arXiv:2410.12895cs.CLcs.AI2024-10

LLMs的兴起让语言哲学旧争议重燃,但它们与人类学习机制不同,无法证明哪种哲学立场更正确。

Large Language Models and the Rationalist Empiricist Debate

  • 用外部化经验主义视角看,给LLM设定先天偏见不等于否定经验主义
  • 人类在刺激贫乏下学习,而LLM依赖海量数据,学习方式本质不同
  • 不能用LLM的学习模式推论人类语言能力的来源,两者机制不兼容

许多学者认为乔姆斯基与奎因、斯金纳的争论是17世纪理性主义与经验主义之争的现代翻版,普遍认为理性主义占优。如今大型语言模型(LLMs)的出现使这一争论重新浮现。有人认为LLMs需要预设先天偏见才能有效运行,这支持了理性主义;但这种观点依赖于所持的经验主义类型。外部化经验主义(Quine, 1969)认为,只要先天装置能通过经验确定,就不构成对经验主义的反驳。此外,将LLMs是否以经验主义方式学习,与人类是否如此相联系,其相关性存疑。要使此类主张成立,必须证明LLMs与人类具有相同的认知学习机制。然而,两个关键差异存在:人类在刺激贫乏条件下学习,而LLMs则因极其丰富的训练数据得以学习;人类的语言输出基于感官经验,而LLMs则无此根基。这些差异表明,二者使用不同的底层能力生成输出,因此关于LLMs学习方式的结论,无法用于推断人类学习的本质。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

To many Chomsky's debates with Quine and Skinner are an updated version of the Rationalist Empiricist debates of the 17th century. The consensus being that Chomsky's Rationalism was victorious. This dispute has reemerged with the advent of Large Language Models. With some arguing that LLMs vindicate rationalism because of the necessity of building in innate biases to make them work. The necessity of building in innate biases is taken to prove that empiricism hasn't got the conceptual resources to explain linguistic competence. Such claims depend on the nature of the empiricism one is endorsing. Externalized Empiricism has no difficulties with innate apparatus once they are determined empirically (Quine 1969). Thus, externalized empiricism is not refuted because of the need to build in innate biases in LLMs. Furthermore, the relevance of LLMs to the rationalist empiricist debate in relation to humans is dubious. For any claim about whether LLMs learn in an empiricist manner to be relevant to humans it needs to be shown that LLMs and humans learn in the same way. Two key features distinguish humans and LLMs. Humans learn despite a poverty of stimulus and LLMs learn because of an incredibly rich stimulus. Human linguistic outputs are grounded in sensory experience and LLMs are not. These differences in how the two learn indicates that they both use different underlying competencies to produce their output. Therefore, any claims about whether LLMs learn in an empiricist manner are not relevant to whether humans learn in an empiricist manner.

语言哲学认知科学大模型

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