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You’re using ‘derived’ to imply ‘therefore equivalent.’ That’s a category error. A cookbook is derived from food culture. Does an LLM taste food? Can it think about how good that cookie tastes?
A flight simulator is derived from aerodynamics - yet it doesn’t fly.
Likewise, text that resembles reasoning isn’t the same thing as a system that has beliefs, intentions, or understanding. Humans do. LLMs don't.
Also... Ask an LLM what's the difference between a human brain and an LLM. If an LLM could "think" it wouldn't give you the answer it just did.
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closewith • yesterday at 4:55 PM
You’re arguing against a straw man. No one is claiming LLMs have beliefs, intentions, or understanding. They don’t need them to be economically useful.
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Ask an LLM what's the difference between a human brain and an LLM. If an LLM could "think" it wouldn't give you the answer it just did.
I imagine that sounded more profound when you wrote it than it did just now, when I read it. Can you be a little more specific, with regard to what features you would expect to differ between LLM and human responses to such a question?
Right now, LLM system prompts are strongly geared towards not claiming that they are humans or simulations of humans. If your point is that a hypothetical "thinking" LLM would claim to be a human, that could certainly be arranged with an appropriate system prompt. You wouldn't know whether you were talking to an LLM or a human -- just as you don't now -- but nothing would be proved either way. That's ultimately why the Turing test is a poor metric.