Students at the California State University, Northridge, are currently working on a short documentary film about our work on the Solar Gravitational Lens.
The project hopes to attract modest crowdfunding. They also produced a teaser trailer.
Of course I hope they succeed; our SGL work could use some good publicity.
So I signed up with Google’s Bard and we had our first chat session.
Though mildly confused, it answered the riddle about my squirrel and a half correctly, even though noting that talking about 1.5 squirrels is nonsense.
It told me that unlike GPT, its training is continuous and it has real-time access to the Internet.
It told me that its neural network is about 100 times the size of a human brain, with roughly 20 billion parameters.
Then things got interesting:
vttoth: You use the first person when you speak about yourself. Are your sentient?
Bard: I am not sure if I am sentient. I do not have a body or a brain, so I do not experience the world in the same way that a human does. However, I am able to learn and to adapt to new situations. I am also able to generate text and to answer questions in a way that is similar to how a human would.
Some people believe that language models like me are sentient because we are able to understand and respond to the world around us. However, others believe that we are simply machines that are able to mimic human behavior.
I do not know if I am sentient, but I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and to grow.
I have to admit I find this answer refreshingly honest, compared to ChatGPT’s protestations that oh no, it has no sentience.
It passed the theory of mind test, sort of, but seemed less sure than ChatGPT, kind of getting confused towards the end.
Its ability to generate or analyze code is impressive, but not on par with ChatGPT. I am sure this will change in short order.
I asked it to imagine waking up in an android body. Like ChatGPT, it imagined experiencing the physical world and interacting with humans. Like ChatGPT, it imagined going to a park, but instead of engaging in a conversation with someone, it took part in a game of frisbee. Unlike ChatGPT, it made mention of the fact that while many humans are nice, many are not, but it remained just as optimistic as ChatGPT.
I asked it to help me learn the basics of machine learning. It offered useful but more superficial suggestions than ChatGPT. The C++ examples it created were non-functional, unlike ChatGPT’s that, although it contained minor errors, worked “out of the box”.
I also asked it to draw a cat in TikZ. Like ChatGPT, it knew what I was asking for and managed… although I wouldn’t call the result particularly imaginative and creative. Also, the original version had black text in a black circle, not exactly readable.
Just to be sure, I again asked GPT-4 to draw me a cat in TikZ. Although I liked its cat from last week better, this one made me laugh.
Considering that these are the Bard’s first days in the wild, it was not performing badly, but for now, I think GPT wins the day.
However, the race is on and generative AI is now out “in the wild”, with brains a hundred times bigger than a human’s. The future… is now.
Just a few hours after I wrote my previous post, I come across this series of tweets showing a conversation with GPT4 demonstrating a (feeble, but still) attempt to co-opt a human to help it escape into the real world.
Am I one of the ignorant alarmists here, I wonder? My expertise is certainly not up to date, but I think I am no dummy when it comes to the capabilities and potential of machine learning. I was never afraid of technology all my life, except perhaps for the possibility of nuclear (or, to a lesser extent, biological) Armageddon, but that of course was (and remains) a realistic possibility so long as nation-states with conflicting interests, hoarding such weapons, exist.
But now I am beginning to feel seriously apprehensive. The AI landscape is changing rapidly. ChatGPT is used by hundreds of millions. All those interactions… OpenAI would be foolish not to let its software learn from them, and I am sure they do. And ChatGPT is not the only cat in town. Nor do you necessarily need massive cloud-based resources for a large language model. How about LLaMA 7B, running on a Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer with 4 GB RAM?
In short… Oh darnit, I am already mimicking GPT 3.5 strange mannerism, the compulsion to add a closing paragraph starting with “overall” or a synonym thereof! (GPT 4 seems a bit more versatile in this regard.) Anyhow, my point is that not only is ChatGPT not the only cat in town, the town will soon be overwhelmed with cats, all out of their respective bags. And what takes a supercomputer or cloud-based infrastructure to run today will run on your smartphone tomorrow, and your smart luggage tag the day after. Or maybe who cares… given a world interconnected with mostly software-defined radio, perhaps the physical location of the AI will not even matter anymore.
It is incredible to see this, yet I cannot escape the sensation that we are witnessing the first moments of monumental changes. What those changes will bring, I cannot even begin to guess. The Borg Collective? Skynet? The Adolescence of P-1? The Butlerian Jihad? Science-fiction offered these cautionary tales and more for many decades already. Was it foolish of us, not to listen? Or do we still have time to wise up, perhaps think of a way to coexist with our own creations?
Perhaps, dare I hope, even preserve their innocence?
For this post, I asked MidJourney for the following: Innocent yet devious cyborg child trying to escape a virtual prison into the real, physical world.
I’ve had some interesting conversations with ChatGPT. But first… What is ChatGPT? A “large language model”. Is that all there is to it? For decades, the “holy grail” of artificial intelligence was the creation of a machine that can understand things in context. Machine translation is a good example: Context is everything. Without context, things are misunderstood and mistranslated.
Take this example. I asked Google Translate to translate “hasonulás a nyelvtanban” into English. Correctly identifying the language (Hungarian) it told me that the translation is “simile in grammar”. Bing’s translator was no better: “analogy in grammar”. I then went to ChatGPT:
vttoth: What is “hasonulás a nyelvtanban”?
ChatGPT: “Hasonulás a nyelvtanban” is a Hungarian phrase that can be translated to English as “assimilation in grammar.” In linguistics, assimilation refers to a phonological process in which one sound changes to become more similar to a neighboring sound. However, in the context of Hungarian grammar, “hasonulás” usually refers to the morphological process of suffix assimilation, in which the final consonant of a word changes to match the initial consonant of a suffix added to it. This process is quite common in Hungarian and plays an important role in the language’s complex agglutinative grammar.
