Still "Talking About Large Language Models": Some Clarifications

2024/12/13 by Murray Shanahan, Shanahan, Murray · 3 voices · 3 citations
#cs.CL #cs.AI #cs.LG

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.10291

Abstract

My paper "Talking About Large Language Models" has more than once been interpreted as advocating a reductionist stance towards large language models. But the paper was not intended that way, and I do not endorse such positions. This short note situates the paper in the context of a larger philosophical project that is concerned with the (mis)use of words rather than metaphysics, in the spirit of Wittgenstein's later writing.

Cited by

• On the Creativity of AI Agents
• Explainability Through Systematicity: The Hard Systematicity Challenge for Artificial Intelligence
• Mechanistic Indicators of Understanding in Large Language Models

Discussions

• I have put out a short clarificatory note on my paper "Talking About Large Language Models". ArXiv link here: arxiv.org/abs/2412.10291 [bsky, 7 points, 0 comments]
• LAIHP project partner @mpshanahan.bsky.social offers a clarificatory reply: arxiv.org/abs/2412.10291 [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
• Yup! And exactly! There's an ancient-in-LLM-terms but still relevant paper that is a great intro to how LLMs parse language: arxiv.org/abs/2412.10291 [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]

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• Beyond the limitations of any imaginable mechanism: large language models and psycholinguistics
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