[bheadmaster]

> Are you suggesting the code behind the LLMs is just, like, ineffable or something?

No, he's suggesting that the code behind the human brain is "ineffable or something". For all we know, human brains might be "just statistics", "nothing magical about them".

You have no way of knowing that LLMs don't think, because we literally don't know what thinking is.

[DonaldPShimoda]

> You have no way of knowing that LLMs don't think, because we literally don't know what thinking is.

Except we do know enough to know that LLMs are not following the same processes as humans.

Or, at least, I know enough, and experts in the field that I talk to know enough. I suppose I can't speak for you.

[naasking]

> Or, at least, I know enough, and experts in the field that I talk to know enough.

AI experts know nothing about neuroscience so I'm not sure what you think this proves. Ask any neuroscientist if we have a precise mathematical understanding of how the brain works. You accuse others of tiresome leaps of logic, but you seemingly don't realize that there is literally no evidence supporting your claims about the brain.

I suggest rereading my detailed argument above until the following sinks in: we have no mathematical understanding of folk-psychology concepts like 'thoughts' and 'feelings', therefore I cannot claim that LLMs or any other machine learning algorithm does not contain those mathematical objects.

[bheadmaster]

> Or, at least, I know enough, and experts in the field that I talk to know enough. I suppose I can't speak for you.

In other words, "trust me, bro".

You claiming that you're an expert (or talk with experts, and therefore are something-like-an-expert) about something doesn't convince me of anything except that you're full of yourself. Any idiot (or LLM, for that matter) can write such a comment on the internet. Providing logical arguments and real information, however, would be much more effective at convincing me that LLMs cannot think.

But that would require you to actually be an expert, wouldn't it?

[amazingman]

By that standard we have no way of knowing whether rocks think, either.

[bheadmaster]

Exactly.

The only reason we assume that rocks don't think is because they don't appear to be able to do things that would require thinking. LLMs, on the other hand...