[vineyardmike]

No, they're a "next character" predictor - like a really fancy version of the auto-complete on your phone - and when you feed it in a bunch of characters (eg. a prompt), you're basically pre-selecting a chunk of the prediction. So to get multiple characters out, you literally loop through this process one character at a time.

I think this is a perfect example of why these things are confusing for people. People assume there's some level of "intelligence" in them, but they're just extremely advanced "forecasting" tools.

That said, newer models get some smarts where they can output "hidden" python code which will get run, and the result will get injecting into the response (eg. for graphs, math, web lookups, etc).

[coffeemug]

How do you know you’re not an extremely advanced forecasting tool?

[evantbyrne]

If you're trying to claim that humans are just advanced LLMs, then say it and justify it. Edgy quips are a cop out and not a respectful way to participate in technical discussions.

[coffeemug]

I am definitely not making this claim. I was replying to this:

> People assume there's some level of "intelligence" in them, but they're just extremely advanced "forecasting" tools.

My question wasn't meant as a quip. Rather it was literal-- how do you know your intelligence capabilities aren't "just extremely advanced forecasting"? We don't know for sure, and the answer is far from obvious. That doesn't mean humans are advanced LLMs-- we feel emotions, for instance. My comment was restricted to intelligence specifically.

[chpatrick]

You can make a human do the same task as an LLM: given what you've received (or written) so far, output one character. You would be totally capable of intelligent communication like this (it's pretty much how I'm talking to you now), so just the method of generating characters isn't proof of whether you're intelligent or not, and it doesn't invalidate LLMs either.

This "LLMs are just fancy autocomplete so they're not intelligent" is just as bad an argument as saying "LLMs communicate with text instead of making noises by flapping their tongues so they're not intelligent". Sufficiently advanced autocomplete is indistinguishable from intelligence.

[evantbyrne]

The question isn't whether LLMs can simulate human intelligence, I think that is well-established. Many aspects of human nature are a mystery, but a technology that by design produces random outputs based on a seed number does not meet the criteria of human intelligence.

[chpatrick]

Why? People also produce somewhat random outputs, so?

[evantbyrne]

A lot of things are going to look the same when you aren't wearing your glasses. You don't even appear to be trying to describe these things in a realistic fashion. There is nothing of substance in this argument.