ChatGPT's rebuttal to Chomsky

[John Clark]

The linguist Noam Chomsky wrote what in my opinion was a very foolish article in the New York Times called "The False Promise of ChatGPT" in which he tried to simultaneously make the case that a computer could never do what ChatGPT can clearly already do, and that it wouldn't make any difference even if it could, and that it could reach false conclusions if it was fed false data (as if that wasn't also true for human beings), and that it was terrible that it didn't give its personal opinion on moral issues even though Chomsky would certainly criticize it even more if it did take such a stand.  ChatGPT reads everything so somebody asked Sydney what him what he thought about Chomsky's article and I think the machine  gave a pretty good rebuttal: 

ChatGPT's rebuttal to Chomsky

Quantum computer expert Scott Aaronson also has some interesting things to say about this:

The false promise of Chomskyism

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

5te

[Lawrence Crowell]

Remember no matter haw complex an algorithm it is ultimately a lot of Boolean switching acting on what ever data is dumped into it.

LC

[John Clark]

On Sun, Mar 12, 2023 at 1:12 PM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Remember no matter haw complex an algorithm it is ultimately a lot of Boolean switching acting on what ever data is dumped into it.

Yes but I see no evidence that the same thing couldn't be said about the human brain. 

John K Clark

 

LC

On Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 11:42:12 AM UTC-5 John Clark wrote:

The linguist Noam Chomsky wrote what in my opinion was a very foolish article in the New York Times called "The False Promise of ChatGPT" in which he tried to simultaneously make the case that a computer could never do what ChatGPT can clearly already do, and that it wouldn't make any difference even if it could, and that it could reach false conclusions if it was fed false data (as if that wasn't also true for human beings), and that it was terrible that it didn't give its personal opinion on moral issues even though Chomsky would certainly criticize it even more if it did take such a stand.  ChatGPT reads everything so somebody asked Sydney what him what he thought about Chomsky's article and I think the machine  gave a pretty good rebuttal: 

ChatGPT's rebuttal to Chomsky

Quantum computer expert Scott Aaronson also has some interesting things to say about this:

The false promise of Chomskyism

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

5te

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Mon, 13 Mar 2023 at 04:12, Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

Remember no matter haw complex an algorithm it is ultimately a lot of Boolean switching acting on what ever data is dumped into it.

That means that if the entity displays intelligent behaviour, Boolean switching acting on whatever data is dumped into it can generate intelligent behaviour. 

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Stathis Papaioannou

[Jason Resch]

Boolean logic gates (and, or, not) are universal. There's no finitely describable behavior that can't be replicated by the repeated application of boolean logic gates paired with a memory.

Jason

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Stathis Papaioannou

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[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 1:12 PM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

Remember no matter haw complex an algorithm it is ultimately a lot of Boolean switching acting on what ever data is dumped into it.

LC

No matter how complex a human brain, it is ultimately the Dirac equation acting on whatever particles are dumped into it.

Jason 

On Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 11:42:12 AM UTC-5 John Clark wrote:

The linguist Noam Chomsky wrote what in my opinion was a very foolish article in the New York Times called "The False Promise of ChatGPT" in which he tried to simultaneously make the case that a computer could never do what ChatGPT can clearly already do, and that it wouldn't make any difference even if it could, and that it could reach false conclusions if it was fed false data (as if that wasn't also true for human beings), and that it was terrible that it didn't give its personal opinion on moral issues even though Chomsky would certainly criticize it even more if it did take such a stand.  ChatGPT reads everything so somebody asked Sydney what him what he thought about Chomsky's article and I think the machine  gave a pretty good rebuttal: 

ChatGPT's rebuttal to Chomsky

Quantum computer expert Scott Aaronson also has some interesting things to say about this:

The false promise of Chomskyism

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

5te

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Mon, 13 Mar 2023 at 12:18, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 8:57 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 13 Mar 2023 at 04:12, Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

Remember no matter haw complex an algorithm it is ultimately a lot of Boolean switching acting on what ever data is dumped into it.

That means that if the entity displays intelligent behaviour, Boolean switching acting on whatever data is dumped into it can generate intelligent behaviour. 

Boolean logic gates (and, or, not) are universal. There's no finitely describable behavior that can't be replicated by the repeated application of boolean logic gates paired with a memory.

Yes. But more generally, even from a position of ignorance, if you don’t believe that something made from electrical circuitry (or whatever) can display intelligent behaviour, and something made from electrical circuitry does in fact display intelligent behaviour, that means you were wrong.

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Stathis Papaioannou

[spudb...@aol.com]

Does it really display intelligent behavior, and now you will need to define intelligent behavior with testable parameters. Do humans display intelligent behavior? How often, and how consistently? Many say crows do.

