> Knowledge and reasoning are inextricably interwoven in the weights of the neural network—there is no independent, explicitly represented set of beliefs.
I'm not sure I understand this. Do we have evidence humans have an independent set of beliefs not shaped by knowledge and reasoning? If so, where do these come from?
I'm especially confused about a prior statement as a scientist:
> Three shortcomings prevent what chatbots do from qualifying as reasoning (in a way that a scientist might recognize).
How does a set of beliefs help with reasoning?
> Third, while the chains of thought chatbots produce look like deliberation, research has demonstrated that the bots often concoct them after the fact, reaching an answer by one route but reporting another.
Philosophers like Kant, Descartes and Locke wanted to draw a distinction between a priori and a posteriori beliefs (or knowledge). I believe AI will be very much bound by these discussions. Some knowledge can be had purely by reason. Some other knowledge will require observations.
Consider a calculator, a machine capable of valid transformations wrt the semantics of arithmetic.
Does a calculator reason its way to 2 + 2 = 4? No, it merely transforms.
An LLM is simply a much more complex version of this; except that its complexity hides a lot of what is otherwise reducible to a transformation of semantic, conceptual, and inferential relations. There are lots of NLP models prior to the introduction of modern "AI" that would make these representations more clear.
However I don't believe any of the aforementioned philosophers would ever consider reason itself as a transformation, as Kant especially spent a lot of time differentiating apprehension from transition.
I’m not so sure. While I completely agree on pure transformation, I continue to believe that the most concerning aspect of neural networks is that they really strengthen the argument that consciousness is the illusion.
The interplay between deductive frameworks and inductive frameworks is still always buoyed by the black swan problem… which is a the heart of Hume’s solipsism. Kant’s pure reason never considered instinctual logical gates that come prepackaged in the mind. That seems frighteningly close to a prediction algorithm, no matter how much we wrap it in a concept of understanding. In the end, we’re just building a model with a minimal error rate.
> I continue to believe that the most concerning aspect of neural networks is that they really strengthen the argument that consciousness is the illusion.
I think it’s not a question of it existing, but to what extent does conscious can control the organism (as opposed to being a passenger). There’s some intriguing research on the topic.
f6v · · focus · HN ↗
I'm not sure I understand this. Do we have evidence humans have an independent set of beliefs not shaped by knowledge and reasoning? If so, where do these come from?
I'm especially confused about a prior statement as a scientist:
> Three shortcomings prevent what chatbots do from qualifying as reasoning (in a way that a scientist might recognize).
How does a set of beliefs help with reasoning?
> Third, while the chains of thought chatbots produce look like deliberation, research has demonstrated that the bots often concoct them after the fact, reaching an answer by one route but reporting another.
We also often do the same as humans.
leopoldj · · focus · HN ↗
nateb2022 · · focus · HN ↗
Does a calculator reason its way to 2 + 2 = 4? No, it merely transforms.
An LLM is simply a much more complex version of this; except that its complexity hides a lot of what is otherwise reducible to a transformation of semantic, conceptual, and inferential relations. There are lots of NLP models prior to the introduction of modern "AI" that would make these representations more clear.
However I don't believe any of the aforementioned philosophers would ever consider reason itself as a transformation, as Kant especially spent a lot of time differentiating apprehension from transition.
scoofy · · focus · HN ↗
The interplay between deductive frameworks and inductive frameworks is still always buoyed by the black swan problem… which is a the heart of Hume’s solipsism. Kant’s pure reason never considered instinctual logical gates that come prepackaged in the mind. That seems frighteningly close to a prediction algorithm, no matter how much we wrap it in a concept of understanding. In the end, we’re just building a model with a minimal error rate.
f6v · · focus · HN ↗
I think it’s not a question of it existing, but to what extent does conscious can control the organism (as opposed to being a passenger). There’s some intriguing research on the topic.