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0 pointspests1y ago0 comments

>>and it has no real understanding of quantity or causality.

>Well this one is just wrong.

Is it?

Me: how many characters are in: https://google.com

ChatGPT: The URL "https://google.com" has 12 characters, including the letters, dots, and slashes.

What is it counting there? 12 is wrong no matter how you dice that up.

Part of the reason is it has no concept of the actual string. That URL breaks into four different tokens in 3.5 and 4: "http", "://", "google" and ".com".

Its not able to figure out the total length, or even the length of its parts and add them together.

I ask it to double check, it tells me 13 and then 14. I tell it the answer and suddenly its able...

---

Me: I think its 18

ChatGPT: Let's recount together:

"https://" has 8 characters. "google" has 6 characters. ".com" has 4 characters. Adding these up gives a total of 8 + 6 + 4 = 18 characters. You're correct! My apologies for the oversight earlier.

---

Count me out.

0 comments

wcoenen1y ago

LLMs process text, but only after it was converted to a stream of tokens. As a result, LLMs are not very good at answering questions about letters in the text. That information was lost during the tokenization.

Humans process photons, but only after converting them into nerve impulses via photoreceptor cells in the retina, which are sensitive to wavelengths ranges described as "red", "green" or "blue".

As a result, humans are not very good at distinguishing different spectra that happen to result in the same nerve impulses. That information was lost by the conversion from photons to nerve impulses. Sensors like the AS7341 that have more than 3 color channels are much better at this task.

pestsOP1y ago

Yet I can learn there is a distinction between different spectra that happen to result in the same nerve impulses. I know if I have a certain impulse, that I can't rely on it being a certain photon. I know to use tools, like the AS7341, to augment my answer. I know to answer "I don't know" to those types of questions.

I am a strong proponent of LLM's, but I just don't agree with the personification and trust we put into its responses.

Everyone in this thread is defending that ChatGPT can't count for _reasons_ and how its okay, but... how can we trust this? Is this the sane world we live in?

"The AGI can't count letters in a sentence, but any day not he singularity will happen, the AI will escape and take over the world."

I do like to use it for opinion related questions. I have a specific taste in movies and TV shows and by just listing what I like and going back and forth about my reasons for liking or not liking it's suggestions, I've been able to find a lot of gems I would have never heard of before.

orangecat1y ago

That URL breaks into four different tokens in 3.5 and 4: "http", "://", "google" and ".com".

Except that "http" should be "https". Silly humans, claiming to be intelligent when they can't even tokenize strings correctly.

pestsOP1y ago

A wee typo.

jameshart1y ago

How much of your own sense of quantity is visual, do you think? How much of your ability to count the lengths of words depends on your ability to sound them out and spell?

I suspect we might find that adding in the multimodal visual and audio aspects to the model gives these models a much better basis for mental arithmetic and counting.

pixl971y ago

I'd counter by pasting a picture of an emoji here, but HN doesn't allow that, as a means to show the confusion that can be caused by characters versus symbols.

Most LLMs can just pass the string to an tool to count it to bypass it's built in limitations.

famouswaffles1y ago

It seems you're already aware LLMs receive tokens not words.

Does a blind man not understand quantity because you asked him how many apples are in front of him and he failed ?

pestsOP1y ago

I do, but I think it shows it's limitations.

I don't think that test determines his understanding of quantity at all, he has other senses like touch to determine the correct answer. He doesn't make up a number and then give justification.

GPT was presented with everything it needed to answer the question.

famouswaffles1y ago

Nobody said GPT was perfect. Everything has limitations.

>he has other senses like touch to determine the correct answer

And? In my hypothetical, you're not allowing him to use touch.

>I don't think that test determines his understanding of quantity at all

Obviously

>GPT was presented with everything it needed to answer the question.

No, it was not.

1 more reply

davidham1y ago

Its first answer of 12 is correct, there are 12 _unique_ characters in https://google.com.

vel0city1y ago

The unique characters are:

h t p s : / g o l e . c m

There are 13 unique characters.

davidham1y ago

OK neither GPT-4o nor myself is great at counting apparently

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

wcoenen1y ago

Humans process photons, but only after converting them into nerve impulses via photoreceptor cells in the retina, which are sensitive to wavelengths ranges described as "red", "green" or "blue".

pestsOP1y ago

I am a strong proponent of LLM's, but I just don't agree with the personification and trust we put into its responses.

Everyone in this thread is defending that ChatGPT can't count for _reasons_ and how its okay, but... how can we trust this? Is this the sane world we live in?

"The AGI can't count letters in a sentence, but any day not he singularity will happen, the AI will escape and take over the world."

orangecat1y ago

That URL breaks into four different tokens in 3.5 and 4: "http", "://", "google" and ".com".

Except that "http" should be "https". Silly humans, claiming to be intelligent when they can't even tokenize strings correctly.

pestsOP1y ago

A wee typo.

jameshart1y ago

How much of your own sense of quantity is visual, do you think? How much of your ability to count the lengths of words depends on your ability to sound them out and spell?

I suspect we might find that adding in the multimodal visual and audio aspects to the model gives these models a much better basis for mental arithmetic and counting.

pixl971y ago

I'd counter by pasting a picture of an emoji here, but HN doesn't allow that, as a means to show the confusion that can be caused by characters versus symbols.

Most LLMs can just pass the string to an tool to count it to bypass it's built in limitations.

famouswaffles1y ago

It seems you're already aware LLMs receive tokens not words.

Does a blind man not understand quantity because you asked him how many apples are in front of him and he failed ?

pestsOP1y ago

I do, but I think it shows it's limitations.

I don't think that test determines his understanding of quantity at all, he has other senses like touch to determine the correct answer. He doesn't make up a number and then give justification.

GPT was presented with everything it needed to answer the question.

famouswaffles1y ago

Nobody said GPT was perfect. Everything has limitations.

>he has other senses like touch to determine the correct answer

And? In my hypothetical, you're not allowing him to use touch.

>I don't think that test determines his understanding of quantity at all

Obviously

>GPT was presented with everything it needed to answer the question.

No, it was not.

1 more reply

davidham1y ago

Its first answer of 12 is correct, there are 12 _unique_ characters in https://google.com.