[travisjungroth]

Normal English implies that you can do something, not everything. It’s an any versus all distinction, and all is totally unreasonable except for the most formal circumstances.

“Can you ride a bike?”

“Yeah.”

“Prove it. Here I have the world’s smallest bicycle.” <- this person is not worth your time and attention.

[alienicecream]

It can't even count reliably. And this is a computer, not a human. That is one of the simplest things a computer should be able to do. It can't count because it doesn't know what counting is, not because it's unreliable in the way a human would be when counting. You cannot reason if you do not understand the concepts you are working with. The result is not the measure of success here, because it is good at mimicking, but when it fails at such a basic computing task, you can reasonably conclude it has no idea what it's doing.

[travisjungroth]

Think about it step by step. There are people not able to count. We still say they can reason. A low ability to count does not disprove reasoning.

[alienicecream]

A child may not be able to count, because they don't yet understand the concept, but may be able to reason at a more basic level, yes. But GPT has ingested most of the books in the world and the entire internet. So if it hasn't learned to count, or what counting is by now, what is going to change? A child can learn the concept, GPT cannot. It doesn't understand concepts at all, it only seems like it does because the output is so close to what beings that do understand concepts generate themselves, and it's mimicking that.

[travisjungroth]

There are adults who can't count as well as ChatGPT.

[alienicecream]

Ok, but how does that change the argument?

[travisjungroth]

Inability to count does not prove inability to reason.