[pjm331]

> > "But pattern‑matching is not system understanding, and plausibility is not correctness."

> Why not? Who says that? Who proved that system understanding is not just more complex pattern matching?

I'm not in the camp of "system understanding is just more complex pattern matching"

but I am absolutely in the camp of "there are many tasks where pattern matching is just as effective as actual understanding"

[harperlee]

More strongly, if the pattern matching of a phenomenon totally / perfectly models the phenomenon, and you end up with a perfect model of the phenomenon, that enables you do do causal prediction, how can you NOT call it understanding? What more is there?

[fzeindl]

> but I am absolutely in the camp of "there are many tasks where pattern matching is just as effective as actual understanding“

What if „being effective at something with pattern matching but not understanding it“ just means that you have identified only 90% of patterns and keep failing to learn the rest for whatever reason.

[soco]

Aren't we humans functioning in the same way, failing for 10% (take a random number) whatever we learn because we can forget, or be tired, or distracted? And what is the practical effect of "actual understanding" other than actually getting the 90% right (or more, or less, whatever)? I cannot tell what's inside my neighbor's head so for all practical matters they could be an AI, so why should I care whether the AI has a real understanding (good luck proving that) or not? I only care whether they take away enough jobs (mine included) that I cannot life a peaceful life anymore because it sends me foraging for roots or I must defend my roots parcel against hungry foragers. And for AI to achieve that it definitely doesn't need "actual understanding" just following some less or better formulated goals and having the right tools under their "hands".

What I want to say is, yeah fascinating topic about real understanding, but I think we have more pressing issues.