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Don't be fooled–LLMs don't reason

75 points · 159 comments · leopoldj

  1. coreyh14444 · · focus · HN ↗
    Jet planes don't fly by flapping their wings...
    1. hollowturtle · · focus · HN ↗
      Birds don't fly by producing thrust out of their asses... what the heck that comparison does even mean?
      1. Retr0id · · focus · HN ↗
        Don't be fooled into thinking that planes can fly.
        1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

          [deleted]

        2. hollowturtle · · focus · HN ↗
          They do fly for sure, but they're not birds. This comparison between fly and intelligence is worthy of the most vulgar bar talk
          1. archontes · · focus · HN ↗
            I disagree. I haven't finished the article yet, but it smacks of arguing for mechanism over result.

            If by some mechanism other than what a gatekeeper would call 'reasoning', a machine produces outputs that approach indistinguishable from 'well reasoned', the argument that it didn't get there by reasoning is, well, not useful at the very least.

          2. joquarky · · focus · HN ↗
            Your last sentence is identical to your first sentence in your other comment. How can we be sure that you are reasoning and not just a stochastic parrot?
      2. rtrgrd · · focus · HN ↗
        Reading charitably: just because our inventions do something different to nature doesn't mean that our invention is wrong;

        In context: just because our LLMs don't have an explicit 'system 2' component doesnt mean it can't have superhuman reasoning

        1. hollowturtle · · focus · HN ↗
          This comparison between fly and intelligence is worthy of the most vulgar bar talk

          > it can't have superhuman reasoning

          no they don't, we still die of cancer, there's no global deployed autonomous driving and food production driven by super intelligent ais and I'm not walking on mars thanks to gravitational elevators

          1. warkdarrior · · focus · HN ↗
            > there's no global deployed autonomous driving

            Love to see the forever moving goalposts. One might say they're autonomously moving..

            1. hollowturtle · · focus · HN ↗
              > Love to see the forever moving goalposts.

              Do we have finally reliable autonomous driving? And available outside the bay area or whatever small place compared to the rest of the world?

      3. strbean · · focus · HN ↗
        Comparisons to how humans reason beg the question: is the way humans do it the only way?

        Lots if these arguments are similar to birds saying "Jets don't flap their wings so they aren't even flying."

        The arguments about reasoning are even shakier because they usually rely on totally unproven assertions about human reasoning. At least we know birds flap their wings.

      4. sh-run · · focus · HN ↗
        Copying biological systems isn’t always the best way to build machines. The article compares AlphaGo’s policy network and value network to system 1 and system 2 thinking in humans.
      5. filoleg · · focus · HN ↗
        You are almost there in terms of getting their point, so I will explain.

        Birds existed since forever ago in nature, and they fly by flapping their wings. Then planes got invented, and they fly using a very different mechanism (that doesn't involve flapping wings).

        The point made by the grandparent comment: saying "LLMs don't actually reason, because the underlying mechanism they use is different from how humans reason" feels about the same as "planes don't actually fly, because the underlying mechanism they use is different from how birds fly".

      6. 2snakes · · focus · HN ↗
        Human Technology appears to use different principles than nature oftentimes
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