Re:Ask HN: Will you be paying for ChatGPT+?
by LoganDark on Friday February 03, 2023 @01:50PM
(#34646029)
> Would a generative model that can output both text and images of thinking brain scans be more convincing?
No, for the same reason why asking ChatGPT what it is thinking or feeling does not indicate that it actually thinks or feels that way. ChatGPT is a language model designed to generate outputs that mimic its training data, therefore it will learn to mimic the expression and communication of understanding that it does not itself feel.
This is why language models are so convincing when they hallucinate, because hallucinating is actually their default state, and the hallucinations just tend to line up with some of the facts contained in the training data, but not always. Therefore they can state falsehoods just as convincingly as they can state facts.
> I’m not saying you are incorrect, just pointing out that we’re not exactly sure what we are looking at in those brain scans anyway. Is a thought a mathematical calculation being run on a wet computer?
Thought is sort of an ongoing electrochemical chain reaction, though beyond that I indeed don't have much I can say for sure. It's certainly not a mathematical calculation, though it could possibly be simulated by one.
No, for the same reason why asking ChatGPT what it is thinking or feeling does not indicate that it actually thinks or feels that way. ChatGPT is a language model designed to generate outputs that mimic its training data, therefore it will learn to mimic the expression and communication of understanding that it does not itself feel.
This is why language models are so convincing when they hallucinate, because hallucinating is actually their default state, and the hallucinations just tend to line up with some of the facts contained in the training data, but not always. Therefore they can state falsehoods just as convincingly as they can state facts.
> I’m not saying you are incorrect, just pointing out that we’re not exactly sure what we are looking at in those brain scans anyway. Is a thought a mathematical calculation being run on a wet computer?
Thought is sort of an ongoing electrochemical chain reaction, though beyond that I indeed don't have much I can say for sure. It's certainly not a mathematical calculation, though it could possibly be simulated by one.
-Emily