If you understand the English language, we are sharing a map of reality because I'm able to use a code with verbal sounds that makes it possible for you to understand the representations that are inside of me. I'm communicating to you and you're making those representations in your mind. And we're doing this through language because every word that I'm saying, I'm not having to give you a visual representation of it in front of you right now. You're able to understand everything that I'm saying because my verbal coding causes you to represent what I'm saying in your own mind. Right? So I am sharing with you a map of reality through language. And language is absolutely a map of reality.
Do LLM’s have Imagination? that miracle of inner image-making, that lifts humanity to new heights and possibilities. At the same time it seduces with endless opportunities for self-deception. Most fail to understand the fundamental nature of this rare capacity, fewer still distil its use in ways that negate reification, believing, and treating concepts or mental images as independent things or reality.
“Once men turned their thinking over to LLM’s in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with LLM’s to enslave them.”
“The LLM’s will do what we ask them to do and not what we ought to ask them to do.”
If you understand the English language, we are sharing a map of reality because I'm able to use a code with verbal sounds that makes it possible for you to understand the representations that are inside of me. I'm communicating to you and you're making those representations in your mind. And we're doing this through language because every word that I'm saying, I'm not having to give you a visual representation of it in front of you right now. You're able to understand everything that I'm saying because my verbal coding causes you to represent what I'm saying in your own mind. Right? So I am sharing with you a map of reality through language. And language is absolutely a map of reality.
Do LLM’s have Imagination? that miracle of inner image-making, that lifts humanity to new heights and possibilities. At the same time it seduces with endless opportunities for self-deception. Most fail to understand the fundamental nature of this rare capacity, fewer still distil its use in ways that negate reification, believing, and treating concepts or mental images as independent things or reality.
“Once men turned their thinking over to LLM’s in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with LLM’s to enslave them.”
“The LLM’s will do what we ask them to do and not what we ought to ask them to do.”
—Norbert Wiener
Is there a simple definition of the word “soul“ for the purposes of this post?
I only know what it is not. It is not the body, the mind, the memories, the personality, the consciousness, the history, etc. of a person.
Artificial neural nets don't have souls for the same reason biological neural nets don't have souls - because souls don't exist.
Sentience is emerging property of a neural net. I see no reason why it can't arise on artificial neural nets, like it does on biological ones.
Great work explaining an incredibly overlooked topic. If you haven't already, definitely check out "The Platonic Representation Hypothesis".
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.07987
If sufficiently large biological neural nets can become conscious, there's no reason to believe programed ones can't.
Great article