BenMcLean

I think that any credible argument against this is going to center not on AI or LLMs, but on what we know or believe about human intelligence. I posted the following on Twitter:
You haven't expanded AI to replicate human thought. You've only reduced your estimation of human thought down to whatever you happen to be able to train your software monkey to do. Just like the ape communication researchers of the previous century.
There is another more sinister side to this, which is the suspicion I have that the development of AI hasn't even been primarily technological: it's been biological. Humans have been deliberately bred to be dumber over the past half century... (read more)

Why has no one brought up John Searle and the Chinese room? https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/

There are no significant new philosophical issues arising from recent large language models which haven't already been discussed to death in philosophy since Searle published on this in 1980. If you believe in functionalism then you will continue to believe in functionalism when presented with the evidence from LLMs and if you don't believe in functionalism then you will continue to not believe in it when presented with the evidence from LLMs. (same applies to naturalism/materialism/determinism) Nothing about LLMs is different in principle from what Searle addressed or is going to move the needle in any direction.

I would suggest next... (read more)