> Papers asking whether LLMs have such properties are assuming them (e.g., ‘Do LLMs have musical talent’, ‘Do LLMs present empathy’, etc).
This seems like...a very bad definition of "assuming" something? If I ask "do you know how to play the guitar?" I am absolutely not assuming that you know how to play the guitar!
> In-game constructions of NAND gates and a perceptron (forward prop and training) as described in in 'If LLMs Have Human-Like Attributes, Then So Does Age of Empires II'.
Interesting concept
> We begin by proving that Age of Empires II is functionally- and Turing- complete. Then we build a perceptron and a circuit to train it in-game. With that, we argue that changing the substrate (representation) of an LLM also alters the perception of their attributes.
This is fun, but I don't think it's particularly surprising. A substrate being turing-complete alone is enough evidence that you can train and run a perception on it, assuming the available memory is sufficient.
> We then show that research in LLM anthropomorphic attributes cannot be done starting by assuming that these attributes exist (or not) in the system; even if you aim to conclude that they do not exist. This assumption can happen even when you do not make it explicitly! It also shows that there are ways to do good, sound research without needing to make that assumption.
I... don't see how this follows? I wanted to see how this argument unfolded, but it seems the arxiv link on this page is broken? It just links to arxiv.org and the rest of what is on this linked page doesn't seem to cover this second assertion at all.
Age of Empires II had a creative map editor, where you could "program" via triggers and effects. It wasn't as in depth as the blizzard games which you could write code, but was easier to use. You could make a trigger (ie. units in this area, time passed, number of units on the field, build a building, etc) then effect (ie spawn unit, move unit, kill something, etc). Which was used in custom maps to do all sorts of fun games. Or like here you can make a nand gate by moving units around.
I need to try this. Age of Empires II was never really on my radar until I recently learned it's engine is the basis for another game I'm a fan of - Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. It's one of two RTS games released in 2001 that I've spent a lot of time on, with the other one being Emperor: Battle for Dune.
Emperor: Battle for Dune is impossible to find nowadays. It was fun game though. Same with SW: Galactic Battlegrounds. Short of piracy, you can't get them.
The actual paper is linked above, and of course it’s bad. The gates are awesome ofc, but the paper’s philosophy is arrogant and uninformed (sorry Mr. Wynter!). And that’s what this is — including a video game example in your philosophy paper doesn’t make it a CS paper!
Basically it uses the cool gates alongside vacuous statements like this…
Hence, the purported anthropomorphic attributes of LLMs are empirically non-unique: although some properties (e.g., responses to prompts) could remain invariant, others, such as the interpretation of their perceived behaviour, might change with the substrate.
…to disguise the underlying dogma, which serves as an unsupported conclusion: humans are assumed to be completely entirely unique in every way whatsoever, and any equations of parts of our wonderful ensouled meat sacks to parts of the wicked language machines must be supported by a proof that A != A.
From the judge prompt in the paper:
> Papers asking whether LLMs have such properties are assuming them (e.g., ‘Do LLMs have musical talent’, ‘Do LLMs present empathy’, etc).
This seems like...a very bad definition of "assuming" something? If I ask "do you know how to play the guitar?" I am absolutely not assuming that you know how to play the guitar!
> In-game constructions of NAND gates and a perceptron (forward prop and training) as described in in 'If LLMs Have Human-Like Attributes, Then So Does Age of Empires II'.
Interesting concept
> We begin by proving that Age of Empires II is functionally- and Turing- complete. Then we build a perceptron and a circuit to train it in-game. With that, we argue that changing the substrate (representation) of an LLM also alters the perception of their attributes.
This is fun, but I don't think it's particularly surprising. A substrate being turing-complete alone is enough evidence that you can train and run a perception on it, assuming the available memory is sufficient.
> We then show that research in LLM anthropomorphic attributes cannot be done starting by assuming that these attributes exist (or not) in the system; even if you aim to conclude that they do not exist. This assumption can happen even when you do not make it explicitly! It also shows that there are ways to do good, sound research without needing to make that assumption.
I... don't see how this follows? I wanted to see how this argument unfolded, but it seems the arxiv link on this page is broken? It just links to arxiv.org and the rest of what is on this linked page doesn't seem to cover this second assertion at all.
Working paper link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.31514
Age of Empires II had a creative map editor, where you could "program" via triggers and effects. It wasn't as in depth as the blizzard games which you could write code, but was easier to use. You could make a trigger (ie. units in this area, time passed, number of units on the field, build a building, etc) then effect (ie spawn unit, move unit, kill something, etc). Which was used in custom maps to do all sorts of fun games. Or like here you can make a nand gate by moving units around.
I need to try this. Age of Empires II was never really on my radar until I recently learned it's engine is the basis for another game I'm a fan of - Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. It's one of two RTS games released in 2001 that I've spent a lot of time on, with the other one being Emperor: Battle for Dune.
Emperor: Battle for Dune is impossible to find nowadays. It was fun game though. Same with SW: Galactic Battlegrounds. Short of piracy, you can't get them.
Good news! Galactic Battlegrounds Saga is available on both GOG and Steam. :)
The actual paper is linked above, and of course it’s bad. The gates are awesome ofc, but the paper’s philosophy is arrogant and uninformed (sorry Mr. Wynter!). And that’s what this is — including a video game example in your philosophy paper doesn’t make it a CS paper!
Basically it uses the cool gates alongside vacuous statements like this…
…to disguise the underlying dogma, which serves as an unsupported conclusion: humans are assumed to be completely entirely unique in every way whatsoever, and any equations of parts of our wonderful ensouled meat sacks to parts of the wicked language machines must be supported by a proof that A != A.Which, y’know… is a tough one!