[FRIAM] AI possibilities

Steve Smith sasmyth at swcp.com
Fri Apr 7 13:14:43 EDT 2023


On 4/7/23 10:48 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
> As I wrote the prompt, I was wondering how it might deal with the 
> ambiquity of color for these objects.
>
> Prompt: What might a fire engine, an apple and a rose have in common
> ChatGPT4:
> A fire engine, an apple, and a rose might not appear to have much in 
> common at first glance, as they belong to different 
> categories—vehicles, fruits, and flowers, respectively. However, one 
> possible commonality among them is their color: red. Fire engines are 
> typically red, apples can be red (among other colors), and roses can 
> also be red. The color red is often associated with strong emotions 
> such as love, passion, and urgency, which may be another connection 
> among these seemingly unrelated object

After reading the article and dipping into the paper,  I asked chatGPT4 
about the differences of color perception, naming and organization 
across cultures, the answer was pretty mundane and mealy-mouthed IMO.   
I was hoping for a more subtle or extravagant treatment.  I will be 
trying to develop my "prompt engineer" skills more based on this topic...



>
> On Fri, Apr 7, 2023, 10:15 AM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>     I tripped over (in my Gnewsfeed) an article that seemed to speak
>     more clearly
>     <https://www.marktechpost.com/2023/04/06/8-potentially-surprising-things-to-know-about-large-language-models-llms/>
>     to some of my maunderings:
>
>
>           8 Potentially Surprising Things To Know About Large Language
>           Models LLMs
>           <https://www.marktechpost.com/2023/04/06/8-potentially-surprising-things-to-know-about-large-language-models-llms/>
>
>     And the paper it summarizes (with a similar title, more detail and
>     references):
>
>          8 Things to know about Large Language Models - Samuel R
>         Bowman <https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.00612.pdf>
>
>     And in particular this point made:
>
>          3. *LLMs frequently acquire and employ external-world
>             representations.*
>
>          More and more evidence suggests that LLMs build internal
>         representations of the world, allowing them to reason at an
>         abstract level insensitive to the specific language form of
>         the text. The evidence for this phenomenon is strongest in the
>         largest and most recent models, so it should be anticipated
>         that it will grow more robust when systems are scaled up more.
>         Nevertheless, current LLMs need to do this more effectively
>         and effectively.
>
>         The following findings, based on a wide variety of
>         experimental techniques and theoretical models, support this
>         assertion.
>
>           * The internal color representations of models are highly
>             consistent with empirical findings on how humans perceive
>             color.
>           * Models can conclude the author’s knowledge and beliefs to
>             foretell the document’s future course.
>           * Stories are used to inform models, which then change their
>             internal representations of the features and locations of
>             the objects represented in the stories.
>           * Sometimes, models can provide information on how to depict
>             strange things on paper.
>           * Many commonsense reasoning tests are passed by models,
>             even ones like the Winograd Schema Challenge, that are
>             made to have no textual hints to the answer.
>
>         These findings counter the conventional wisdom that LLMs are
>         merely statistical next-word predictors and can’t generalize
>         their learning or reasoning beyond text.
>
>     On 4/6/23 8:27 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>     I have been reading Jeff Hawkins' _1000 Brains_ which is roughly
>>     *his* take on AI from the perspective of the Neuroscience *he*
>>     has been doing for a few decades, including building models of
>>     the neocortex.
>>
>>     What struck me strongly was how much *I* expect anything I'd want
>>     to call artificial *consciousness* to engage in "co-munnication"
>>     in the strongest sense.  Glen regularly admonishes us that
>>     "communication" may be an illusion and something we don't
>>     actually *do* or maybe more to the the point "it doesn't mean
>>     what we think it means"?
>>
>>     So for all the parlor tricks I've enjoyed playing with chatGPT
>>     and DALL-E and maybe even more spectacularly the myriad examples
>>     *others* have teased out of those systems, I am always looking
>>     for what sort of "internal state" these systems are exposing to
>>     me in their "utterances". And by extension, I am looking to see
>>     if it is in any way apprehending *me* through my questions and
>>     prompts.
>>
>>     Dialog with chatGPT feels pretty familiar to me, as if I'm
>>     conversing with an unusually polite and cooperative polymath.  
>>     It is freeing to feel I can ask "it" any question which I can
>>     formulate and can expect back a pretty *straight* answer if not
>>     always one I was hoping for.  "It" seems pretty insightful and
>>     usually picks up on the nuances of my questions.   As often as
>>     not, I need to follow up with refined questions which channel the
>>     answers away from the "mundane or obvious" but when I do, it
>>     rarely misses a trick or is evasive or harps on something from
>>     it's own (apparent) agenda.  It only does that when I ask it
>>     questions about it's own nature, formulation, domain and then it
>>     just seems blunted as if it has a lawyer or politician
>>     intercepting some of those questions and answering them for it.
>>
>>     I have learned to "frame" my questions by first asking it to
>>     defer it's response until I've given it some ... "framing" for
>>     the actual question.   Otherwise I go through the other series of
>>     steps where I have to re-ask the same question with more and more
>>     context or ask a very long and convoluted question.  At first it
>>     was a pleasure to be able to unlimber my
>>     convoluted-question-generator and have it (not mis) understand me
>>     and even not seem to "miss a trick".   As I learned to generate
>>     several framing statements before asking my question, I have
>>     found that I *can* give it too many constraints (apparently) such
>>     that it respects some/most of my framing but then avoids or
>>     ignores other parts.  At that point I have to ask follow-up,
>>     elaborating, contextualizing questions.
>>
>>     I do not yet feel like I am actually seeing into chatGPT's soul
>>     or in any way being seen by it.   That will be for a future
>>     generation I suspect.   Otherwise it is one hella "research
>>     assistant" and "spitball partner" on most any topic I've
>>     considered that isn't too contemporary (training set ended 2021?).
>>
>>     - Steve
>>
>>     On 4/4/23 5:54 PM, Prof David West wrote:
>>>     Based on the flood of stories about ChatAI, it appears:
>>>        - they can 'do' math and 'reason' scientificdally
>>>        - they can generate essays, term papers, etc.
>>>        - they can engage in convincing dialog/conversations
>>>          - as "therapists"
>>>          - as "girlfriends" (I haven't seen any stories about women
>>>     falling in love with their AI)
>>>          - as kinksters
>>>        - they can write code
>>>
>>>     The writing code ability immediately made me wonder if, given a
>>>     database of music instead of text, they could write music?
>>>
>>>     The dialog /conversation ability makes me wonder about more
>>>     real-time collaborative interaction, improv acting / comedy? Or,
>>>     pair programming? The real-time aspect is critical to my
>>>     question, as I believe there is something qualitatively
>>>     different between two people doing improv or pair programming
>>>     than simply engaging in dialog. I think I could make a much
>>>     stronger argument in the case of improv music, especially jazz,
>>>     but AIs aren't doing that yet.
>>>
>>>     davew
>>>
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