The Debate Over Understanding in AI's Large Language Models

14 Oct 2022  ·  Melanie Mitchell, David C. Krakauer ·

We survey a current, heated debate in the AI research community on whether large pre-trained language models can be said to "understand" language -- and the physical and social situations language encodes -- in any important sense. We describe arguments that have been made for and against such understanding, and key questions for the broader sciences of intelligence that have arisen in light of these arguments. We contend that a new science of intelligence can be developed that will provide insight into distinct modes of understanding, their strengths and limitations, and the challenge of integrating diverse forms of cognition.

PDF Abstract
No code implementations yet. Submit your code now

Tasks


Datasets


Results from the Paper


  Submit results from this paper to get state-of-the-art GitHub badges and help the community compare results to other papers.

Methods


No methods listed for this paper. Add relevant methods here