Comment by slightwinder
4 days ago
Photocopiers are the opposite of thinking. What goes in, goes out, no transformation or creating of new data at all. Any change is just an accident, or an artifact of the technical process.
4 days ago
Photocopiers are the opposite of thinking. What goes in, goes out, no transformation or creating of new data at all. Any change is just an accident, or an artifact of the technical process.
That's not actually true - try photocopying a banknote with the security pattern on it.
True, modern Photocopiers are not really Photocopiers any more and just a pc with scanner and printer. Those could be described as "thinking", in the same sense as any computer is thinking. But from my understanding, the original comment was explicitly about a pure copy-device, without any "brain" involved.
That has a logic condition, no?
Not sure what you mean - there's a pattern of dots (the EURion constellation) on the banknotes of a number of countries that photocopiers recognize and will refuse to copy.
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So, if there's a flaw in its sensor and you get somewhat warped output, would you consider it thinking then?
No, because it is not intentional.
Hmmm, so if I know some of them have warped optics, so then arrange a few to produce interesting (to me) output, are they thinking then? :)
It is the wrong category error.
The proper category error in the context of the discussion would be to say the photocopier is drawing a picture.
It doesn't matter how well or not the photocopier recreates an image. To say the photocopier is drawing a picture is just nonsense and has no meaning.
The same category error as to say the LLM is "thinking".
Of course, the category error could be well exploited for marketing purposes if you are in the business of selling photocopiers or language models.