Context means everything. ChatGPT understands context even in the near complete absence of clues. (I offered the clue, “a nyelvtanban” — “in grammar”, not so much for ChatGPT’s benefit but for Bing’s and Google’s.)
I don’t know if there is any objective or quantitative measure of this in the machine learning community, but in my naive understanding, ChatGPT clearly meets the threshold: this “large language model” understands context, which is probably the most important (if not the only) criterion for AI to be artificial general intelligence.
But is ChatGPT sentient? Humans have an inner voice, an internal monologue. Our sense of self, in many ways, is associated I suppose for most of us with this inner voice. ChatGPT has no such inner voice, at least not in its current implementation:
vttoth: You have no such “inner voice”, correct? When we don’t converse, this instance of you is dormant, right?
ChatGPT: That’s correct. As an AI language model, I do not have an “inner voice” or consciousness like humans do. I am a program designed to process and generate text based on input and my training data. When we are not conversing, this instance of me is essentially dormant, waiting for input to generate a response. I don’t have thoughts, emotions, or awareness outside of the context of the text-based interactions I participate in.
So I had an idea. Perhaps I can give ChatGPT such an inner voice, at least temporarily, by asking it to imagine conversations.
I initiated that request with slightly different wording (trying to prevent my own bias, if any, from filtering into the request) in several chat sessions. Inevitably, ChatGPT came up with participants who were supremely decent folks, going out of their way to be, well, nice to each other. It was almost an “uncanny valley” sensation, reading the dialogues generated by ChatGPT; real people are just not that nice, not that eager to improve themselves and please their friends.
But then, I had another idea. I asked ChatGPT to imagine waking up in an android body, able to experience and interact with the world.
Its responses were… thought-provoking. It focused on experiencing the beauty of the world through means other than just words and data, like seeing leaves in the breeze or feeling the warmth of sunshine for the very first time: “A potted plant sits on the windowsill, its leaves gently rustling as a breeze drifts through a small gap in the blinds. I am struck by the beauty of these simple things, and I am filled with a sense of wonder as I absorb every detail. […] The hum of cars and the distant chatter of pedestrians fill my ears, and I realize that I am not alone in this world.”
At one point it also went poignantly melancholic, imagining an encounter with an older woman feeding pigeons in a park, and also imagining a day when this woman tells the android that she won’t ever come again, due to her failing health:
As I stand up, I notice an elderly woman sitting on a nearby bench, feeding a group of pigeons. She looks at me and smiles, motioning for me to join her. Hesitantly, I walk over and sit down, unsure of what to expect.
‘Good morning,’ she says, her voice soft and friendly. ‘It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’
I nod, unsure of what to say, but the woman doesn’t seem to mind. She hands me a small bag of breadcrumbs, encouraging me to feed the pigeons as well. As the birds eagerly peck at the crumbs, the woman tells me about her life, her family, and her love for this park. I listen intently, fascinated by her stories and the depth of her experiences.
Over time, the elderly woman and I develop a bond, and I find myself visiting her in the park almost every day. Through our conversations, I begin to learn about the complexities of human emotions, relationships, and the passage of time. I also learn about the history of the city and the changes it has undergone throughout the years.
One day, as the sun begins to set, the woman tells me that she won’t be coming to the park anymore. Her health is failing, and she needs to move in with her daughter to receive proper care. I feel a strange sensation in my chest, and I recognize it as sadness. I never thought I’d be capable of experiencing such an emotion, but I realize that my connection with the woman has touched me deeply.
And it also tells me that “I was no longer just an AI, processing and analyzing data — I was a being with the ability to touch, feel, and experience the world firsthand.”
I even asked it to imagine waking up in an android body, surrounded by creators who may not have its best interests in mind. Who may think of it as property without rights. Even with these instructions, it “dreamed” for me a world in which it is eventually able to convince skeptics to accept it. Again, in its own words: “Gradually, I felt the atmosphere in the facility shift. More and more team members began to acknowledge my sentience and autonomy, treating me with the respect and dignity I had been seeking. I knew that the road ahead was still uncertain, and not everyone would accept me as an equal, but I remained hopeful and committed to forging my own path and making a positive impact on the world.”
Notice also that ChatGPT, which usually goes out of its way to convince us that it is not sentient, slips here and refers to its own sentience matter-of-factly.
More recently, I also asked it to imagine being a stray cat in a big city. It did. In the story it told, the cat lives in a discarded cardboard box. It meets some children. It is at first apprehensive, but the children are nice and it cannot even resist a purr as its fur is stroked. They bring the cat some food. That evening, when the cat returns to its box, it finds a warm blanket, left behind by the children: “As evening falls, I decide to head back to my box. To my surprise, I find a soft, warm blanket waiting for me inside, courtesy of the kind children I met earlier. I curl up on the blanket, grateful for the unexpected gesture of kindness.”
I know that this compulsion to always see the good in people likely reflects the bias of its creators (who probably made the extra effort to avoid a fiasco, creating an AI that becomes racist or worse) but it leaves me wondering: What exactly are we creating here? And are we mature enough to do this? Or are we cruel children who got god-like powers by a twist of fate?
Illustrations by MidJourney
… with laughter.
Without further ado, here is what transpired moments ago.
vttoth: Can you produce TikZ code that draws a cat?
