[fourfivefour]

bias infests research as well as seen by the replication crisis. So you being a researcher doesn't give more credence to your words especially given that the state of current research cannot fully comprehend what these ML models are doing internally.

I do agree that we can't ascribe cognition to machine learning.

But I also believe that we can't ascribe that it's NOT cognition. Why? Because we don't even truly understand what "Knowing" or cognition is. We can't even ascribe a quantitative similarity metric.

What we are seeing is that those inputs and outputs look remarkably similar to the real thing. How similar it is internally is not a known thing.

That's why even though you're an NLP researcher, I still say your argument here is just as niave as the person who claims these things are sentient. You simply don't know. No one does.

[gillesjacobs]

In science, if you don't know, you don't make the claim, that is basic positivism and the scientific method.

So basic in fact, I was thought this in elementary school. So far ad-hominem attributions of naivety.

Anyone that humanises computation is not only committing an A.I. faux-pas but are going against the basic scientific method.

[oneoneonetwo]

> In science, if you don't know, you don't make the claim, that is basic positivism and the scientific method.

Yes you're correct. So you can't make the claim that it's NOT cognition. That is my point. You also can't make the claim that it is cognition which was the OTHER point. Completely agree with your statement here.

But it goes further then this, and your statement shows YOU don't understand science.

>So basic in fact, I was thought this in elementary school. So far ad-hominem attributions of naivety.

No science is complex and basically most people don't understand the scientific method and it's limitations. It's not basic at all, not even people who graduate from four year colleges in STEM fully understand the true nature of science. Or even many scientists!

In science and therefore reality as we know it; nothing can be proven. This is because every subsequent observation can completely contradict an initial claim. Proof is the domain of logic and math, it doesn't exist in reality. Things can be disproven but nothing can actually be proven. That is science.

This is subtle stuff, but it's legit. I'll quote Einstein if you don't believe me:

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." - Einstein

And a link for further investigation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

Anyway all of this says that NO claim can be made about anything unless it's disproof. Which is exactly inline with what I'm saying.

Still claims are made all the time anyway in academia and the majority of these claims aren't technically scientific. This occurs because we can't practically operate on anything in reality if we can't in actuality claim things are true. So we do it anyway despite lack of any form of actual proof.

>Anyone that humanises computation is not only committing an A.I. faux-pas but are going against the basic scientific method.

But so is dismissing any similarity to humans. You can't technically say it's wrong or right. Especially when the outputs and inputs to these models are very similar to what humans would say.

This is basic preschool stuff I knew this when I was a baby! I thought everybody knew this! <Joking>.

[pavlov]

Were the pyramids of Giza built by aliens? Well, it sure looks that way if you focus exclusively on evidence that’s open to your preferred interpretation… And as for the all opposing evidence, nobody can disprove that it’s just the aliens trying to hide their tracks.

Machine cognition is a similarly extraordinary claim that’s going to need a lot more evidence than a just-right sequence of inputs and outputs.

[seanmcdirmid]

Isn’t it easy enough to just disprove that a system isn’t cognitive rather than proving that is? Otherwise…cognition is not a claim that can be evaluated by science at all.

Also, you can simply ask ChatGPT “A story about pyramids of Giza being built by aliens”, and it comes up with a reasonable story. This stuff is scary.

[oneoneonetwo]

I don't know if you played with chatGPT but it's much more than a just right sequence of inputs and outputs.

I have already incorporated into my daily use (as a programmer). It has huge flaws but the output is anecdotally amazing enough that the claim of "cognition" is not as extraordinary as you think it is.

Especially given the fact that we don't even fully understand what cognition is, the claim that it is NOT cognition is equally just as crazy.

[gillesjacobs]

Let me falsify your claim immediately: the inputs of these models are nothing like the inputs a human receives, subword tokens do not even match up with lexical items (visually, textually and semantically).

You seem to agree with me even though your interpretation of falsifiability is inverted: I am not asking that authors make a claim that their models do not mimick human intelligence. Like OP, I ask them that they do not make that positive claim, i.e. omit humanising language unless they can substantiate it with evidence.

[xg15]

The inputs and outputs for humans are synaptic action potentials, neurotransmitters and hormones. Is that so different?

Also agreeing that current LLMs are probably not sentient in any meaningful way. But what I don't like about the discussion is is that it steers in a direction where it would fundamentally be seen as bad science to claim that any AI model could be conscious - and I don't see that covered by the scientific method either, for the reasons that onetwoonetwo explained.

This reminds me a bit of the discussion whether or not animals can be conscious/experience emotions/feel pain, etc.

[oneoneonetwo]

It's an invalid falsification.

The input to chatGPT is a textual interface, the output is letters on a screen. That is the exact same interface as if I were chatting with a human over a chat app.

Your getting into the technicalities of intermediary inputs and outputs. Well sure... analog data seen by the nueral wetware of human brains IS obviously different from the textual digital data inputted into the ML model. There are very different filters and mechanisms at work here. For sure.

HOWEVER, we are looking for an isomorphism here. Similar to how a emulated playstation on a computer is very different then a physical playstation... an internal isomorphism STILL exists between hardware and the software emulating the hardware.

We do not know if such an isomorphism exists between chatGPT and the human brain. This isomorphism is basically the crystallized essence of what cognition is if we could define it. If one does exists it's not perfect... there are missing things. But it is niave to say that some form isomorphism isn't there AT ALL. It also niave to say that there is FOR SURE an isomorphism.

The most rational and scientific thing at this point is to speculate. Maybe what chatGPT is, is something vaguely isomorphic to cognition. Keyword: maybe.

It is NOT an unreasonable speculation GIVEN what we KNOW and DON'T KNOW.

[oneoneonetwo]

I also want to mention that, you directly stated in your first sentence in your first post that humanizing was wrong.

This in itself is a claim made without evidence. Which is my point. The claim as it stands cannot be made either way. We simply don't know.

[gillesjacobs]

The counterargument stems on a fundamental misunderstand of what it means to make assertive claims in science: you always need to prove your positive claim, saying that we do not know that ML models are human-like requires no evidence because this is the zero hypothesis.

Using humanising language is equivalent to attributing human-like cognition to ML models. Unless there is very strong evidence that there are analogies between the specific modeling mechanism and human-like intelligence, it is always incorrect to positively assert these claims without evidence. In science, you can only assert that for which there is evidence, strong claims like the above require strong evidence.