alt Hacker NewsRepeating a process, yes for sure, even (pseudorandom?) variations on a process. Understanding a process is a different question, and I’m not sure how you would measure that.
In school we would have a test with various questions to show you understand the concept of addition, for example. But while my calculator can perfectly add any numbers up to its memory limit, it has no understanding of addition.
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simianwords • today at 1:44 PM
It’s the degree of generalisability. And LLMs do have understanding. You can ask it how it came up with the process in natural language and it can help - something a calculator can’t do.
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> while my calculator can perfectly add any numbers up to its memory limit, it has no understanding of addition.
"my calculator can perfectly add any numbers up to its memory limit" This kind of anthropomorphic language is misleading in these conversations. Your calculator isn't an agent so it should not be expected to be capable of any cognition.