This was part of my reason in hectoring JC on this. A neurobiologist tells, via research how parts of the human brain behave, and thus produce intelligence and (non-philosophically) consciousness. What part of the server farm enacts the illusion (I think) of intelligence? 

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Stathis Papaioannou

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[Jason Resch]

On Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 12:29 AM spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Does it really display intelligent behavior, and now you will need to define intelligent behavior with testable parameters. Do humans display intelligent behavior? How often, and how consistently? Many say crows do.

This was part of my reason in hectoring JC on this. A neurobiologist tells, via research how parts of the human brain behave, and thus produce intelligence and (non-philosophically) consciousness. What part of the server farm enacts the illusion (I think) of intelligence? 

https://alwaysasking.com/when-will-ai-take-over/#What_is_Intelligence

According to the agent-environment interaction model of intelligence, something is intelligent if it:

“perceives its environment and interacts with it in a manner consistent with achieving a goal.”

This definition captures the full spectrum of intelligent behavior, regardless of how simple or complex it is. It includes creatures from worms to humans, and machines from thermostats to chess playing AIs.

Jason 

-----Original Message-----
From: Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com>
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, Mar 12, 2023 9:29 pm
Subject: Re: ChatGPT's rebuttal to Chomsky

On Mon, 13 Mar 2023 at 12:18, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 8:57 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 13 Mar 2023 at 04:12, Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

Remember no matter haw complex an algorithm it is ultimately a lot of Boolean switching acting on what ever data is dumped into it.

That means that if the entity displays intelligent behaviour, Boolean switching acting on whatever data is dumped into it can generate intelligent behaviour. 

Boolean logic gates (and, or, not) are universal. There's no finitely describable behavior that can't be replicated by the repeated application of boolean logic gates paired with a memory.

Yes. But more generally, even from a position of ignorance, if you don’t believe that something made from electrical circuitry (or whatever) can display intelligent behaviour, and something made from electrical circuitry does in fact display intelligent behaviour, that means you were wrong.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

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.

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[Brent Meeker]

An operational test for intelligence requires that ability to act in the world to achieve goals.  LLM's are intelligent in that they act to satisfy prompts.  If you went to the beach and you said to a crab, "Write in the sand a short poem about waves."  and the crab scratched out:

Born
of wind and
earth's embrace
an ocean's memory of
storms  beyond the horizon
its undulating information uselessly inscribed
in the meandering sand
finds voice at last
its fall a sigh a
single syllable
of surf

You'd think the crab was pretty smart.  An LLM could do that.  The only reason for us thinking it is not intelligent is that we know how the LLM does it.  When I first took a class in AI fifty years ago at UCLA. The Professor explained that the definition of intelligence was "whatever computers can't do yet."

Brent

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[spudb...@aol.com]

Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder also has a very nuanced view on mind and all that. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP5zGh2fui0

She indicates that there is something akin to thought, IF I understand her? 

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[spudb...@aol.com]

Would it be more accurate to think that unless something is driven by need, as in an amygdala, it is not alive. This may be a different question than is it intelligent, is it conscious? 

I still need to know how it became conscious when just using chips and data? Would this then favor a pantheist point of view, or even panentheistic  one?

Me don't know? 

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[Telmo Menezes]

Am Mo, 13. Mär 2023, um 05:45, schrieb Brent Meeker:

An operational test for intelligence requires that ability to act in the world to achieve goals.  LLM's are intelligent in that they act to satisfy prompts.  If you went to the beach and you said to a crab, "Write in the sand a short poem about waves."  and the crab scratched out:

Born

of wind and

earth's embrace

an ocean's memory of

storms  beyond the horizon

its undulating information uselessly inscribed

in the meandering sand

finds voice at last

its fall a sigh a

single syllable

of surf

You'd think the crab was pretty smart.  An LLM could do that.  The only reason for us thinking it is not intelligent is that we know how the LLM does it.  When I first took a class in AI fifty years ago at UCLA. The Professor explained that the definition of intelligence was "whatever computers can't do yet."

My first AI class was 27 years ago. The professor also mentioned that, but he started with the question: "why do we study artificial intelligence and not artificial stupidity?", and his answer was: "because stupidity is not a scarce resource".

Telmo

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[Jason Resch]

On Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 12:55 AM <spudb...@aol.com> wrote:

Would it be more accurate to think that unless something is driven by need, as in an amygdala, it is not alive. This may be a different question than is it intelligent, is it conscious? 

I think that's a reasonable definition of life. Even if the need is just the need to exist and persist, which is the root need on which evolutionary forces work.

I still need to know how it became conscious when just using chips and data? Would this then favor a pantheist point of view, or even panentheistic  one?

Can you think without being conscious, can you understand without being conscious, can you perceive without being conscious, can you feel with being conscious, can you know without being conscious?

Unless you answered 'yes' to all these questions, there are some behaviors and functions which necessitate consciousness. If we reproduce such functions in a machine then we have made a conscious machine.

