[akio]

That is a clue that GPT-4 is not a stochastic parrot and does in fact possess an understanding of language and a model of the world.

[coffeebeqn]

How would we treat a parrot with GPT4s capability? I don’t think it’s a great metaphor because it ignores emergent behavior. Whatever the technical details are, GPT4 can hold a fairly satisfying conversation about almost any topic. If a parrot was 1000x better, it wouldn’t be a “parrot”.

[shagie]

This gets into part of philosophy and linguistics that I wish I took more of in college.

Consider the question "does language enable higher thought?" Was Koko able to think things that other gorillas were not able to? Or how about Bunny the dog ( https://www.youtube.com/@whataboutbunny ) or Billie the cat ( https://www.youtube.com/@BilliSpeaks )?

This is an "I believe" and acknowledge that I don't have the proper argument to back it up...

I believe that language and thought as we know it are intertwined. It is possible to communicate without language but thinking (and that's a poorly defined word) requires a language to think in. Something that is able to use language well is able to think - and that gets to a LLM can thing (it just it does it in a way that is foreign to the expectations of a human mind).

--

Regarding LLMs and parrots within science fiction...

http://klingon.wiki/En/CapableOfLanguage

> Beings capable of language (only one time referred to as "capable of speech" in TKD on p. 25) are those beings which are able to speak a language(1). Examples are Klingons, Humans, Romulans, etc. This does also include babies, because even if they do not speak, they are capable of using language(2). This distinction is important in the use of possessive suffixes, plural suffixes and the choice of pronouns.

> not capable of language

> Not considered as capable of language are:

> Parrots, as they only imitate sound, they do not speak. (3)

> Robots and computers, they are not living beings. (4) (5)