A child may not be able to count, because they don't yet understand the concept, but may be able to reason at a more basic level, yes. But GPT has ingested most of the books in the world and the entire internet. So if it hasn't learned to count, or what counting is by now, what is going to change? A child can learn the concept, GPT cannot. It doesn't understand concepts at all, it only seems like it does because the output is so close to what beings that do understand concepts generate themselves, and it's mimicking that.
It can't count because it doesn't know what counting is. Otherwise it would be able to count like a computer can. After ingesting all the literature in the world, why can't it count yet?
It can, just not very well. Often the issue is people have it count letters and words but those aren’t the abstractions or deals with. It would be like if I told you to pick up the ball primarily reflecting 450nm light and called you colorblind if you couldn’t do it.
GPT is built on a computer. It is not a computer itself. I am made of cells, but I am not able to perform mitosis.
It’s also very capable of offloading counting tasks, since computers are so good at that. Just suggest it format things in code and evaluate it.
Here’s an example of it counting. I’m pretty confident it’s never seen this exact problem before.
How many fruits are in this list? banana, hammer, wrench, watermelon, screwdriver, pineapple, peach
There are 4 fruits in the list you provided: banana, watermelon, pineapple, and peach. The other items are tools, not fruits.
It's not counting, it's just outputting something that is likely to sound right. The reason it can't count is that it doesn't know that it should run a counting algorithm when you ask it to count, or what a counting algorithm is. There is no reason why an AI should not be able to run an algorithm. Coming up with appropriate algorithms and running them is one definition of AIs. This is not an AI. It is an algorithm itself but it cannot create or run algorithms, though it can output things that look like them. The "algorithms" it outputs are not even wrong, correctness and truth is orthogonal to it's output and without that you don't have real intelligence.
How does it come up with comprehensible sentences that make logical sense about everyday things without understanding what these things are in the real world or even understanding what logic is? I don't have a stack trace for you, but if you want to hang on "the proof's in the pudding" and say the output is evidence for what it's doing, here's Chat GPT's output to your question:
There are two fruits in this list: banana and watermelon.
So what is the difference between GPT 4 and Chat GPT? Is GPT 4 all of a sudden running a counting algorithm over the appropriate words in the sentence because it understands that's what it needs to do to get the correct answer? Can anyone explain how you would get from whatever Chat GPT is doing to that by the changes to GPT 4? And more to the point, how does Chat GPT get to the answer 2 without counting? Apparently somehow, because if it can't even count to 4, I'm not sure how you could call whatever it's doing 'counting'.
> How does it come up with comprehensible sentences that make logical sense about everyday things without understanding what these things are in the real world or even understanding what logic is?
This is begging the question.
> Can anyone explain how you would get from whatever Chat GPT is doing to that by the changes to GPT 4?
I don't know. I can't explain how a 2-year-old can't count but an 8-year-old can, either. 3.5 generally can't count[0]. 4 generally can.
You've really sidestepped the question. I suggest you seriously consider it. What's the difference between something that looks like it's counting versus actually counting when it comes to data it's never seen before?
Thanks for discussing this with me.
[0] Add "Solve this like George Polya" to any problem and it will do a better job. When I do that, it's able to get to 4.