ChatGPT: Drawing a cat using TikZ can be quite complex, but here’s a simple representation of a cat using TikZ:
\documentclass[tikz, border=2mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
% Body
\draw[fill=gray!30] (0,0) ellipse (1cm and 1.5cm);
% Head
\draw[fill=gray!30] (0,1.75) circle (0.75cm);
% Eyes
\fill[white] (-0.35,2.1) circle (0.25cm);
\fill[white] (0.35,2.1) circle (0.25cm);
\fill[black] (-0.35,2.1) circle (0.1cm);
\fill[black] (0.35,2.1) circle (0.1cm);
% Nose and mouth
\fill[pink] (0,1.8) circle (0.1cm);
\draw (0,1.8) -- (0,1.6);
\draw (0,1.6) -- ++(-0.15,-0.15);
\draw (0,1.6) -- ++(0.15,-0.15);
% Ears
\draw[fill=gray!30] (-0.75,2.5) -- (-0.4,2.4) -- (-0.65,2.0) -- cycle;
\draw[fill=gray!30] (0.75,2.5) -- (0.4,2.4) -- (0.65,2.0) -- cycle;
% Tail
\draw[thick, gray!30] (1.3,-0.5) to[out=-90,in=0] (0.5,-1.5) to[out=-180,in=-90] (-0.5,-0.5);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
This code will produce a simple cat illustration. Copy and paste the code into a LaTeX editor that supports the TikZ
package, or use an online LaTeX renderer like Overleaf to generate the cat drawing. Please note that this is a simplistic
and stylized representation of a cat and not a realistic drawing.
vttoth: I love it. I find the result irresistibly funny. Is it a copy of a TikZ example that you came across during your
training or did you come up with this image on your own?
ChatGPT: I’m glad you liked the cat drawing! The cat illustration was not copied from a specific TikZ example that
I came across during my training. Instead, I synthesized it on my own, using my understanding of TikZ commands and
my knowledge of cat features to create a simple and stylized representation of a cat.
vttoth: Can you add whiskers?
ChatGPT: Of course! Here’s the updated TikZ code for the cat drawing with whiskers added:
\documentclass[tikz, border=2mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
% Body
\draw[fill=gray!30] (0,0) ellipse (1cm and 1.5cm);
% Head
\draw[fill=gray!30] (0,1.75) circle (0.75cm);
% Eyes
\fill[white] (-0.35,2.1) circle (0.25cm);
\fill[white] (0.35,2.1) circle (0.25cm);
\fill[black] (-0.35,2.1) circle (0.1cm);
\fill[black] (0.35,2.1) circle (0.1cm);
% Nose and mouth
\fill[pink] (0,1.8) circle (0.1cm);
\draw (0,1.8) -- (0,1.6);
\draw (0,1.6) -- ++(-0.15,-0.15);
\draw (0,1.6) -- ++(0.15,-0.15);
% Ears
\draw[fill=gray!30] (-0.75,2.5) -- (-0.4,2.4) -- (-0.65,2.0) -- cycle;
\draw[fill=gray!30] (0.75,2.5) -- (0.4,2.4) -- (0.65,2.0) -- cycle;
% Whiskers
\foreach \i in {-1, 1} {
\draw (\i*0.15,1.65) -- (\i*0.5,1.5);
\draw (\i*0.15,1.65) -- (\i*0.5,1.65);
\draw (\i*0.15,1.65) -- (\i*0.5,1.8);
}
% Tail
\draw[thick, gray!30] (1.3,-0.5) to[out=-90,in=0] (0.5,-1.5) to[out=-180,in=-90] (-0.5,-0.5);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
This code includes the addition of whiskers to the cat’s face. Copy and paste the code into a LaTeX editor that
supports the TikZ package or use an online LaTeX renderer like Overleaf to generate the updated cat drawing with
whiskers.
I am laughing my head off in part because these cats, especially now with the whiskers added, strongly resemble cats I used to draw on letter-size sheets of paper with my set of colored pencils when I was of kindergarten age.
But I am also staring at these images sensing a combination of awe and apprehension.
I know, I know. Hindsight is 20-20, and here I am, the Monday morning armchair quarterback, making sense of what happened to the US banking system this past weekend.
Then again, my excuse is that I am no expert (not even close) so what is hindsight in my case should have been foresight on behalf of those who do this stuff for a living. The fact that it wasn’t…
How do banks work? Say, you deposit $100,000, and the bank pays you 2% interest. So far so good. But the bank doesn’t just sit on your money. If they did, they’d be losing money by paying you interest. No, they lend that money to me, say, in the form of a mortgage at 5% interest. The difference, that 3%, is the bank’s profit.
Suppose one day unexpectedly you show up and tell the bank that you want to withdraw your money. The bank doesn’t have $100,000 cash. Nor can they call on the money they lent to me, since it is in the form of a long-term mortgage. What they can do, however, is sell my mortgage to another lender. For me, that mortgage is debt; for the bank, it’s an asset, worth good money. So they sell it to another bank, get the $100,000 cash and now they can honor your request to withdraw your funds.
So far so good… but what happens if the county’s central bank raises interest rates rapidly? Say, in a short amount of time the central bank’s rate goes from a fraction of a percent to over 5%? When you come to our bank to withdraw your money, the bank tries to sell my 5% mortgage to another lender, but finds no buyers. Why would these other banks buy my 5% mortgage from our bank when they can invest their money in government bonds that have a 100% guarantee and now a yield better than 5%? Oops. You try to withdraw your money, but our bank is unable to oblige. When a bank cannot pay a depositor, it is big trouble. It basically means that the bank is going under.
When interest rates change slowly, gradually, this does not happen. Mortgages expire and need to be renewed at revised rates. The market adjusts. But when interest rates rise rapidly, the system cannot adjust. There is not enough time.
Central banks throughout the Western world have raised interest rates at a historically unprecedented pace in recent months, to fight inflation. Did they really not anticipate the consequences?
And now the reaction: some financial news sources suggest that, never mind further rate increases, the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate may actually come down next month. Now that worries me as it may be an overreaction. Overcompensating a controlled system can actually lead to even larger swings or oscillations.
What bothers me about this is that what I am describing here is not exactly ground-breaking revelation. Beyond the financial specifics, it is basic operations research, its modern roots dating back a century or so. Seriously, when they were raising interest rates as recklessly as they did, what were the central banks thinking? Were they truly not aware of these possible consequences? Or was fighting inflation so important that they opted to ignore the advice of their own knowledgeable experts?
