Language and Intelligence

Minds and Machines 31 (4):471-486 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper explores aspects of GPT-3 that have been discussed as harbingers of artificial general intelligence and, in particular, linguistic intelligence. After introducing key features of GPT-3 and assessing its performance in the light of the conversational standards set by Alan Turing in his seminal paper from 1950, the paper elucidates the difference between clever automation and genuine linguistic intelligence. A central theme of this discussion on genuine conversational intelligence is that members of a linguistic community never merely respond “algorithmically” to queries through a selective kind of pattern recognition, because they must also jointly attend and act with other speakers in order to count as genuinely intelligent and trustworthy. This presents a challenge for systems like GPT-3, because representing the world in a way that makes conversational common ground salient is an essentially collective task that we can only achieve jointly with other speakers. Thus, the main difficulty for any artificially intelligent model of conversation is to account for the communicational intentions and motivations of a speaker through joint attention. These joint motivations and intentions seem to be completely absent from the standard way in which systems like GPT-3 and other artificial intelligent systems work. This is not merely a theoretical issue. Since GPT-3 and future iterations of similar systems will likely be available for commercial use through application programming interfaces, caution is needed regarding the risks created by these systems, which pass for “intelligent” but have no genuine communicational intentions, and can thereby produce fake and unreliable linguistic exchanges.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Machine Ethics.Michael Anderson & Susan Leigh Anderson (eds.) - 2011 - Cambridge Univ. Press.
Intelligence, Artificial and Otherwise.Paul Dumouchel - 2019 - Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 24 (2):241-258.
Consciousness, intentionality, and intelligence: Some foundational issues for artificial intelligence.Murat Aydede & Guven Guzeldere - 2000 - Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 12 (3):263-277.
Ai: Its Nature and Future.Margaret A. Boden - 2016 - Oxford University Press UK.
Computational semantics: an introduction to artificial intelligence and natural language comprehension.Eugene Charniak & Yorick Wilks (eds.) - 1976 - New York: distributors for the U.S.A. and Canada, Elsevier/North Holland.
The role of language in intelligence.Daniel C. Dennett - 1994 - In Jean Khalfa (ed.), What is Intelligence? The Darwin College Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ethical Machines?Ariela Tubert - 2018 - Seattle University Law Review 41 (4).

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-08-09

Downloads
78 (#194,774)

6 months
9 (#144,939)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Carlos Montemayor
San Francisco State University

References found in this work

What is it like to be a bat?Thomas Nagel - 1974 - Philosophical Review 83 (October):435-50.
Minds, brains, and programs.John Searle - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3):417-57.
Facing up to the problem of consciousness.D. J. Chalmers - 1996 - Toward a Science of Consciousness:5-28.

View all 25 references / Add more references