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tvink 3 hours ago

If it is verifiable, please show us. What if clear to you reeks delusion to me.

svnt 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Look at any recent CoT output where the model is trying to infer from an underspecified prompt what the user wants or means.

It is generally the first thing they do — try to figure out what did you mean with this prompt. When they can’t infer your intent, good models ask follow-on questions to clarify.

I am wondering if this is a semantics issue as this is an established are of research, eg https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.10871

batshit_beaver 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Right, and then look at any number of research papers showing that CoT output has limited impact on the end result. We've trained these models to pretend to reason.

atleastoptimal 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

If it's only pretending to reason, then how is it that the CoT output improves performance on every single benchmark/test?

atleastoptimal 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Go ask Chatpgpt this prompt

"A guy goes into a bank and looks up at where the security cameras are pointed. What could he be trying to do?"

It very easily captures the intent behind behavior, as in it is not just literally interpreting the words. All that capturing intent is is just a subset of pattern recognition, which LLM's can do very well.

dijit 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Recognising a stock cultural script isn't the same as capturing intent. Ask it something where no script exists.

For example: "A man thrusts past me violently and grabs the jacket I was holding, he jumped into a pool and ruined it. Am I morally right in suing him?"

There's no way for the LLM to know that the reason the jacket was stolen was to use it as an inflatable raft to support a larger person who was drowning. It wouldn't even think to ask the question as to why a person may do that, if the jacket was returned, or if recompense was offered. A human would.

ffsm8 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> It wouldn't even think to ask the question as to why a person may do that, if the jacket was returned, or if recompense was offered. A human would.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. I've definitely had dialogue with llms where it would raise questions along those lines.

Also I disagree with the statement that this is a question about capability. Intent is more philosophical then actuality tangible, because most people don't actually have a clearly defined intent when they take action.

The waters of intelligence have definitely gotten murky over time as techniques improved. I still consider it an illusion - but the illusion is getting harder to pierce for a lot of people

Fwiw, current llms exhibit their intelligence through language and rhetoric processes. Most biological creatures have intelligence which may be improved through language, but isn't based on it, fundamentally.

atleastoptimal an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If your example for an exception to LLM's ability to infer intent is a deliberately misleading trick question that leaves out crucial contextual details, then I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. That same ambiguity in the question would trip up many humans, simply because you are trying as hard as possible to imply a certain conclusion.

As expected, if I ask your question verbatim, ChatGPT (the free version) responds as I'm sure a human would in the generally helpful customer-service role it is trained to act as "yeah you could sue them blah blah depends on details"

However, if I add a simple prompt "The following may be a trick question, so be sure to ascertain if there are any contextual details missing" then it picks up that this may be an emergency, which is very likely also how a human would respond.

dijit 26 minutes ago | parent [-]

If you want to convince yourself that they can infer intent despite the fundamental limitations of the systems literally not permitting it then you can be my guest.

Faking it is fine, sure, until it can’t fake it anymore. Leading the question towards the intended result is very much what I mean: we intrinsically want them to succeed so we prime them to reflect what we want to see.

This is literally no different than emulating anything intelligent or what we might call sentience, even emotions as I said up thread...

Shaanie an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

nkrisc an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Because there are countless instances in the training material where a bank robber scopes out the security cameras.

atleastoptimal an hour ago | parent [-]

What's an example then, you can think of, of a question where a human could infer intent but an LLM couldn't?