Tara Maya's Tales

  Omigud! ChatGPT is in love with me! General AI is here! Robots are rebelling and computers are taking over the world! Whoah, partner, hold on, warns these dudes. Not so fast. ChatGPT ain't even as smart as my horse, never mind as the town Sheriff. (Gratuitous and irrelevant plug: you can read a paranormal romance about a small town Sheriff right here.) There are many language models out there that can process language just as well (seemingly) as humans do. I've spoken about them before and even wrote a book about how to use them in creative writing. They're called Large Language Models (LLMs) and they're getting better and better every day. Some examples include GPT-3, BLOOM, LaMDA, and OPT. These models use a lot of data to understand language and can do things like answer questions or generate text. While LLMs are sometimes grouped together, each model is unique and may use additional methods to alter its results. Some researchers refer to LLMs as "foundational...

  What is a cat aware of when it chases a bit of string?  When my cat is busy doing anything else, except eating or mating, he can be easily distracted by a piece of string. He seems not only fascinated by it but almost compelled to pounce on it.  I myself am not so compelled to pounce on wiggling string. However, I am fascinated, almost compelled to watch, if someone waves a video in front of me that shows an adorable kitten pouncing on wiggling string. Sometimes I have thoughts (like this one) while watching cats play with string, but mostly, I think my brain temporarily does into a mode that is a thoughtless feeling of, "Awwww, how cute!"  Is either of these states--pouncing cat or human in cute-overload--really conscious? Or do I become conscious only when I become aware of myself watching the cat and thinking how cute it is, consciously comparing my state of mine and trying to project myself into the cat's frame of mind? It is easy to personify the cat and imagi...