Anthony Chemero, distinguished research professor of philosophy and psychology at the University of Cincinnati
News — The emergence of artificial intelligence has caused differing reactions from tech leaders, politicians and the public. While some excitedly tout AI technology such as ChatGPT as an advantageous tool with the potential to transform society, others are alarmed that any tool with the word 鈥渋ntelligent鈥� in its name also has the potential to overtake humankind.聽
The University of Cincinnati鈥檚聽, a professor of philosophy and psychology in the UC College of Arts and Sciences, contends that the understanding of AI is muddled by linguistics: That while indeed intelligent, AI cannot be intelligent in the way that humans are, even though 鈥渋t can lie and BS like its maker.鈥�
According to our everyday use of the word, AI is definitely intelligent, but there are intelligent computers and have been for years, Chemero explains in a paper he co-authored in the journal聽听(蹿耻濒濒,听. To begin, the paper states that ChatGPT and other AI systems are large language models (LLM), trained on massive amounts of data mined from the internet, much of which shares the biases of the people who post the data.
鈥淟LMs generate impressive text, but often make things up whole cloth,鈥� he states. 鈥淭hey learn to produce grammatical sentences, but require much, much more training than humans get. They don鈥檛 actually know what the things they say mean,鈥� he says. 鈥淟LMs differ from human cognition because they are not embodied.鈥�
The people who made LLMs call it 鈥渉allucinating鈥� when they make things up; although Chemero says, 鈥渋t would be better to call it 鈥榖ullsh*tting,鈥欌�� because LLMs just make sentences by repeatedly adding the most statistically likely next word 鈥� and they don鈥檛 know or care whether what they say is true.
And with a little prodding, he says, one can get an AI tool to say 鈥渘asty things that are racist, sexist and otherwise biased.鈥澛�
The intent of Chemero鈥檚 paper is to stress that the LLMs are not intelligent in the way humans are intelligent because humans are embodied: Living beings who are always surrounded by other humans and material and cultural environments.
鈥淭his makes us care about our own survival and the world we live in,鈥� he says, noting that LLMs aren鈥檛 really in the world and don鈥檛 care about anything.聽聽
The main takeaway is that LLMs are not intelligent in the way that humans are because they 鈥渄on鈥檛 give a damn,鈥� Chemero says, adding 鈥淭hings matter to us. We are committed to our survival. We care about the world we live in鈥�.
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