[imiric]

The distinction from human thinking and what the current AI hype cycle calls "thinking" is that all the machine model is doing is outputting the most probable text patterns based on its training data. We can keep adding layers on top of this, but that's all it ultimately is. The machine has no real understanding of what the text it's outputting means or what that text represents in the real world. It can't have an intuitive grasp of these concepts in the same way that a human with our 5 senses can gather over our lifetime.

This is why it's disingenuous to anthropomorphize any process of the current iteration of machine learning. There's no thinking or reasoning involved. None.

This isn't to say that this technology can't be very useful. But let's not delude ourselves thinking that we're anywhere close to achieving AGI.

"Arguing" about this topic with an LLM is pointless.

[robwwilliams]

I disagree. Can we characterize the difference in thinking between a chimp and a human? In my opinion the genetic and biological differences are trivial. But evidently humans did evolve some secret sauce—language. Language bootstrapped human consciouness to what we now call self-consciousness; to a higher level than in any other vertebrate over a period of a few million years and without the benefit of teams of world-class thinkers and programmers.

I have optimism with reason. Humans are fancy thinking animals. I admit I think the “hard problem” in consciousness research is bogus.

[imiric]

> Can we characterize the difference in thinking between a chimp and a human?

We can, but the difference is not in whether we think or not, but in _how_ we think. We both experience the world through our senses and have conceptual representations of it in our minds. While other primates haven't invented complex written language (yet), they do have the ability to communicate ideas vocally and using symbols.

Machines do none of this. Again, they simply output tokens based on pattern matching. If those tokens are not in their training or prompt data, their output is useless. They have no conceptual grasp of anything they output. This process is a neat mathematical trick, but to describe it as "thinking" or "reasoning" is delusional.

How you don't see or won't acknowledge this fundamental difference is beyond me.

[robwwilliams]

We define basic words differently. Yes, some chimps do have theory of mind. But to be equally aggressive in questioning you: how do you not see qualitative difference between us and chimpanzees?

And how do you not see the amazing progress in LLM output? And how do you not see how close LLMs with “chain-of-thought” has gotten to the “appearance” of thinking. And how is it that I not clear enough for you in my first post in highlighting explicitly that LLMs are not yet thinking?

Do not use me as your straw chimp unthinking human.

[lostmsu]

> Arguing" about this topic with an LLM is pointless.

I don't think so. Unlike many humans a bunch of LLMs can concede a point that being a cucumber eater or a sound maker doesn't exclude possibility to also be a thinker.