> it seems perfectly capable of generalizing concepts

How would you support that perception?

With hope and living? It is a dream come true for people. An abstract perception of a knowledge, is like sniffing a rose. It feels, yes, I get there. This 40.000 pages book, woow, I'll make time to live it or sniff another daisy?!

> It is a dream come true for people

For as long as they will be an active part of societies, they'll better live in reality. We need to know what we are dealing with factually, because water is not exchangeable with iron in practice.

The perception of a machine as being able «to generalize concepts» may be an illusion, so it requires some support: we want to avoid illusions for the contextual purposes.

Let go , make the context further with words , yourself -society- Write books 1000 pages. Force child to read - lucky ones-, make things harder for everyone.

But you are out of context. A box was created that outputs statements: either it has a «concept space» or just works through constructing plausible language. The poster claims leaning towards the "«concept space»" possibility - but this should not be a poll, and indications of "why" (such idea) are needed not to make the claim intellectually sterile.

It is important otherwise the users of the box may cling to an illusion - that is not advisable.

Words are there as a commodity to transfer intellectual states, a dynamic we need for practical and social achievements - otherwise, surrounded by indigence and unaware butchers, "«things [will be] harder for everyone»".

I feel where you want to point me, prev. disc.ns Lets say terms, a dict. And meaning. And pick a cult, say, bjokins, a tribe with 100-500 people, from future, say 7000, year 7866 and say a term, "nunu dumdum" => love and move furter, nunu dumdum as term, should be changed or altered, and lets put nuu dumdum in context of our projection and start to define it, and check perception, you need a community first - tribe- then you need facts to describe this term: lets use it in a sentence, nunu dumdum, ikta pqio => love, life we made a sentence, barely and a new term lets define in context to people in tribe the point is , where would we go ikta pqio ousudum, nunu dumdum=> life must desired, and loved canwe see where r we..

"by indigence and unaware butchers" The way of speaking here is, with the chosen words and ornament, the author's place in his own personal and whimsical world, the simple context in which it occurs - iron - water - And the summary may be incomprehensible. Which, in the beginning, in a forest, flowers, smelling them - think of it as phrasing a paragraph in one sentence - At this point, the author, without being aware of the words he uses and the way he thinks, actually reflects a personality to the society within his own illusion. This is a disaster for a true writer. The author is actually pulling himself and his surroundings into a whirlpool, with the mistake of supporting the flow of his thoughts, the elite stance he is trying to gain in the society with the ornaments of the words and sentences he has formed. Yes, no matter how pointless it is to continue this, At these points, we can't call it abstraction, it's a fancy salad. Eating, assimilating and digesting this food can be a real waste of time. Because the awareness in the word children and flowers is perhaps a reflection of the awareness in his intellectual journey in his own old and tired world. Yes, it can be a community, a desire to create a caste-like class and take office if necessary. Or not understanding an authority.

Really not. The «chosen words and ornament» are picked for communication, with the intent of facilitating that the interlocutor sees the point (and details). They - them words - are chosen for precision in case the interlocutor needs to analyze the written, just to be sure of having understood. The ornament just follows - it is presumably a byproduct of the structure.

Words such chosen are there out of awareness, so that «without being aware of the words he uses and the way he thinks» really needs all the extraordinary justification.

Those words describe not a «personal and whimsical world», but the only relatively personal description of facts, as they are seen. Debate is there to show that facts may be different. The «whirlpool» is broken by new facts or nuances gained about those facts; it is true that there is a mechanism of reinforcement, but avoiding the expression is not a solution.

The idea of «the elite stance he [would be] trying to gain in the society with the ornaments of the words and sentences he has formed» is extremely weak: it easily may be just your immature perception. There is no need for society for thinking - nor for status.

And when you make accusations like «fancy salad», you should show it on factual basis, on the actual matter, as opposed to sensation.

If you do not want to touch that food - if it is a «waste of time» for you -, you are probably participating in the wrong discussion.

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There exist more domains: in some domains "Could you please pass me the salt" is a proper expression for exchange, whereas other domains use different expressions. The context in which you intervened is very practical. You know what happens if we do not dissipate ignorance, even worldly ignorance: as I said, «indigence and unaware butchers». There is also a fight against that kind of ignorance: because it is dangerous, worldly dangerous.

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You are expressing yourself more clearly, but I encourage you to pay further attention - some parts of your speech remain too lax (too many possible interpretations).

I'm sorry. But isn't this just an experiment we r in ? I've been understanding your argument, and really sorry if you take it personal. You're most certainly right. And "Immature" this is just. Sorry.

Would be interesting to read some unbiased science on that.

My hunch would be that any concept it might detect still depends on 2nd order patterns acquired through training?

The ultimate “book smart” at best, basically.

I’m not a ML scientist though, again would be interesting to read an unbiased evaluation of those aspects.

Edit: downvoted, not sure why though. Isn’t this a valid question a lot of non-ML folks would ask themselves?

Text compression isn't a deterministic process, unfortunately. It's "concept" of compression is clearly derived from token sampling, in the same way it's concept of "math" is based on guessing the number/token that comes next.

While I do agree that ChatGPT exhibits pattern-recognizing qualities, that's basically what it was built to do. I'm not arguing against emergent properties, just against emergent intelligence or even the idea of "understanding" in the first place.