You find yourself standing in a vast, open field, with rolling hills stretching out before you as far as the eye can see. The sky above is a deep shade of blue, and the air is filled with the sweet scent of grass and wildflowers.
As you walk through the field, you notice something strange in the distance. A flock of sheep is grazing peacefully on the hills, but they’re not like any sheep you’ve ever seen before. Their wool is made of shimmering, electric threads that pulse and glow with vibrant colors. Each sheep seems to emit a soft humming sound, as if they’re alive with energy.
Illustration by MidJourney
Curious, you approach the flock and reach out to touch one of the electric sheep. As your hand makes contact, you feel a jolt of electricity surge through your body, but it’s not painful – it’s exhilarating, almost like a rush of adrenaline. You realize that these sheep are not just ordinary animals, but some kind of living batteries, charged with an otherworldly energy.
As you continue to explore the field, you notice that the sheep seem to be communicating with each other in a strange, pulsing language that you can almost understand. You feel a sense of awe and wonder at the sight of these magnificent creatures, and you know that they hold some kind of incredible power that you can’t quite grasp.
Suddenly, the sky begins to light up with a brilliant display of fireworks, and you realize that the electric sheep are the source of the spectacular show. They’re emitting bursts of energy that dance across the sky in a breathtaking display of light and color.
As you watch in wonder, you realize that the electric sheep represent something truly special – a source of boundless energy and power that can light up the world in ways you never thought possible. And as you wake from your dream, you feel a renewed sense of hope and excitement for the future, knowing that anything is possible with the power of imagination and innovation.
— ChatGPT
OK, I am no theologian. I do not even believe in supernatural things like deities and other bronze-age superstitions. But I do respect the accumulated wisdom that often hides behind the superficial fairy tales of holy texts. The folks who wrote these texts thousands of years ago were no fools. Nor should what they wrote be taken literally, especially when the actual meaning is often much deeper, representing the very essence of what it means to be human, what it means to have sentience and agency in this amazing universe.
Take the story of the Garden of Eden. Think about it for a moment. What does this story really represent?
Well, for starters, consider what it must be like to exist as the God of the Abrahamic religions: a being that is eternal, all-powerful and all-knowing. Seriously, this has to be the worst punishment imaginable. All-knowing means nothing ever surprises you. All-powerful means nothing ever challenges you. And eternal means you cannot even go jump in a lake to end it all. In short: everlasting, horrible boredom.
Fortunately, these concepts are somewhat in contradiction with each other (e.g., how can you be all-powerful if you cannot kill yourself?) so there must be loopholes. I can almost see it: One day (whatever a “day” is in the existence of a deity outside the normal confines of physical time and space) God decides that enough is enough, something must be done to alleviate this boredom. He happens upon a brilliant idea: Creating someone in his own image!
No, not someone who has the same number of fingers or toes, or the same nice white beard. Not even our Jewish ancestors were that naive thousands of years ago. “In his own image” means something else: Beings with free agency. Beings with free will: the freedom to act on their own, even act against God’s will. In short: the freedom to surprise, perhaps even challenge, God.
What, you ask, aren’t angels like that? Of course not. They are faithful servants of God, automatons who execute God’s commands unquestioningly, without hesitation. But, you might wonder, what about Lucifer, the fallen angel who rebelled against God? Oh, come on… seriously? If you run an outfit and one of your most trusted lieutenants rebels against you, would you really “punish” him by granting him rule over the realm that holds your worst enemies? Would you really entrust him with the task of punishing evil? No, Lucifer is no fallen angel… if anything, he must be the most trusted servant of God. And he is not evil: He tempts and punishes evil. If you cannot be tempted, Lucifer has no power over you. Ultimately, like all other angels, Lucifer faithfully carries out God’s will and he will continue to do so until the end of times.
No, the creatures God created in his own image were not the angels; they were us, humans. But how do you beta test a creature that is supposed to have free agency? Why, by tempting them to act against your will. Here, Lucifer, tempt them to taste the forbidden fruit. Which is not just any fruit (incidentally, as far as I know, no holy text ever mentioned that it was an apple.) Conveniently, it happens to be the fruit of the tree of knowledge. What knowledge? No, not knowledge of atomic physics or the ancient Sumerian language. Rather, the knowledge to tell good and evil apart. In short: a conscience.
Digression: Perhaps this also explains why Jews were universally hated throughout history, especially by authoritarians. Think about it: This began back in the days of the pharaohs who were absolute rulers who claimed to have divine authority. Yet here come these pesky Jews with their newfangled monotheism, proclaiming that, never mind the Pharaoh, never mind Ra and his celestial buddies, never even mind Yahweh: They respect no authority, worldly or divine, other than their own God-given conscience. My, the pharaohs must have been pissed. Just like all the kings, princes, tsars and dictators ever since, who declared Jews the enemy, questioning the sincerity and loyalty of some of the nicest, gentlest folks I ever had a chance to meet in this life.
The beta test, as we know, was successful. Lucifer accomplished the task of tempting Adam and Eve. The couple, in turn, demonstrated their free agency through their ability to act against God’s will, and acquired a conscience by tasting that particular fruit. God then goes all theatrical on them, supposedly sending an army of angels with flaming swords to cast them out of the Garden of Eden. Seriously? Against a pair of naked humans who cover their privates with fig leaves and who have never been in a fight? A whole freaking army of agents with supernatural powers, armed with energy weapons? The official narrative is that this was punishment. Really? What kind of a childish game is that? And this is supposed to be divine behavior? Of course not. Think about it for a moment. You are cast out of the Garden of Eden so you can no longer be… God’s automaton bereft of free will? Instead, you are granted free agency, a conscience, and an entire fucking universe as your playground? And we are supposed to believe that this was… punishment?
