{"id":46322215,"user":"A4ET8a8uTh0_v2","time":1766117770,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

But.. and I am not asking it for giggles, does it mean humans are giant autocomplete machines?","comments":[{"id":46322549,"user":"root_axis","time":1766122629,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

Not at all. Why would it?","comments":[{"id":46322563,"user":"A4ET8a8uTh0_v2","time":1766122767,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

Call it a.. thought experiment about the question of scale.","comments":[{"id":46322589,"user":"root_axis","time":1766123053,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Could you please elaborate further?","comments":[{"id":46322678,"user":"a1j9o94","time":1766123823,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

Not the person you're responding to, but I think there's a non trivial argument to make that our thoughts are just auto complete. What is the next most likely word based on what you're seeing. Ever watched a movie and guessed the plot? Or read a comment and know where it was going to go by the end?

And I know not everyone thinks in a literal stream of words all the time (I do) but I would argue that those people's brains are just using a different "token"","comments":[{"id":46322957,"user":"root_axis","time":1766127316,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

There's no evidence for it, nor any explanation for why it should be the case from a biological perspective. Tokens are an artifact of computer science that have no reason to exist inside humans. Human minds don't need a discrete dictionary of reality in order to model it.

Prior to LLMs, there was never any suggestion that thoughts work like autocomplete, but now people are working backwards from that conclusion based on metaphorical parallels.","comments":[{"id":46323368,"user":"LiKao","time":1766131091,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

There actually was quite a lot of suggestion that thoughts work like autocomplete. A lot of it was just considered niche, e.g. because the mathematical formalisms were beyond what most psychologist or even cognitive scientists would deem usefull.

Predictive coding theory was formalized back around 2010 and traces it roots up to theories by Helmholtz from 1860.

Predictive coding theory postulates that our brains are just very strong prediction machines, with multiple layers of predictive machinery, each predicting the next.","comments":[],"comments_count":0,"level":5,"url":"item?id=46323368"},{"id":46323187,"user":"red75prime","time":1766129513,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

There are so many theories regarding human cognition that you can certainly find something that is close to "autocomplete". A Hopfield network, for example.

Roots of predictive coding theory extend back to 1860s.

Natalia Bekhtereva was writing about compact concept representations in the brain akin to tokens.","comments":[{"id":46329903,"user":"root_axis","time":1766172887,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

> There are so many theories regarding human cognition that you can certainly find something that is close to "autocomplete"

Yes, you can draw interesting parallels between anything when you're motivated to do so. My point is that this isn't parsimonious reasoning, it's working backwards from a conclusion and searching for every opportunity to fit the available evidence into a narrative that supports it.

> Roots of predictive coding theory extend back to 1860s.

This is just another example of metaphorical parallels overstating meaningful connections. Just because next-token-prediction and predictive coding have the word "predict" in common doesn't mean the two are at all related in any practical sense.","comments":[],"comments_count":0,"level":6,"url":"item?id=46329903"}],"comments_count":1,"level":5,"url":"item?id=46323187"},{"id":46324460,"user":"A4ET8a8uTh0_v2","time":1766142166,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

<< There's no evidence for it

Fascinating framing. What would you consider evidence here?","comments":[],"comments_count":0,"level":5,"url":"item?id=46324460"}],"comments_count":4,"level":4,"url":"item?id=46322957"},{"id":46322888,"user":"9dev","time":1766126443,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

You, and OP, are taking an analogy way too far. Yes, humans have the mental capability to predict words similar to autocomplete, but obviously this is just one out of a myriad of mental capabilities typical humans have, which work regardless of text. You can predict where a ball will go if you throw it, you can reason about gravity, and so much more. It’s not just apples to oranges, not even apples to boats, it’s apples to intersubjective realities.","comments":[{"id":46343345,"user":"dagss","time":1766307832,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

I feel the link between humans and autocomplete is deeper than that an ability to predict.

Think about an average dinner party conversation. Person A talks, person B thinks about something to say that fits, person C gets an association from what A and B said and speaks...

And what are people most interested in talking about? Things they read or watched during the week perhaps?

Conversations would not have had to be like this. Imagine a species from another planet who had a "conversation" where each party simply communicated what it most needed to say/was most benefitial to say and said it. And where the chance of bringing up a topic had no correlation at all with what previous person said (why should it?) or with what was in the newspapers that week. And who had no "interest" in the association game.

Humans saying they are not driven by associations is to me a bit like fish saying they are not noticing the water. At least MY thought processes works like that.","comments":[],"comments_count":0,"level":5,"url":"item?id=46343345"},{"id":46324498,"user":"A4ET8a8uTh0_v2","time":1766142506,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

I don't think I am. To be honest, as ideas goes and I swirl it around that empty head of mine, this one ain't half bad given how much immediate resistance it generates.

Other posters already noted other reasons for it, but I will note that you are saying 'similar to autocomplete, but obviously' suggesting you recognize the shape and immediately dismissing it as not the same, because the shape you know in humans is much more evolved and co do more things. Ngl man, as arguments go, it sounds to me like supercharged autocomplete that was allowed to develop over a number of years.","comments":[{"id":46325046,"user":"9dev","time":1766146930,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

Fair enough. To someone with a background in biology, it sounds like an argument made by a software engineer with no actual knowledge of cognition, psychology, biology, or any related field, jumping to misled conclusions driven only by shallow insights and their own experience in computer science.

Or in other words, this thread sure attracts a lot of armchair experts.","comments":[{"id":46326838,"user":"quesera","time":1766158064,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

> with no actual knowledge of cognition, psychology, biology

... but we also need to be careful with that assertion, because humans do not understand cognition, psychology, or biology very well.

Biology is the furthest developed, but it turns out to be like physics -- superficially and usefully modelable, but fundamental mysteries remain. We have no idea how complete our models are, but they work pretty well in our standard context.

If computer engineering is downstream from physics, and cognition is downstream from biology ... well, I just don't know how certain we can be about much of anything.

> this thread sure attracts a lot of armchair experts.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into our priors..."","comments":[],"comments_count":0,"level":7,"url":"item?id=46326838"}],"comments_count":1,"level":6,"url":"item?id=46325046"}],"comments_count":2,"level":5,"url":"item?id=46324498"},{"id":46323339,"user":"LiKao","time":1766130815,"time_ago":"2 months ago","type":"comment","content":"

Look up predictive coding theory. According to that theory, what our brain does is in fact just autocomplete.

However, what it is doing is layered autocomplete on itself. I.e. one part is trying to predict what the other part will be producing and training itself on this kind of prediction.

What emerges from this layered level of autocompletes is what we call thought.","comments":[],"comments_count":0,"level":5,"url":"item?id=46323339"}],"comments_count":5,"level":4,"url":"item?id=46322888"}],"comments_count":11,"level":3,"url":"item?id=46322678"}],"comments_count":12,"level":2,"url":"item?id=46322589"}],"comments_count":13,"level":1,"url":"item?id=46322563"}],"comments_count":14,"level":0,"url":"item?id=46322549"}],"comments_count":15,"url":"item?id=46322215"}

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