Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 9.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.6: repetition vs intelligence (123)
[2] From: Terence Murphy <tmurphy@yonsei.ac.kr>
Subject: [RE][Humanist] 39.4: repetition vs intelligence? (12)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2025-05-11 11:38:17+00:00
From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.6: repetition vs intelligence
Hi Willard, and Gabriel and Jim
about the repetition i would add the question of what i would call
situatedness.
in the human realm the repetitions (if any, if ever exactly possible)
are always situated: situated in respect with the author, with the time,
with place. with the author variously aware of, or motivated by, this
situatedness of what s/he creates.
all this results in the fact the repetitions are not the same at all,
because the pure repetition of - say - a long string of words never
exists in the void, but is always situated in a context where it is
received and this radically modifies it.
i dare to say that _an LLM is never situated_ (eventually who is
situated is the person giving it the prompt). so in its realm the
repetitions are pure repetitions, which in effect are avoided "by
programming" by randomising the textual composition of the output in
caso of a repetition of the prompt.
about the intelligence, am reading interesting french pages these days.
i'll try to write later.
Maurizio
Il 09/05/25 09:50, Humanist ha scritto:
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 6.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to:humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
> [1] From: Gabriel Egan<mail@gabrielegan.com>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.4: repetition vs intelligence? (24)
>
> [2] From: James Rovira<jamesrovira@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.4: repetition vs intelligence? (34)
>
>
> --[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: 2025-05-08 07:52:11+00:00
> From: Gabriel Egan<mail@gabrielegan.com>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.4: repetition vs intelligence?
>
> Willard asks:
>
> > . . . to what extent, in what ways, do the strategies of
> > the so-called Large Language Models produce results that
> > only echo back to us current linguistic behaviour (parole),
> > in effect saying nothing new, however useful, however news
> > to the questioner?
>
> I should say that the extent to, and ways in, which they
> do this is about the same as the extent to, and ways in,
> which people do.
>
> > . . . being truly creative, is exceedingly rare. But
> > isn't that exactly what we want of intelligence
>
> If we set the bar for intelligence that high, most
> of our fellow human beings -- and I think the likes
> of me too -- fall below the threshold. That is a
> politically dangerous way to define intelligence.
> Even Ayn Rand set the bar lower than that.
>
> Regards
>
> Gabriel
>
> --[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: 2025-05-08 13:08:27+00:00
> From: James Rovira<jamesrovira@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.4: repetition vs intelligence?
>
> I think the mistake is in the use of the term "intelligence": that creates
> the illusion that we're talking about the same thing when we discuss human
> and machine intelligence when we are not. I also think you already hit on
> the main point regarding creativity and the development of new knowledge:
> what is "new" is dependent upon the levels of ignorance of the observer.
> The next step in this direction is I think the recognition that the machine
> itself has no concept of creativity or the new, which requires a kind of
> self-consciousness about one's own activities as well as context that the
> machine does not and can never have.
>
> Jim R
>
> On Thu, May 8, 2025 at 3:38 AM Humanist<humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>> We could say, as a friend of mine did, that saying something new in my
>> sense, i.e. being truly creative, is exceedingly rare. But isn't that
>> exactly what we want of intelligence? What would the artificial kind
>> have to do to qualify? Or do we have examples, are they being noticed
>> and investigated?
>>
>> Best,
>> WM
>> --
>>
>> --
> Dr. James Rovira<http://www.jamesrovira.com/>
>
> - *David Bowie and Romanticism
> <https://jamesrovira.com/2022/09/02/david-bowie-and-romanticism/>*,
> Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
> - *Women in Rock, Women in Romanticism
> <https://www.routledge.com/Women-in-Rock-Women-in-Romanticism-The-
Emancipation-of-Female-Will/Rovira/p/book/9781032069845>*,
> Routledge, 2023
------------------------------------------------------------------------
lo straniero non parla e non capisce la nostra lingua,
che non è più nostra, perché la nostra vera lingua
diventa la traduzione, lo scambio
luca ferrieri, dalla public library all’open library
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maurizio Lana
Università del Piemonte Orientale
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2025-05-10 00:36:14+00:00
From: Terence Murphy <tmurphy@yonsei.ac.kr>
Subject: [RE][Humanist] 39.4: repetition vs intelligence?
There is a very intelligent young man named Andriy Burkov, who has an account on
Twitter, who replied to a woman named Anna Abramova, who asked: "Maybe a crazy
idea, but what if LLMs hallucinate 100% of the time, and just happen to be right
80% of the time?", with the words: "This is exactly what is going on, not even
an approximation :)".
Terry Murphy
Dept of English
Yonsei University
Seoul, Korea
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