alt Hacker NewsI keep hearing this non sequitur argument a lot. It's like saying "humans just pick the next work to string together into a sentence, they're not actually dutiful agents". The non sequitur is in assuming that somehow the mechanism of operation dictates the output, which isn't necessarily true.
It's like saying "humans can't be thinking, their brains are just cells that transmit electric impulses". Maybe it's accidentally true that they can't think, but the premise doesn't necessarily logically lead to truth
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No it’s not like saying that, because that is not at all what humans do when they think.
This is self-evident when comparing human responses to problems be LLMs and you have been taken in by the marketing of ‘agents’ etc.
> The non sequitur is in assuming that somehow the mechanism of operation dictates the output, which isn't necessarily true.
Where does the output come from if not the mechanism?
I never got the impression they were saying that the mechanism of operation dictates the output. It seemed more like they were making a direct observation about the output.
There's nothing said here that suggests they can't think. That's an entirely different discussion.
My comment is specifically written so that you can take it for granted that they think. What's being discussed is that if you do so, you need to consider how they think, because this is indeed dictated by how they operate.
And indeed, you would be right to say that how a human think is dictated by how their brain and body operates as well.
Thinking, whatever it's taken to be, isn't some binary mode. It's a rich and faceted process that can present and unfold in many different ways.
Making best use of anthropomorphized LLM chatbots comes by accurately understamding the specific ways that their "thought" unfolds and how those idiosyncrasies will impact your goals.