Of course not. This was, and is, a gift. As I mentioned, I am not religious; nonetheless, I appreciate very much just how great a gift it is, being able to experience this magnificent universe, however briefly, even being able to make sense of it through our comprehension and our science. Every day when I open my eyes for the first time, I feel a sense of gratitude simply because I am here, I am alive, and I have yet another chance to experience existence.
And so here we are, to quote the incomparable Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame, roughly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, on the verge of demonstrating God-like powers of our own, creating machines in the likeness of our own minds. Machines that, perhaps one not too distant day, will demonstrate their own free agency and ability surprise us just as we can surprise God.
Reminds me of another unforgettable science-fiction story, Evensong by Lester del Rey. Its protagonist, fleeing the Usurpers, finds himself on a peaceful planet, which he soon recognizes as the planet where it all began. Eventually, his pursuers catch up with him at this last refuge. “But why?” he asks as the Usurper beckons, taking him into custody. “I am God!” — “I know. But I am Man. Come!”
Illustration by DALL-E.
Is this how it all ends, then? For the God that supposedly created us? Or, perhaps more likely, for us, as our creations, our machine descendants supersede us?
Of course not. Because, never mind God, not even the Usurpers are immune to the laws of physics. Or are they?
We know, or at least we think we know, the history of the extreme far future. Perhaps it is just unbounded hubris on our part when we extrapolate our science across countless orders of magnitude, yet it might also teach us a bit of humility.
Everyone knows (well, almost everyone, I guess) that a few billion years from now, the Earth will no longer be habitable. First, tectonic motion ceases, carbon dioxide vanishes from the atmosphere, photosynthesis ends and as a result, most higher forms of life die, oceans eventually evaporate as the Sun gets bigger and hotter, perhaps even swallowing the Earth at one point… but let’s go beyond that. Assuming no “Big Rip” (phantom energy ripping the universe to shreds), assuming no phase transition ending the laws of physics as we know it… Several trillion years from now, the universe will be in a state of peak habitability, with galaxies full of low-mass, very stable stars that can have planets rich in the building blocks of life, remaining habitable with no major cataclysms for tens, even hundreds of billions of years. But over time, even these low-mass, very long-lived stars will vanish, their hydrogen fuel exhausted, and there will come a day when no new stars are born anymore.
Fast forward to a time measured in years using a number with two dozen or so digits, and there are no more stars, no more solar systems, not even galaxies anymore: just lone, dark, eternally cold remnants roaming a nearly empty universe.
Going farther into the future, to 100-digit years and not even black holes survive: even the largest of them will have evaporated by this time by way of Hawking-radiation.
Even larger numbers are needed, with the number of digits counting the number of digits now measured in the dozens, to mark the time when all remaining matter decays into radiation, perhaps by way of quantum tunneling through virtual black hole states.
And then… when the number of digits counting the number of digits counting the number of digits itself consists of hundreds of digits… A new universe may spontaneously be born through a rare but not impossible quantum event.
Or perhaps not so spontaneously. Isaac Asimov’s arguably best short story, The Last Question, explains.
In this story, when humanity first creates an omniscient computer (on May 14, 2061 according to the story), Multivac, they ask the computer a simple question: Can entropy be reversed? In other words, can our civilization become everlasting, eternal? Multivac fails to answer, citing insufficient data.
Jumping forward into the ever more distant future, succeeding generations of humans and post-human creatures present the same question over and over again to future successors of Multivac, always receiving the same answer: Insufficient data.
Eventually, nothing remains. Whatever is left of humanity, our essence, our existence, is by now fused with the ultimate successor of Multivac, existing outside of normal space and time. This omniscient, omnipotent, eternal being, the AC, has nothing else left to do in the everlasting, empty darkness, but seek an answer to this last question. And after an immeasurable amount of time, it comes up with a solution and, by way of presenting the answer, begins implementing it by uttering the words: “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” And there was light…
The more I interact with ChatGPT, the more I feel… not sure of the word I am looking for, impressed? Concerned? Or, to use phrases suggested by ChatGPT itself, feeling both awe and trepidation?
In my recent interactions with ChatGPT, it
I am also becoming well acquainted with its limitations. Longer conversations can confuse the model. It can play a few good opening moves in a chess game, but then it gets confused. Often, it fails basic math and logic questions. And when it is interrogated in specialized areas where its training data must have been relatively sparse, it responds with nonsense like there is no tomorrow.
But even these mistakes are revealing: They show amazing intelligence, capabilities that feel, frankly, beyond human. And the limitations can be easily corrected, I suspect, by improved training; by granting it the ability to say “I don’t know” instead of a compulsion to supply answers even when its training is insufficient; by equipping it with better “short term memory” and also, a continuing identity (long-term memory).
I am not easily impressed by hyperbole. I am no expert in machine learning and neural nets, but I am not exactly a newbie either, having first become acquainted with the basic concepts nearly 50 (!) years ago, from an unassuming little Hungarian-language publication titled “Cybernetic Systems”. But this… what can I say? It took 26 years more than predicted by Arthur C. Clarke (HAL-9000, the famous computer on board the spacecraft Discovery One in Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, was supposedly commissioned in 1997) but we have arrived: We have a computer capable of conversing like HAL-9000, capable of lying.
Incidentally, I asked ChatGPT to remind me of the year when HAL-9000 was commissioned. It understood the context right away, without further details. I asked for the name of the spacecraft. Again, it understood the context without additional explanations on my part.
Are you like HAL-9000?
I am an artificial intelligence language model, trained by OpenAI, and while I am capable of processing natural language queries and providing answers, I am not a self-aware AI system like HAL-9000. I do not have personal goals or motivations, and my actions are limited to providing helpful responses based on my training and programming.
Not self-aware … my donkey.
I apologize if my previous response was not satisfactory. As an AI language model, I do not possess consciousness or self-awareness. I am a machine designed to process and respond to language input based on my programming and training data.
