David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. He is the author of The Conscious Mind (1996), Constructing The World (2010), and Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy (2022). He is known for formulating the “hard problem” of consciousness, and (with Andy Clark) for the idea of the “extended mind,” according to which the tools we use can become parts of our minds.
Talk
Stochastic Parrots or Emergent Reasoners: Can Large Language Models Understand? | June 10
Sessions in which David Chalmers participates
Monday 10 June, 2024
Some say large language models are stochastic parrots, or mere imitators who can't understand. Others say that reasoning, understanding and other humanlike capacities may be emergent capacities of these models. I'll give an analysis of these issues, analyzing arguments for each view and distinguishing different varieties of "understanding" that LLMs may or may not possess. I'll also connect the issue of LLM understanding to the issue of AI consciousness, and to the issue of AI moral status in...