Random thoughts on LLMs

In the business world at present, the initials "LLM" mean "large language model". It also means one particular avenue of movement in the development of artificial intelligence. Algorithms scour the web, scooping up huge blocks of text in the meantime (hence the initials), and output/offer what seems like the answer to a question that a well informed human would give.

Or that is the idea. Sometimes it fails in fascinating ways. For example, an LLM model told me that Plato, in the dialogue PHAEDO, tells a story of how Socrates held a young man's head under water.

This is a story that has already been making the rounds of the internet, pre-LLM. It shows up in self-help books. Socrates lets go of the young fellow (Simmias, on some accounts) in time for him to surface, breathe, and survive. Then Socrates delivers the punchline, "when you desire success as much as you just desired air, you will be a success."

The story is a recent invention, and is just as valid as the notion that Lincoln once said, "I never said any of the things they say on the internet I said." There is a character named Simmias in Phaedo. He does not ask Socrates about success. He is dismayed that Socrates is cooperating with his executioners and wants solace about immortality.

The problem, though, is that the existing LLMs have no bullshit detector. Ask one of them to tell you about Socrates' student Simmias and you can get the "Socrates nearly drowned him to make a point" story. Because it is on the internet.

Anyway: I am happy to say that humanity may yet be saved from the evils of AI not by an action hero in classic Hollywood mode, but by ... intellectual property and contract lawyers.

According to Brian Leiter's blog, Cambridge University Press is now sending to its authors notices like this:

Following developments in artificial intelligence (AI) during 2022 and 2023, Cambridge University Press has begun to receive content licensing requests from providers of generative artificial intelligence. We value our authors and editors and want to collaborate with you to establish a responsible and transparent way forward in this evolving space. As such, we are contacting you to provide more information on our approach and to request your permission for your work to be included in new licensing routes.

You will shortly receive an email link to a digital addendum to your author or editor contract with us for [book name removed] from a system called Ironclad / HelloSign. If you agree that your work can be included in generative AI licensing deals, click the link in this email to sign the addendum. Please note that this email may be in your junk or spam folder.

I think that's a great straw in this wind.

https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2024/05/cambridge-university-press-now-asking-authors-whether-they-want-to-license-their-publications-for-ll.html

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a majesti

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave. First, Plato is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability. I only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable assigns a task to philosophers

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere. At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak

Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

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