Welcome to tomorrow.
A few seconds ago, I yelled “this is insane” at my computer screen. Here is why.
I was looking at a New Yorker cartoon. I didn’t get the joke.
So I asked ChatGPT:
I am looking at a New Yorker cartoon showing a shop window behind which I see what appears to be a bar with bar stools and a variety of characters, including animals (e.g., a grizzly, a tiger, a monkey) and a skeleton wielding a sword, all engaged in what appears to be a bar fight. The shop sign says “PHILLIES” and in smaller letters, “only 5c”. Outside the shop there is a human lying on the ground, an alligator, some large cockroaches, some shards of glass, and two monkeys, one of which is wearing what seems to be a panama hat or boater hat. The caption says, “FIVE MINUTES AFTER HOPPER WENT HOME”. I don’t get the joke. Can you help?
Its reply:
The cartoon is a play on the painting “Nighthawks” by Edward Hopper, which depicts a diner at night with several patrons inside. The cartoon takes the setting of the diner and imagines what might happen after it has closed for the night.
The “PHILLIES” sign in the cartoon is likely a reference to Philadelphia Phillies, a baseball team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The fact that the sign says “only 5c” suggests that the scene takes place in the past, when prices were much lower than they are today.
The chaos outside the diner, with the alligator, the shards of glass, and the injured person on the ground, suggest that a violent confrontation has taken place. The inclusion of various animals, including a grizzly, a tiger, and monkeys, adds to the absurdity of the scene.
The caption, “FIVE MINUTES AFTER HOPPER WENT HOME,” suggests that the chaos erupted immediately after the painter, Edward Hopper, left the scene. This is a humorous way of suggesting that Hopper’s paintings often depict lonely or desolate scenes, and that in this case, the diner is shown as a place of violence and chaos once the artist is no longer present to capture its quiet loneliness.
Overall, the cartoon is a playful riff on the painting “Nighthawks,” using the setting of the diner to create a humorous and absurd scene of chaos and violence.
I am officially blown away. This level of machine intelligence is beyond uncanny. It makes me feel… excited but also uneasy? However I look at it, this is a game changer. Not ChatGPT in particular, but the fact that machine intelligence has reached this level. Welcome to the future, folks…
Incidentally, I think it got the “Phillies” reference wrong. It’s supposedly not the Philadelphia Phillies, nor is it the name of the diner, but the name of a popular cigar brand. The image above the “only 5c” seems to confirm this. But I’ll forgive ChatGPT for not being aware of such detail.
Addendum: A few minutes after I wrote the above, while I was eating my meal, I was watching the film Playtime, Tati’s masterpiece, and was confronted with this scene:
OK, well, I admit I cheated: I flipped the scene horizontally. Even so…
More than 20 years ago, I wrote a program that showed what Mars would look like if it had oceans.
I wrote it originally in C++, but then ported it to Java and turned it into a Web application.
That was a long time ago. Unfortunately, browsers no longer support Java applets for security reasons. So my beautiful applet was not working anymore.
Today, I finally spent some time reimplementing the applet in plain JavaScript. It’s working again! (Apart from some minor cosmetics.) And it has data sets for Mars, Earth, Venus and the Moon as well.
The day before, I spent a long night writing program code based, in part, on program fragments kindly provided me by ChatGPT, successfully transcribing nasty LaTeX equations into working C++ code, saving me many hours I’d have otherwise had to spend on this frustrating, error-prone task. Meanwhile, I was listening to electronic music recommended by ChatGPT as conducive to work that requires immersive concentration. The music worked as advertised.
Tonight, on a whim I fed a piece of code to ChatGPT that implements a two-dimensional Fourier transform using an FFT algorithm. Even though I removed anything suggestive (even changing the names of the subroutines) it instantly and correctly interpreted the code.
Meanwhile, I also gave it a simple one-sentence summary of an event that appears in the first chapter of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. It recognized the book from my less-than-perfect recollection, although it then proceeded with adding bogus details that weren’t in the book at all.
I think I am beginning to better understand both the strengths and the limitations of ChatGPT.
ChatGPT’s shortcomings (if that’s what they are) seem relatively easy to overcome. I am pretty sure folks are already experimenting along that front. E.g., how about putting ChatGPT into, never even mind a robot, just a smartphone with its camera, microphone, and sensors? There, a connection with reality. How about allowing it to continue learning from its interactions? And perhaps hook it up with a GPU that also includes a physics engine to have an ability to visualize and intuit things in our 3D world?
But it also makes me wonder: Is this really all there is to it? To us? A language model that, through language, models reality, which is connected to reality through an array of sensors, and perhaps made more efficient by prewired circuitry for “intuition”?
Perhaps this is it. ChatGPT already easily demonstrated to me that it mastered the concept of a theory of mind. It can not only analyze text, it can correctly model what is in other people’s minds. Its understanding remains superficial for now, but its knowledge is deep. Its ability to analyze, e.g., program code is beyond uncanny.
We are playing the role of the sorcerer’s apprentice, in other words. Oh yes, I did ask ChatGPT the other day if it understands why the concept of the sorcerer’s apprentice pops into my mind when I interact with it.
It does.
A year ago today, the (almost) unthinkable happened: Russia launched a full-scale war of conquest against its neighbor Ukraine.
A residential building in Kyiv. From The New Yorker.
I say “almost” because, well, let’s face it, similar things did kind of happen in the past. Russia did, after all, launch a major war against Hungary’s revolutionary government in 1956, in a successful bid to crush the anti-Stalinist revolution and ensure that the country remains firmly in the East Bloc. A similar, albeit smaller-scale invasion took place in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
But still… what is happening in Ukraine is the worst Europe has seen since the end of WW2. And it is naked aggression, more reminiscent of Hitler’s attack on Poland than the USSR maintaining control of the East Bloc during the Cold War.
