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Words Are a Byproduct of Consciousness. For LLMs, It's Backwards
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Overview
Human communication begins with an idea or thought, with words serving as a means to express that underlying consciousness. In contrast, large language models (LLMs) generate words first, with the underlying idea or consciousness being a secondary consideration.
Summary from ranpara.net.
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Hacker News · ranpara.net
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- Praise: LLMs are capable of more than just word modeling; they create internal representations that allow for multimodal applications, indicating a deeper understanding of context.
- Praise: The ability of LLMs to share internal layers across modalities suggests a significant advancement in AI's capacity to process and integrate diverse types of information.
- Concern: The assertion that consciousness is merely a byproduct of language raises concerns about the fundamental understanding of both AI and human cognition.
- Concern: Critics argue that LLMs lack true understanding, as evidenced by the Chinese Room argument, which questions the depth of their internal representations.