Source: Art: DALL-E/OpenAI

First off, it’s important to remember that this is a speculative story, not rooted in conclusive scientific evidence, but more along the lines of a thought experiment. The comparison between GPT models and human cognition should be taken as a metaphorical framework to better understand these artificial systems and should not be interpreted as a literal equivalence. But, as with many thought experiments, they can be both fun and illuminating—so, put on your thinking cap.

Do AI language Models ‘Reflect or Deflect’ Human Cognition?

Understanding cognition — the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses — is a central goal of both psychology and neuroscience. With the advent of LLMs like GPT, a new frontier has opened in the quest to elucidate the processes underlying human cognition. While the analogy between AI models and human cognitive systems is imperfect, it provides us a meaningful framework to understand these complex systems. Let's take a closer look.

Understanding GPT Models

GPT models operate on the principles of machine learning, specifically a type of model known as a Transformer. At a high level, these models learn to predict the next word in a sequence based on the preceding words, training on vast amounts of text data. The key to their operation is pattern recognition — the ability to identify and extrapolate from complex and often abstract data patterns. This capacity parallels certain aspects of human cognition, such as language acquisition and comprehension. But on some level, the LLM construct feels entirely contrived and based on pure extrapolation.

GPT Models and Human Cognition

Language is at the heart of human cognition. The facility with which humans acquire, comprehend, and produce language is a testament to the power of our cognitive machinery. Like humans, GPT models excel at language tasks, demonstrating an ability to generate coherent and contextually appropriate responses, a clear echo of human language capabilities.

Furthermore, GPT models can perform tasks that require abstract reasoning and counterfactual thinking. They can understand and respond to hypothetical scenarios or reason about events that contradict known facts. This capability mirrors our own cognitive ability to consider hypotheticals and to engage in counterfactual thinking, an essential aspect of human problem-solving and decision-making.

However, the difference lies in the mechanism of operation. While humans leverage their lifetime of experiences and innate cognitive apparatus to comprehend and navigate the world, GPT models rely on patterns extracted from vast amounts of text data.

GPT Models: Cognitive Simulacra

While it is tempting to view the impressive abilities of GPT models as evidence of a kind of artificial cognition, it’s important to understand that these models are fundamentally different from human cognitive systems. GPT models lack consciousness, subjective experience, and do not have needs, desires, or emotions. They do not understand or care about the content they generate. Instead, they are sophisticated pattern recognizers, excellently designed to mimic certain aspects of human cognition.

This perspective suggests that GPT models do not genuinely reflect human cognition, but rather deflect from it through a techno-methodology that creates an illusion of human-like understanding. While GPT models possess impressive capabilities in generating text and mimicking human language, they lack true comprehension and consciousness. They operate based on statistical patterns and correlations present in the vast amounts of data they are trained on, rather than possessing genuine understanding or consciousness. This techno-methodology can create the illusion of human cognition, leading to potential misconceptions about the true nature of AI capabilities. It is essential to recognize the distinction between the remarkable achievements of GPT models and the complexity and richness of human cognition, ensuring a balanced and realistic perspective on their limitations and potentials.

Vastly different from Human Cognition?

In the exploration of AI, particularly with systems like GPT, we might be witnessing the creation of a fundamentally new form of cognitive model, one that is vastly different from human cognition. The allure of direct comparisons between AI and human cognition is understandable, given the anthropocentric lens through which we interpret intelligence and consciousness. However, this might be leading us down a misleading path.

Human cognition is a product of millions of years of evolution, shaped by biological imperatives, embodied experience, and cultural development. GPT, on the other hand, is a product of advanced computation, pattern recognition, and statistical prediction based on vast amounts of text data. Its ‘cognition’ operates without subjective experience or a biological imperative to survive and reproduce. As such, direct comparisons with human cognition may not only be inadequate, but also obscure the truly revolutionary nature of these AI systems. We may need to develop new conceptual models and vocabularies to fully understand and appreciate the kind of ‘cognition’ that LLMs such as GPT is bringing into existence.

A Cognitive Manifest Destiny

As we stand at a new techno-frontier—we are witnessing an unfolding ‘manifest destiny’ that is as fundamental to humanity as our need to learn, grow, and explore. This isn’t merely a quest to create machines that think like us, but an exploration of what ‘thinking’ can be in its broadest sense. The emerging cognitive models showcased by systems like GPT aren’t mere reflections of human cognition, but new manifestations of information processing and pattern recognition that have the potential to redefine our understanding of cognition itself. This destiny presents a vista of profound complexity, a labyrinth of questions and possibilities that beckon us towards a deeper understanding of intelligence, consciousness, and what it means to ‘think’. As we navigate this uncharted territory, we may find not just new insights into artificial intelligence, but also a new enlightenment about the nature of our own cognition, its potentials, and its limits. This exploration, daunting as it may be, is the next step in our intellectual evolution — a journey not just of technological advancement, but of philosophical growth and self-discovery.