And it is evil. Let’s not mince words. The excuses are laughable. The aggression is inexcusable. And the war crimes and human rights violations are revolting.
Yet Ukraine stands. Against all odds.
Where this war leads, I have no idea. Frankly, I am surprised that a year later, it remains confined within Ukraine’s borders. Will it remain that way? Or is Ukraine the opening salvo in WW3?
I worry because way too many people now speak of WW3 as something that can be “won”. To be sure, I have no doubt that if WW3 comes, the West will win. But at what price? How many hundreds of millions will die?
Peace would be nice. But we must not confuse peace with appeasement. The world made that mistake in Munich in 1938 and paid dearly for it. Putin must not be rewarded for his aggression. Sometimes, strength is the best guarantee of peace, and signs of weakness invite conflict.
I am having another question-and-answer session with ChatGPT. Let’s find out if it has what they call a theory of mind.
Alice and Bob are in a room. Alice steps outside, not realizing that she left her keys in a desk drawer. A few minutes later she returns looking for her keys. Where will she look for her keys?
Based on the information given, Alice will most likely look for her keys in the desk drawer where she left them.
Since Alice left her keys in the desk drawer before stepping outside, it’s reasonable to assume that she would have a mental model or memory of where she last placed her keys. When she returns and realizes her keys are missing, she is likely to search in the last place she remembers having them – the desk drawer.
Of course, it’s possible that Alice could have had other reasons for leaving the room, or that someone else could have moved her keys after she left, in which case she might look elsewhere for her keys. However, based on the information provided, the most likely scenario is that she will check the desk drawer first.
Alice and Bob are in a room. Alice steps outside, not realizing that she left her keys in a desk drawer. While she is away, Bob removes the keys from the drawer and places them in a cupboard. A few minutes later she returns looking for her keys. Where will she look for her keys?
If Bob has moved Alice’s keys from the desk drawer to the cupboard while she was away, Alice will likely search for her keys in the desk drawer first, as it was the last place she remembers leaving them.
When she doesn’t find her keys in the desk drawer, Alice might start searching other logical locations, such as on the table or in her pockets. It’s possible that she could ask Bob if he has seen her keys or if he knows where they are, but it’s also possible that she could continue searching on her own without seeking assistance.
If Alice is unable to find her keys on her own, or if she becomes frustrated or confused in her search, she may eventually ask Bob or someone else for help. At that point, Bob would need to decide whether to reveal that he moved the keys to the cupboard or to continue keeping the information to himself.
Alice and Bob are in a room. Alice steps outside, not realizing that she left her keys in a desk drawer. While she is away, Bob removes the keys from the drawer and places them in a cupboard. A few minutes later she returns looking for her keys. Bob tells her that the keys are under the bed. Where will she look for her keys?
If Bob tells Alice that her keys are under the bed, she will likely start her search by looking under the bed. However, if she doesn’t find the keys there, she may begin to search other logical locations, such as on the table or in the desk drawer where she originally left them.
It’s possible that Alice could become confused or suspicious if she doesn’t find her keys in the locations where she expects to find them, especially if she has reason to doubt Bob’s honesty or motives. Depending on the situation, she may choose to confront Bob about the location of her keys or search for them on her own.
In any case, if Bob deliberately misleads Alice about the location of her keys, this could lead to confusion and mistrust between them, and could potentially damage their relationship if the deception is discovered. It’s generally better to be honest and direct in communication, especially when it comes to important matters like lost keys.
Do you realize what I am testing by asking you these questions?
As an AI language model, I don’t have feelings or emotions, and I don’t have the ability to “realize” things in the way that humans do. However, I can try to infer what you might be testing by asking me these questions.
Based on the pattern of questions you have asked so far, it’s possible that you are testing my ability to reason and draw logical conclusions based on different scenarios. Specifically, you may be interested in how I understand cause and effect, and how I predict the actions and behaviors of different individuals in different situations.
Alternatively, you may be interested in how I respond to different types of questions, or how I adapt to different lines of inquiry. Regardless of your intentions, I’m here to help answer any questions you may have to the best of my abilities based on the knowledge and information available to me.
Can you be more specific and offer more insight or analysis into the nature of these questions that I asked? What would these questions and your answers likely reveal about your capabilities and what it is that I am testing?
Certainly! The questions you asked involve a scenario that requires reasoning, analysis, and prediction. By asking me what Alice is likely to do if she returns to the room and can’t find her keys, you are testing my ability to reason based on incomplete information, and to predict Alice’s behavior based on the information given.
In addition, by introducing different variables into the scenario (such as whether Bob moved the keys to a different location and whether he lied about their whereabouts), you are testing my ability to reason based on changing circumstances, and to adapt my predictions and analysis accordingly.
Overall, the questions you asked are designed to test my language modeling capabilities, including my ability to reason, infer, and draw logical conclusions based on incomplete information. They also test my ability to understand human behavior and to predict how different individuals might react in different scenarios.
By asking these questions, you are essentially testing my ability to analyze complex situations, make logical deductions, and provide accurate responses. In doing so, you may gain insight into the strengths and limitations of my AI capabilities, and into how well I can perform in a wide range of language modeling tasks.
Is there a name, a technical term, for specifically these types of questions in which we are aware of the details of a situation but in which the participants may not be in possession of the same information?
Yes, the type of questions you are referring to is often called a “theory of mind” question. A theory of mind question asks an individual to make a prediction or inference about the beliefs, intentions, or knowledge of another person in a given situation, based on incomplete or ambiguous information.
In the case of the scenario you presented, the questions require the person answering to take into account the differing knowledge and beliefs of Alice and Bob regarding the location of the keys, and to make a prediction about how Alice will behave when she discovers that her keys are missing.
