Comment by teravor
43 minutes ago
> They're still autocomplete
LLMs are simulations and the tokens are the ticks.
if we transcribe your brain into a simulation and give it a tickrate, you will be just autocomplete too. the argument could be made that you are autocomplete anyway - neural dynamics.
the autocomplete reduction is vacuous.
This is the perfect fracture point for both anaolgies.
LLMs simulated more than simple autocomplete.
The autocomplete analogy is rebutting a different point: namely the fidelity of the simulation to reality.
This specific argument is valid. As sophisticated a simulation an LLM is, it is not “thinking” in the same sense we assume other people are thinking.
I am not making an argument about free will, or the uniqueness of human thought, just that the correspondence to how humans reach conclusions and how the simulation produces outputs do not match on a 1:1 basis; as a result attributing traits builds incorrect intuitions.