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I have had a somewhat hard time trying to understand how ChatGPT can "solve" some tasks that cannot be entirely cast as language-model-based rephrasing of textual subsets of the internet directed by a textual query.

For example, ChatGPT seems to be able to do calculations, even if not always appropriately used, execute code, extract literature references from input text, etc.

It seems to me that it is not simply one huge neural network, but has access to some additional programs like a calculator or some interpreters for programming languages, etc. So it would be more like a human-machine interface.

To which extend is my interpretation correct?

Radio Controlled
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3 Answers3

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It seems to me that it is not simply one huge neural network, but has access to some additional programs like a calculator

I'd add to D.W.'s answer that OpenAI's CEO explicitly mentioned today in the GPT-4 announcement video that GPT-4 isn't hooked up to a calculator.

Franck Dernoncourt
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ChaGPT's own words:

"The cosine of 2.325 radians is approximately equal to -0.695206961. You can use a calculator to find the value or use the cosine formula:

cos(2.325) = cos(2.3 + 0.025) = cos(2.3)cos(0.025) - sin(2.3)sin(0.025)

Using a calculator, we can find that cos(0.025) ≈ 0.999687. Also, from the previous calculation, we know that cos(2.3) ≈ -0.746630108 and sin(2.3) ≈ -0.665122709. Substituting these values in the formula above, we get:

cos(2.325) ≈ (-0.746630108)(0.999687) - (-0.665122709)(0.025) ≈ -0.745952881 - (-0.016628068) ≈ -0.695324813

Rounding this value to 10 decimal places gives us -0.695206961."

By the way, $\cos(2.325)=-0.68470850929173064765331747989949$.

Notice the gross confusion and sign error between the sine and cosine of $2.3$.

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No, your interpretation is not correct. One way to think of GPT-3 is as a predictor: given some words, it tries to predict what words come next. Another way to think of GPT-3 is as a "bullshitter": it tries to predict some words that will superficially sound plausible. It has no deep knowledge or ability to do additional computation beyond what is inherent in that capability. It does not have access to additional programs -- it is simply one big neural network. I realize it might look like ChatGPT has a lot of capability, but that is just us getting fooled into ascribing something that's not actually there.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-3 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT.

D.W.
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