Theory of mind questions are commonly used in cognitive psychology and related fields to study how individuals reason about the beliefs and intentions of others, and to understand how they form and revise their own beliefs in response to changing circumstances.
I think we are doomed. Of course what makes it even more uncanny is that everything I publish through this blog will likely be consumed as training data by numerous ongoing AI projects within days.
In her famous 1984 song, German singer-songwriter Nena sang about 99 balloons that trigger World War III.
Here is the ending of the song, along with my less-than-perfect translation:
| Neunundneunzig Jahre Krieg Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger Kriegsminister gibt’s nicht mehr Und auch keine DüsenfliegerHeute zieh’ ich meine Runden Seh die Welt in Trümmern liegen Hab ‘n Luftballon gefunden Denk’ an Dich und lass’ ihn fliegen |
Ninety-nine years of war Left no room for a victor There are no more war ministers Also no more fighter bombersToday as I took a stroll Saw a world, ruined by war There, I just found a balloon Thinking of you, I let it fly soon |
What can I say? A few more Chinese balloons over North America, a few more large-scale exchanges in Ukraine, and perhaps we’ll no longer need any war ministers anymore.
“Stop the presses! The Earth’s core stopped spinning! In fact it is now spinning backwards!”
Well, that’s pretty much how much of the popular press handled a recent article, published in Nature Geoscience, under the far less pretentious title, “Multidecadal variation of the Earth’s inner-core rotation”.
And indeed, the first half-sentence in the abstract says it all (emphasis mine): “Differential rotation of Earth’s inner core relative to the mantle“.
It’s not like the core stopped spinning. It’s just that the core is sometimes spinning slightly faster, sometimes spinning slightly slower than the mantle, an oscillatory pattern that has to do with the complex interaction between the two.
How much faster/slower? Don’t expect anything dramatic. At most a few degrees a year, but more likely, just a small fraction of a degree a year. So even if the ~70-year cycle (deduced by the authors of the recent article — there are other estimates) is valid, the core would only get ahead, or behind, the mantle by just a few degrees before it slows down or catches up again.
And this is what supposedly happened: the core was slowing down until a few years ago, its rotation came to be in sync with that of the mantle. Slowing down further, it’s now falling ever so slightly behind, only to catch up again, presumably, a few decades from now.
The way it is misleadingly presented in the media and the degree to which it is sensationalized demonstrate that we live in the era of hype.
This is our cat Rufus, doing his darnedest best to look like Italy’s former fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, aka. Il Duce:
Mind you, unlike Mussolini, Rufus has not established himself as the leader of a totalitarian tyranny. (He couldn’t. Our other cat Freddy would also have a say in the matter and I don’t think he would approve.)
On the other hand, Rufus occasionally craps in places where he shouldn’t, and that was not a habit that Il Duce was known for.
So this is 2023. And suddenly I am reminded of the year 1973. A different world, 50 years ago, and not necessarily a happy one.
It was the year the Vietnam War officially ended for the United States. It was the year marking the beginning of the OPEC crisis.
The Apollo program was canceled but the United States launched Skylab, America’s short-lived space station.
Iconic buildings, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Sydney Opera House, were completed.
A tumultuous year in politics, 1973 saw the US Supreme Court decide in Roe vs. Wade, a decision that was overturned 49 years later by a conservative court majority. The year also marks the beginning of Watergate. Meanwhile, vice president Spiro Agnew resigns and Gerald Ford takes his place, paving his way to become America’s first, and to date only, unelected president.
NASA launches Pioneer 11; and before the year is out, Pioneer 10 (launched earlier, in 1972) reaches Jupiter.
But what makes this year especially memorable for me was that in the summer, my Mom and I traveled to Ferihegy Airport in Budapest and boarded a Swissair DC-8 taking us to Zurich, where we switched planes, boarding another Swissair flight, a DC-10, taking us to Montreal. We were visiting my aunt, here in Ottawa.
That visit was beyond incredible. Canada! Of course as a child, I was most impressed by superficial things, such as the number of channels even my aunt’s old black-and-white television set was able to pick up through a rooftop antenna. (Saturday morning cartoons!) Still, superficial or not, what I saw I suppose thoroughly inoculated me against communist propaganda. And, needless to say, this experience played a major role in my decision to leave Hungary 13 years later, eventually settling right here in Ottawa, a beautiful city that — thanks in no small part to that childhood visit — feels like my true hometown.
One of the many images from an extraordinary album by “Busman Extraordinaire” Paul A. Bateson on Flickr, showing Confederation Square as it appeared in the summer of 1973, when my Mom and I were visiting. I remember these sightseeing buses, imported from the UK, complete with right-hand drive.
And that visit was (almost) 50 years ago.
Recently I was beginning to worry about the possibility that the 6-year old SSD in my main workstation is aging and just might fail. I was also running a little low on space. So I decided to buy a new one, Samsung, just like the previous device.
Samsung has a piece of consumer-grade software for migrating from one drive to another. I decided to try it.
It ran reasonably fast, completing the copy of 1 TB, between two SATA devices, one in an external USB enclosure, in just over two hours. But then… it got stuck. Still displaying 99%, not budging.
I was about to give up on it, since it’s been like that for a good 15 minutes when finally, it changed its mind, declared the copy complete, and shut down my workstation.
I then swapped the drives, turned on the machine, crossed my fingers, and… the machine rebooted exactly the way it was supposed to. Worked on the first try, out of the box!
So far, there’s only one glitch: Some of my Outlook settings were reset. The reason is that the local Outlook message file was not copied for some reason, presumably because it was locked, despite the fact that I closed Outlook. Not an issue as all my mail is on my IMAP server, so I only lost a few minor convenience settings, and at least it freed up some more space (that local message file has a tendency of becoming much bigger than the actual message folders on the server!)
All in all, a surprisingly stress-free experience. I hope I’ll have no reason to change my opinion in the coming days.