Jason 

[John Clark]

On Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 12:55 AM spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> I still need to know how it became conscious when just using chips and data

I'll tell you just as soon as you tell me how 3 pounds of gray goo inside of a vat made of bone that is sitting on your shoulders manages to be conscious.  

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

vmb

[spudb...@aol.com]

I am a not a neurobiologist, old son. I could try to see if there are any papers out on grey goo becoming self-aware and self-reflecting?  My Definition! 

If you have a paper on how consciousness arises from intel, Nvida, and AMD chips please supply the link. It's chips and salsa to me. 

If you claim something just spoke from a D-Wave superchilled box and it asked how you were doing, I'd consider that a true possibility. Photonics? Ok lets roll with it. 

-----Original Message-----
From: John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com>
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Cc: jason...@gmail.com <jason...@gmail.com>
Sent: Mon, Mar 13, 2023 2:08 pm
Subject: Re: ChatGPT's rebuttal to Chomsky

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[spudb...@aol.com]

Thinking and looking things up in a database like an LLM does to respond to a human is one thing, and a bs-machine is another.

Though GPT3 was fun parody music was excellent!

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[spudb...@aol.com]

We ain't got (Forget Chomsky!) Marvin Minsky's Guy in a Box. Hal-9000 ain't arrived yet.

Now, if one is less driven by theory/ideology, one may focus on what is best for the human species?

What would be best would-be innovation machinery geared toward making discoveries and inventions that human research teams, that we wouldn't arrive at for decades of a century. 

There's 8.2 billion people on the planet if we need somebody to chat with, make rhymes, sum up permitted news items, articles, before 9/21/2021. (Chat3). For science articles it works less well then a parrot. I have tried.

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From: Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net>
To: Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com>

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/7e15f4ea-c3a4-4e33-8c89-54b0049d7a27%40app.fastmail.com

.

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 8:45 AM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 7:59 AM <spudb...@aol.com> wrote:

I am a not a neurobiologist, old son. I could try to see if there are any papers out on grey goo becoming self-aware and self-reflecting?  My Definition! 

Anything with a "self" is conscious.

Anything with "awareness" is conscious.

Therefore your definition of "self awareness", by restricting consciousness to things that are only aware of oneself but not other things in the environment, you may only be capturing some, but not all classes of consciousness entities.

Likewise by defining consciousness as "self reflection", you may overly restrict consciousness only to those selves which happen to reflect upon that self, and perhaps wrongly deny consciousness to selves who do not self reflect.

It is possible that reflection (at least reflection on some level) is necessary to consciousness. But I have not seen a strong argument for it yet. I do think the capacities for self-awareness and self-reflection exist in humans, but do we do it all the time?

Are we self reflecting and self aware of ourself in every moment of our consciousness? What about raw sensory experiences when we live in the moment, such as when catching a wave or riding a rollercoaster?

Are fruit flies self-reflecting and self-aware? Are they consciousness of the presence of a banana on the counter? These questions keep me up at night.

If you have a paper on how consciousness arises from intel, Nvida, and AMD chips please supply the link. It's chips and salsa to me. 

I think focusing on hardware is a red herring. Consciousness is a high level phenomenon and I believe it exists in high level abstractions of information processing and computation. Seeking the magic of consciousness in the neurochemicals or silicon chips is in my view, as misguided as seeking to find it in the quarks and electrons.

 

If you claim something just spoke from a D-Wave superchilled box and it asked how you were doing, I'd consider that a true possibility. Photonics? Ok lets roll with it. 

Trace the physical causes behind someone uttering the words "I am conscious" back through the signals in the nerves of their vocal cords into the deepest recesses of their brain. There you will find consciousness as the processes that stand behind the person thinking and reasoning and concluding, and then deciding to utter the words "I am conscious".

I think you can do the same for any silicon or quantum computer, in principle. Consciousness, presumably, is what causes us to talk about consciousness. It's therefore something that exists in the causal chain of physics, and something amenable to investigation.

Jason

[spudb...@aol.com]

Master Resch, you could told us ahead of time that you were a Pantheist!!! 

Having said that, it's ok, my favorite philosopher also is. John Leslie, author and inventor of Hostage Chess.

John A. Leslie - Wikipedia

I loved his stuff and have no issue with pantheism and minds. Also, I blindly go for afterlife theories whoever has a brain and peddles these unto me. Could be Kurzweil, Tipler, Prisco, Moravec, Tipler, Tim Anderson @ Georgia Tech, you name em! Yes your ideas as well. 

I simply advise people to come up with something scientific concerning, consciousness, as need more intellectual substance. It's a cautionary not and this is not the hill I choose to die upon. Just wanting to know how a human eqivalent happened, sans, carbon + water :-)

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