Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ben_w 10 days ago
If natural language was structured in a logically computable way, we'd have had interesting chatbots by the late 80s, basically as soon as a dictionary fit in local RAM, and for the same reason we got compilers.

Da hole raisin y nat-lang be v. hard is dat i kan rite lik dis an it be cool 4 native engrish speekrs 2 unerstand. LLMs are of course fine with this sentence in exactly the way that Zork's engine couldn't be.
1 comments
superloika 10 days ago
The underlying structure of language, which is grammar, is obviously logical. That the symbols used to represent this grammar can be sometimes fuzzy or ambiguous, is no problem for a machine that takes context and probability into account when translating words to the underlying grammar structure.
link
ben_w 10 days ago
It's not "obviously logical", it's a pattern which we mimic to avoid mockery.

example For, semi-randomise I word order can this like, Yoda worse than, and be understood.

> is no problem for a machine that takes context and probability into account when translating words to the underlying grammar structure.

We had to invent Transformers to be able to do that with reliability anything close to being worth caring about. Transformers have to learn from examples, not be pre-programmed.

link
EnergyAmy 10 days ago
The idea that grammar is all it takes to process natural language is absolute beans.
link