[ExI] Bender's Octopus (re: LLMs like ChatGPT)

[Giovanni Santostasi]

*Now, what if they don't beam down to the planet and listen to only digital
radio signals coming from the planet and send digital radio signals in
return? No communication is possible as there are no referents. It's all
noise.*Gordon on you are so wrong.
People have studied this problem deeply and found a solution using the laws
of physics and mathematics as abstract referents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

As we already established we can use abstract referents for communication.
Math is another example, as GPT-4 correctly said, it has references but
they are abstract. An entire communication can happen without concrete
referents as in mathematics. Without talking about using digital pics or 3D
models of objects all made of 0 and 1s (basically what you would do to
communicate to an entity in a digital world).
The reason you still insist on this human exceptionalism is because of
religious faith.

Giovanni









On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 11:19 PM Gordon Swobe <gordon.swobe at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Nobody least of all me questions that GPT-4 will be capable of amazing
> feats, and that eventually these language models will surpass humans in
> terms of what we can call intelligence or what I might for sake of clarity
> prefer to call apparent intelligence. The question here is whether they
> will know what they are saying given that they are trained only on the
> forms of words with no access to the meanings or referents.
>
> Adrian has made the excellent point a couple of times that this is like
> the first contact problem in science fiction, and actually like the first
> contact problem between any two cultures with completely different
> languages. Q: When Kirk and Spock beam down to a new planet with
> intelligent alien life, how will they learn to communicate? A: With
> referents.
>
> Spock will point to himself and say "Spock." Kirk will point to himself
> and say "Kirk." Kirk will point to a rock and say "rock." Kirk and Spock
> use these kinds referents to initiate  communication. If our alien friend
> wants to communicate, he will point to the rock and "fwerasa" (or whatever
> is his word for rock). He will point to himself and say his name, and so
> on. Eventually, Spock and the alien will learn how to translate a few
> words, and from there the process of understanding begins.
>
> Now, what if they don't beam down to the planet and listen to only digital
> radio signals coming from the planet and send digital radio signals in
> return? No communication is possible as there are no referents. It's all
> noise.
>
> -gts
>
>>
>>
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