You are a state machine. You have finite internal state that roughly adheres to a particular structure, you take in input, and as a function of internal state and input, you produce output and a new state. Sufficiently large models are a rough approximation. We are perhaps different stochastic parrots than the models we create, but likely stochastic parrots none the less.
This highlights an interesting point that I hadn't examined before... the thoughts behind the words, and the experiences linked to those thoughts / the moment for which the words are needed.
Although from a chemical perspective and learning perspective humans may seem like stochastic machines, I think that the capability for inner thought and emotion does differentiate us from genAI. After all, we would not ascribe sentience to such a "stochastic parrot", but in a similar way we see the text output that AI generates and wrongly assume (in a previously reasonable assumption) that there must have been "thoughts" behind said text.
This is a very interesting way of saying that by offloading the procession of thoughts we take to come to a conclusion individually we become more dull and homogenized as a whole when using ai "shortcuts".
The text on this site is too small. When you spend so much time on the design of your blog and don’t optimize for viewing on smaller mobile devices, it’s like painting the Mona Lisa and leaving it in your garage.
Quite an astonishing amount of quotes -- I counted Heidegger, Nietzsche, Murdoch, the Bible, and Plato as key players -- to contribute very little of substance. It feels like the same kind of hand-wringing that you might have read about the invention of the typewriter, the telegraph, or recorded music. Humans are complex creatures! We can be "in the process of becoming" about a great many things along a great many axes. Using ChatGPT to draft a letter of complaint to your local government isn't going to change that.
I find it ironic, if that's the right word, that this essay quotes someone else in almost every paragraph and yet insists that humans are not stochastic parrots, and the essence of human communication is original thought.
I get the point that the author is trying to make here and to an extent I think it’s prudent. If only it wasn’t bogged down by allusions that are withering in cultural relevancy.
AI is not a faithful representation of human intelligence—or the human essence at all, for that matter—and prolonged dependence on its technologies will subdue human expression and the means in which we come to know about ourselves and life around us.
He is exercising his point through his prose. A cursory glance at his Wikipedia bio and this passage gives insight into the objective of this article:
> As Socrates sees things, the proper use of logos is to work toward, and to be transformed by, an increasingly clear grasp of the good. He regards this as an erotic undertaking. The more clearly we see the good, the more we long to bring ourselves into closer proximity to it. And the most promising path to the apprehension and internalization of the good is prolonged union and thoughtful conversation with a worthy lover.
The problem is that he’s attempting to display the art of literary lovemaking in the age of hook-up culture.
Hint: It may serve this crop of readers to start immediately from the section titled “Another Creation Story”.
Aside: I’d like to see a study that scores contemporary literacy rates using articles from the Hedgehog Review instead of Jane Austen.
Oh hey, its that shower thought I had a few years ago.
With more seriousness, I find people who drill deep into the bedrock of knowledge and expertise will find that tact and conviction in informed opinion is a healthy counterweight to this possible habit.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 34.9 ms ] threadAlthough from a chemical perspective and learning perspective humans may seem like stochastic machines, I think that the capability for inner thought and emotion does differentiate us from genAI. After all, we would not ascribe sentience to such a "stochastic parrot", but in a similar way we see the text output that AI generates and wrongly assume (in a previously reasonable assumption) that there must have been "thoughts" behind said text.
AI is not a faithful representation of human intelligence—or the human essence at all, for that matter—and prolonged dependence on its technologies will subdue human expression and the means in which we come to know about ourselves and life around us.
He is exercising his point through his prose. A cursory glance at his Wikipedia bio and this passage gives insight into the objective of this article:
> As Socrates sees things, the proper use of logos is to work toward, and to be transformed by, an increasingly clear grasp of the good. He regards this as an erotic undertaking. The more clearly we see the good, the more we long to bring ourselves into closer proximity to it. And the most promising path to the apprehension and internalization of the good is prolonged union and thoughtful conversation with a worthy lover.
The problem is that he’s attempting to display the art of literary lovemaking in the age of hook-up culture.
Hint: It may serve this crop of readers to start immediately from the section titled “Another Creation Story”.
Aside: I’d like to see a study that scores contemporary literacy rates using articles from the Hedgehog Review instead of Jane Austen.
It would be so sad to disappoint
With more seriousness, I find people who drill deep into the bedrock of knowledge and expertise will find that tact and conviction in informed opinion is a healthy counterweight to this possible habit.