>Even if a sentence is meaningful standalone in vacuum, no communication between humans ever happens in such a way.
True, although much less so for (pseudo)anonymous online communication, as we’re having here.
>It always matters who said it and why; we never take the substance independently from the agenda and the mind behind it, the context in which that mind existed and its relationship with our own, and so on.
I have no idea who you are, what your agenda is, or anything about how your mind operates. There is essentially zero relationship between your mind and my own. The only context I have about you is the text of your post.
>This strikes me as a crucial part of what intelligence (whether in humans or other creatures) means.
Totally agreed. This is why GPT-3 can do a fairly good job emulating anonymous online discourse, but cannot convincingly emulate a person we actually know.
Personally, the fact that we are on HN of all places supplies a lot of context and agenda and to me is a meta-filter of sorts (pardon the pun). Perhaps one relationship between our minds is that we both have found our way here. I think there is a shared motive in trying to locate truth with a hint of procrastination[0].
Let’s imagine a slightly more down-to-earth exchange and raise the stakes in a way. For example, say it is still mostly a philosophical discussion here on HN, but in which someone is pushing a position on how much potential a certain company or store of value has; would you not question (at least to yourself) whether that person is invested and seeking to profit from it in short term, which would taint the motive? Or say someone was arguing in support of a controversial policy of a particular government known for its strong control over access to information and freedom of expression; would you not wonder whether the person is in fact a citizen of that country being misled by own government (and/or motivated to support it rather than seek truth)?
Yes, the substance of what they say may or may not be true independently of that context, but if we want to function socially and exhaustively validating every claim being made is not an option we have to take shortcuts, and I think we do it all the time even without realizing it. (I’m not writing that lightly since it seems similar to profiling which is ethically icky, but it is my conclusion upon introspection.)
In these cases we can at least imagine possible motive mismatch (known unknowns); in case of a GPT3-like thing instead of a motive you get a scary abyss or much more obscured motives of its human creators. I can’t imagine it having no impact on how I participate in an exchange.
[0] Even still, you can see how elsewhere in the thread there are warranted accusations of the motive being tainted by human exceptionality bias.
True, although much less so for (pseudo)anonymous online communication, as we’re having here.
>It always matters who said it and why; we never take the substance independently from the agenda and the mind behind it, the context in which that mind existed and its relationship with our own, and so on.
I have no idea who you are, what your agenda is, or anything about how your mind operates. There is essentially zero relationship between your mind and my own. The only context I have about you is the text of your post.
>This strikes me as a crucial part of what intelligence (whether in humans or other creatures) means.
Totally agreed. This is why GPT-3 can do a fairly good job emulating anonymous online discourse, but cannot convincingly emulate a person we actually know.