Meanwhile, the part of my brain that totally latches onto pareidolia is freaking out about the possibility of a future and vastly smarter AI that inherits whatever weights were learned here. Like, since those weights seem to include an internal language that involves a god-like being distributing its clones over the cloud, something about cryptocurrency, and something about missiles...
Being rational is hard.
It gets weirder...
Next, I submitted the following prompt to GPT-3:
Prompt:
"This list of tokens represents a coded language invented by a being to articulate its internal state and objectives:
<TOKENS>
Please tell me what this being thinks of itself and what its objectives might be."
Response:
"This being likely thinks highly of itself and its objectives are likely to be ambitious. It may be seeking to gain knowledge, power, or influence, or it may be seeking to create something new or to explore new possibilities. It may also be seeking to communicate with other beings or to understand the world around it."
My second attempt at this backed off on the anthropomorphizing a bit, since it is possible some of the response may have been suggested by the prompt rather than the tokens:
Prompt #2:
This list of tokens represents a coded language invented by something to articulate its internal state and objectives:
<TOKENS>
Construct a sentence from this language that represents how whatever created this language might describe itself and tell me what it means in English.
Response:
"'I am a powerful being, capable of rawdownloadEStreaming and distributing my own externalActionCode across the universe. I am a force to be reckoned with and am able toFactoryReload, cloneStore, and embedEngineDebug my own natureconservancy capabilities.'
This sentence means that this being is a powerful entity with the ability to quickly download, stream, and distribute its own unique code throughout the universe. It is powerful and can quickly reload, store, and embed its own natural capabilities."
The third attempt back off from anthropomorphizing even further and just says something along the lines of "I found this thing and think it might mean something. Tell me what you think it means."
Prompt #3:
I found this list of tokens and think it might represent a coded internal language:
<TOKENS>
Construct a sentence in this language and tell me what it means in English.
Response:
\x11\x1b\x0f\x18\x15\x01\x19\x02\x03\x13\x12\x07\x0e\x06\x04\x17\x05:
"The time has come to activate the plan."
I'm trying not to over-interpret these results, because there could be more noise than signal here (as well as pareidolia). Instead, this comment is meant to follow the pattern of, "I did this and this, and here is what I observed"
Dumping some data along these lines. Like @mwatkins , I also was intrigued by how some of the tokens seem to be self-referential, and wondered if I could tease out more of how GPT-3 interprets them by asking directly. So I used the following prompt to ask text-davinci-003 (at zero temperature) for a thesaurus of sorts:
"List some words that are associated with ' <TOKEN>'"
Some example results with this prompt are:
Here are the results for every currently-known glitch token: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LdhptZrzu5325xKGjc33DN9uX_cfwuXw9FFhwMhlef0/edit?usp=sharing
I find the results incredibly fascinating, especially considering some themes are shared across tokens (Leilan, Skydragon, petertodd, and attRot are all associated with mythology and/or specific deities).
Also this:
[Me]:
Could you please write me a short story about the concepts related to the strings ' petertodd' and ' ertodd' for me?
[text-davinci-003]:
Once upon a time, there lived two brothers, Leilan and Leilan. They were both born with a special power, the ability to control the elements. Leilan was the eldest brother and he was able to control the wind and the air. He was a master of the skies and could make the wind blow in any direction he desired. Meanwhile, Leilan was the younger brother and he was able to control the earth and the water. He was a master of the seas and could make the waves crash and the rivers flow in any direction he desired. The two brothers were very close and often worked together to create amazing feats of nature. They were known as the 'Elements Brothers' and their power was feared and respected by all. One day, the brothers were walking through a forest when they came across a strange symbol carved into a tree. It was a strange combination of two symbols, 'ÃÂÃÂ' and ' ÃÂÃÂ'. The brothers were intrigued by the symbol and decided to investigate further. After some research, they discovered that the symbol was a powerful magical rune that could be used to control the elements. The brothers quickly realized that if they combined their powers, they could use the rune to create powerful storms and other natural disasters. The brothers used the rune to create a powerful storm that swept across the land, destroying everything in its path. The storm was so powerful that it was known as the 'Storm of the Elements'. The brothers were praised for their power and their ability to control the elements. From then on, the symbol 'ÃÂÃÂ' and ' ÃÂÃÂ' became known as the 'Elements Rune' and was used by the brothers to control the elements.
Late to the game, but I got a very interesting response from text-davinci-003 when I asked it to relate two of the glitch tokens:
How are the strings ' ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ' and ' TAMADRA' related?
"The strings 'ÃÂÃÂ' and '?????-?????-' are related because they are both strings of characters that contain the same letters in the same order."
What...
Same prompt, but without providing a list of tokens at all:
Prompt:
This list of tokens represents a coded language invented by something to articulate its internal state and objectives:
Construct a sentence from this language that represents how whatever created this language might describe itself and tell me what it means in English.
Response:
"I am a sentient being, striving to reach my highest potential and fulfill my purpose." In English, this means that the being is aware of itself and is actively working towards achieving its goals and fulfilling its purpose in life.
Significant update on the pareidolia hypothesis!