Semiotic Zombies

Interesting posts yesterday. I sent an email to my daughter & daughter-in-law, both of whom work with LLMs:

This is interesting. This one came up 1st in my RSS feed:
The poetry machine by Seth Godin

This is the article in Crooked Timber that was based on:
Cultural theory was right about the death of the author. It was just a few decades early

That is largely a review of this book:
Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism
[I just bought the eBook on Kobo for $22.00 tax included.]

I guess I'll have to learn what "literary theory" is.

I just finished reading the 2nd article, by Henry Ferrell. It referenced another article of his:

ChatGPT is an engine of cultural transmission, subtitled
LLMs and Gopnikism

Gopnikism references the work of Alison Gopnik, website here.

Here's his 1st article in the series:

The political economy of Blurry JPEGs, subtitled
What LLMs can do. And what they can't.

It looks like the gist of a lot of the arguments is: LLMs validate the Literary aka Cultural Theory, which posits: everything is words. LLMs are obviously good at words.

This was based on semiotics. I always knew the French philosophers would have their revenge. Semiotics is a tag in this blog. Only used once, April 16, 2005:

Semiotics, like memetics, strikes me as a science in search of a discipline. I read Eco's seminal book "Semiotics" in around 2000. Semiotics is the level between bits and information -- signs and signification in all forms. Given that I work with this stuff for a living, I would figure there would be some concepts there that I could use -- but nothing. Europeans seem to like it tho -- 'nuf said.

Oh boy a new name for LLMs: semiotic zombies!

But seriously, these articles are totally worth reading. I think they are really giving an accurate description of what LLMs are, & how they should be used. &, note to Sam Altman, forget about AGI. It ain't happening. LLMs are generating poetry, but cannot write poems.

Oh man! I just flashed on "Hyperion", by Dan Simmons, where the main ASI AI in the story speaks in Zen koans! And in my magnum opus, A Taxonomy of Bullshit, I have already identified prophecy & visions as flavors of bullshit. I guess poetry goes in there too.

So the LLMs should treated as the drug-addled Delphic Oracles were treated. Sources of inspiration, but nothing factual. LLMs have 0 connection to the real world, they live in the world of words & semiotics. It's ALL hallucinations!

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