[jameshart]

Right

#1 it’s not clear that this ∃ ∀ construction is a fair representation of what is being ‘sold’ by GPT-x

#2 it’s also not clear what this proposed inverted formulation (∀ ∃) that describes what the author thinks GPT actually is even means. For every setting there exists a task that it answers? Does that even make sense?

[justeleblanc]

Pretty sure you should read "for every task there exists a setting".

[jameshart]

But what's the inverse?

[317070]

there exists a setting which will work for all your test points.

The caveat of the author is (I think) that if you have a task, you collect a set of points (questions) on which you will test this task. Then you tune your setting (prompt) to start working for your test point (questions).

After that procedure, you do not know if that prompt solves the original task. You might have overfitted to your test points.

And by repeatedly doing this overfitting for various tasks, you are not gathering evidence that a good setting truly exists for all tasks

[loa_in_]

You can go as far as claiming that it's true for your colleagues as well! They've solved their piece of the job so far, but what evidence do you have that they will keep solving them in future? It's all just speculation!

[anonymous_sorry]

Informally, "this thing can solve all your problems" vs "for each of your problems there is a thing that can solve it".

I suppose the argument is that LLMs are not a solution to any problem, they are a complex tool which might be used to find a solution, with non-zero effort.

As an example of non-zero effort: I spent a fair amount of time the other day trying to get chatGPT to advise how to effectively deal with a grey squirrel problem. It was more interested in telling me that squirrels should be treated humanely, to the extent that it suggested doing things that are illegal in my country (releasing a captured grey squirrel). I asked why and it told me all animals had a right to dignity and respect. I couldn't resist getting side tracked by this. After some light trolling I asked it about how it had come to hold these values and it told me that as an LLM it didn't have values, but then restated its position anyway.

In the end I got some more sense out of it with a new prompt where I specifically said I was interested in effective, legal methods of control without any moralising.

If you're concerned, I haven't killed any squirrels and almost certainly won't.

[jameshart]

Right, but this seems like strawmanning to me. The vast majority of useful technology ever developed has been "a complex tool which might be used to find a solution, with non-zero effort".

The complaint here seems to be about the existence of marketing.