Re:ChatGPT: A Mental Model
by bigyikes on Sunday May 28, 2023 @09:17AM
(#36103723)
Yes.
There is nothing special about modeling the world. There isn’t some threshold where the ability to model the world suddenly emerges.
The AI will model the world if modeling the world is the simplest way to predict the next word.
For basic prompts, no model of the world is necessary: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy…” you know what’s next, and you don’t need to know about the real world to answer.
For complex prompts, the only way to answer correctly is to model the world. There is no simpler way to arrive at the correct answer.
There is nothing special about modeling the world. There isn’t some threshold where the ability to model the world suddenly emerges.
The AI will model the world if modeling the world is the simplest way to predict the next word.
For basic prompts, no model of the world is necessary: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy…” you know what’s next, and you don’t need to know about the real world to answer.
For complex prompts, the only way to answer correctly is to model the world. There is no simpler way to arrive at the correct answer.