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

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 5:50 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Mar 24, 2023, 12:14 AM Gordon Swobe <gordon.swobe at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 9:37 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> There's no way to read this paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.12712.pdf
>>> and come away with the impression that GPT-4 has no idea what it is talking
>>> about.
>>>
>>
>> Hmm, nothing in the abstract even remotely suggests to me that GPT-4 will
>> know word meanings any more than does GPT-3. Eventually AI on digital
>> computers will far surpass human intelligence, but even then these
>> computers will be manipulating the forms of words and not their meanings.
>>
>
> It seems to me that you have accepted Searle's arguments. I believe I can
> knock down his Chinese room argument. If that is what you are using to base
> your decision on you should know almost no philosophers or computer
> scientists believe his argument holds water. Here's just one of the many
> flaws in the argument: there's more than one mind in the room. Ask the room
> about its favorite food, or about its experiences as a child. The answers
> given will not be Searle's. Change Searle for someone else, the room will
> respond the same way. Searle is an interchangeable cog in the machine. Yet
> Searle wants us to believe only his opinion matters. In truth, his position
> is no different than the "laws of physics" which "mindlessly" computes our
> evolving brain state "without any understanding" of what goes on in our
> heads. Searle's Chinese room argument works as any great magic trick does:
> through misdirection. Ignore the claims made by the man in the room who is
> shouting and waving his arms. Since we've established there are two minds
> in the room, we can replace Searle with a mindless demon and there still
> will be one mind left.
>
>
### Indeed, Searle's room is a parlor trick. We discussed it to death here
about 20 years ago, IIRC. How could seemingly intelligent people take it
seriously?

Rafal
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