Chapter 7 of 36 · ~1 min
Does It Understand?
A system that uses concepts correctly across thousands of situations, without ever having seen, touched, or wanted anything, forces the question: what do we mean by understanding? One view says fluent, appropriate use is understanding, or as much of it as we can measure. Another says the model has statistics about symbols and nothing more.
You do not need to settle this to build well, and this course does not ask you to take a side. You do need to notice the practical consequence: the model's competence is real but its grounding is different from yours. It can be right for reasons you would accept and wrong in ways you never would be.
Experiment
Live modelDefine a word that does not exist, then use it. Change the definition and watch the predictions follow it.
A florp is a small boat used on rivers. Yesterday I took my florp and ___
Runs against a live model through Chatterfly's server. Your text is sent to the model provider and not stored.
Big question
If you cannot tell the difference from the outside, does the difference matter, and when?