You could have a conversation with Eliza, SmarterChild, Siri, or Alexa. I would say surely you don't consider Eliza to be closer to person than machine, but then it takes a deeply irrational person to have led to this conversation in the first place so maybe you do.
Not productive conversations. If you had ever made a serious attempt to use these technologies instead of trying to come up with excuses to ignore it, you would not even think of comparing a modern LLM coding agent to some gimmick like Alexa or ELIZA. Seriously, get real.
Not only have I used the technology, I've worked for a startup that serves its own models. When you work with the technology, it could not be more obvious that you are programming software, and that there is nothing even remotely person-like about LLMs. To the extent that people think so, it is sheer ignorance of the basic technicals, in exactly the same way that ELIZA fooled non-programmers in the 1960s. You'd think we'd have collectively learned something in the 60 years since but I suppose not.
I really don't care where you've worked, to seriously argue that LLMs aren't more capable of conversation than ELIZA, aren't capable of pair programming even, is gargantuan levels of cope.
I didn't make any claims about their utility. I said that they are not like people. They are machines through and through. Regular software programs. Programs that are, I suppose, a little bit too complex for the average human to understand, so now we have the Eliza effect applying to an entirely new generation.
"I had not realized ... exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people." -- Eliza's creator
I would doubt that they are just “regular software programs” as explainable ai (or other statistical tracing) has been lagging far behind.
If this is the case and the latest models can be explained through their weights and settings, please link it. I would like to see explainable ai up and coming.
