is to say, it has
> convincingly bootstrapped the meaning of the words as they map to reality.
>
> This is because *words alone* were sufficient for GPT-4 to construct a
> mathematical model (a graph with edges and vertices) that is consistent
> with the layout of rooms within the house, as they were described *purely
> with words*. Is there any other way to interpret this?
>

I do not understand why you interpret it as so amazing that words alone
were sufficient to construct a mathematical model and graph of a house.
That demonstrates that GPT-4 is intelligent, but the question, as I thought
we understood in our last exchange, is whether it had a conscious
understanding of the words it used to construct the model, where
understanding entails holding the word meanings consciously in mind.

I see no reason to think GPT-4 had conscious awareness of constructing a
mathematical model, or of the meanings of the words used in constructing
the model, or even that it has conscious awareness that it itself exists.

I think many people conflate intelligence with consciousness. It is
reasonable to say GPT-4 acts in highly intelligent ways, but does it have a
conscious mind that knows this?  Does it have first person, subjective
experience like you and me? Or is it just a mindless digital computation
machine that simulates the outward appearance of having inward experience?

-gts
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