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

[Giovanni Santostasi]

How that is different from what we do??????????????????????????
Colors in our brain are just activation patterns of neurons so 1 and 0s
too, or anyway some kind of information combo that can be represented with
0 and 1s. We are not special, Gordon, we are machines too.
Where are the referents in the figure below? Are you saying that aliens
would not understand this message?

[image: image.png]

On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 11:45 PM Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
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> *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
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> 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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