Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative

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Jon Awbrey

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May 4, 2023, 10:36:24 AM5/4/23
to Cybernetic Communications, Laws of Form, Ontolog Forum, Structural Modeling, SysSciWG
Cf: Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative 3
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/05/01/inquiry-into-inquiry-on-initiative-3/

Re: Scott Aaronson • Should GPT Exist?
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=7042

My Comment —
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=7042#comment-1946961

The more fundamental problem I see here is the failure to grasp the
nature of the task at hand, and this I attribute not to a program
but to its developers.

Journalism, Research, and Scholarship are not matters of
generating probable responses to prompts or other stimuli.
What matters is producing evidentiary and logical supports
for statements. That is the task requirement the developers
of these LLM‑Bots are failing to grasp.

There is nothing new about that failure. There is a long history of attempts to
account for intelligence and indeed the workings of scientific inquiry based on
the principles of associationism, behaviorism, connectionism, and theories of
that order. But the relationship of empirical evidence, logical inference,
and scientific information is more complex and intricate than is dreamt of
in those reductive philosophies.

Note. The above comment was originally posted on March 1st
but appears to have been accidentally deleted.

Regards,

Jon

Jon Awbrey

unread,
May 15, 2023, 10:45:32 AM5/15/23
to Cybernetic Communications, Laws of Form, Ontolog Forum, Structural Modeling, SysSciWG
Cf: Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative 4
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/05/15/inquiry-into-inquiry-on-initiative-4/

Re: Terry Tao ( https://terrytao.wordpress.com/about/ )
::: PCAST Working Group on Generative AI Invites Public Input
( https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2023/05/13/pcast-working-group-on-generative-ai-invites-public-input/ )

My Comment —

I think a lot of people who've been working all along on AI, intelligent systems,
and computational extensions of human capacities in general are a little distressed
to see the field cornered and re‑branded in the short‑sighted, market‑driven way
we currently see.

The more fundamental problem I see here is the failure to grasp the nature of
the task at hand, and this I attribute not to a program but to its developers.

Journalism, Research, and Scholarship are not matters of generating probable
responses to prompts or other stimuli. What matters is producing evidentiary
and logical supports for statements. That is the task requirement the developers
of recent LLM‑Bots are failing to grasp.

There is nothing new about that failure. There is a long history of attempts to
account for intelligence and indeed the workings of scientific inquiry based on
the principles of associationism, behaviorism, connectionism, and theories of
that order. But the relationship of empirical evidence, logical inference,
and scientific information is more complex and intricate than is dreamt of
in those reductive philosophies.

Regards,

Jon
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