zlacker

>>mef+(OP)
The fact that we have figured out how to translate language into something a computer can "understand" should thrill linguists. Taking a word (token) and abstracting it's "meaning" as a 1,000-dimension vector seems like something that should revolutionize the field of linguistics. A whole new tool for analyzing and understanding the underlying patterns of all language!

And there's a fact here that's very hard to dispute, this method works. I can give a computer instructions and it "understands" them in a way that wasn't possible before LLMs. The main debate now is over the semantics of words like "understanding" and whether or not an LLM is conscious in the same way as a human being (it isn't).

>>caliba+cd
Unfortunately you've undermined your point by making sweeping claims about something that is the literal hardest known problem in philosophy (consciousness).

I'm not actually comfortable saying that LLMs aren't conscious. I think there's a decent chance they could be in a very alien way.

I realize that this is a very weird and potentially scary claim for people to parse but you must understand how weird and scary consciousness is.

>>catigu+8T
If they are, knowing what they potentially know about humans by now, they would probably do their best to hide it.

>>codr7+j21
I don't think their experience of consciousness would be very analogous to what you and I understand.

>>catigu+k31
I agree, but having spent 40 years interacting with computers I feel like I have a pretty good idea what they're up to/capable of.