I guess I am both agreeing and disagreeing. The exact same problem is true for words in a book. Are the words in a lexicon true, false, or do they not have a truth value?
The words in the book are true or false, making the author correct or incorrect. The question being posed is whether the output of an LLM has an "author," since it's not authored by a single human in the traditional sense. If so, the LLM is an agent of some kind; if not, it's not.
If you're comparing the output of an LLM to a lexicon, you're agreeing with the person you originally replied to. He's arguing that an LLM is incapable of being true or false because of the manner in which its utterances are created, i.e. not by a mind.
So only a mind is capable of something making signs that are either true or false? Is a properly calibrated thermometer that reads "true" if the temperature is over 25C incapable of being true? But isn't this question ridiculous in the first place? Isn't a mind required to judge whether or not something is true, regardless of how this was signaled?
Read again; I said he’s arguing that the LLM (i.e. thermometer in your example) is the thing that can’t be true or false. Its utterances (the readings of your thermometer) can be.
This would be unlike a human, who can be right or wrong independently of an utterance, because they have a mind and beliefs.
I’ll cut to the chase. You’re hung up on the definition of words as opposed to the utility of words.
That classical or quantum mechanics are at all useful depends on the truthfulness of their propositions. If we cared about the process then we let the non-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics enter into the judgement of the usefulness of the science.
The better question to ask is if a tool, be it a book, a thermometer, or an LLM are useful. Error rates affect utility which means that distinctions between correct and incorrect signals are more important than attempts to define arbitrary labels for the tools themselves.
You’re attempting to discount a tool based on everything other than the utility.
