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LLMs understand nullability

(dmodel.ai)
169 points mattmarcus | 1 comments | 07 Apr 25 14:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.257s | source
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EncomLab ◴[07 Apr 25 15:24 UTC] No.43612568[source]▶
This is like claiming a photorestor controlled night light "understands when it is dark" or that a bimetallic strip thermostat "understands temperature". You can say those words, and it's syntactically correct but entirely incorrect semantically.
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robotresearcher ◴[07 Apr 25 15:35 UTC] No.43612689[source]▶
You declare this very plainly without evidence or argument, but this is an age-old controversial issue. It’s not self-evident to everyone, including philosophers.
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mubou ◴[07 Apr 25 15:44 UTC] No.43612771[source]▶
It's not age-old nor is it controversial. LLMs aren't intelligent by any stretch of the imagination. Each word/token is chosen as that which is statistically most likely to follow the previous. There is no capability for understanding in the design of an LLM. It's not a matter of opinion; this just isn't how an LLM works.

Any comparison to the human brain is missing the point that an LLM only simulates one small part, and that's notably not the frontal lobe. That's required for intelligence, reasoning, self-awareness, etc.

So, no, it's not a question of philosophy. For an AI to enter that realm, it would need to be more than just an LLM with some bells and whistles; an LLM plus something else, perhaps, something fundamentally different which does not yet currently exist.

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aSanchezStern ◴[07 Apr 25 15:51 UTC] No.43612834[source]▶
Many people don't think we have any good evidence that our brains aren't essentially the same thing: a stochastic statistical model that produces outputs based on inputs.
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1. mubou ◴[07 Apr 25 16:02 UTC] No.43612962[source]▶
Of course, you're right. Neural networks mimic exactly that after all. I'm certain we'll see an ML model developed someday that fully mimics the human brain. But my point is an LLM isn't that; it's a language model only. I know it can seem intelligent sometimes, but it's important to understand what it's actually doing and not ascribe feelings to it that don't exist in reality.

Too many people these days are forgetting this key point and putting a dangerous amount of faith in ChatGPT etc. as a result. I've seen DOCTORS using ChatGPT for diagnosis. Ignorance is scary.