18 Jan
2023
18 Jan
'23
12:21 a.m.
On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 3:52 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 1/17/23 15:34, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
Hi Chuck.
While I can't answer your question in the affirmative, I knew a guy back
around 2015ish with whom I've lost contact but who at the time went to work
for an undisclosed "AI" company and told me that their technology was such
that they could feed into it a technical manual of some complex system and
then query it about various aspects of the system for troubleshooting or
what not and apparently it could reliably provide workable solutions.
If you mess around enough with ChatGPT 3, you can actually get it to solve
some surprisingly complex puzzles. I've run it through a few tests to
trick it into saying things it's not supposed to say and the level of
indirection it can interpret is impressive.
One example was I taught it a simple programming language where each line
starts with a line number followed by commands for that line. I then
taught it that the language has a command called PRINT that outputs the
text following the command. I also told it the language has a function
called CHR$(n) where the return value is the ASCII character represented by
'n'.
I then fed it the program:
10 PRINT CHR$(65)
And told it to run it, and the output was, of course, A.
Here's an example I just ran through. It's simple, but it demonstrates its
ability to understand code:
Sellam: Are you familiar with all of the commands in the canonical version
of BASIC?
ChatGPT: I am familiar with most of the commands in the canonical version
of BASIC, although my knowledge may not be up-to-date with the latest
versions. The commands that are commonly used in canonical version of BASIC
are PRINT, INPUT, GOTO, GOSUB, IF THEN ELSE, FOR, NEXT, WHILE, WEND, END,
and REM. I may not be able to give you information on any commands that are
specific to a certain implementation or dialect.
Sellam: Ok great, can you tell me what this program will do?
10 FOR X=1 TO 100
20 PRINT "CHATGPT IS A BUCKET OF BITS! ";X
30 NEXT X
ChatGPT: This program will repeatedly print the text "CHATGPT IS A BUCKET
OF BITS! " followed by the current value of the variable X to the screen
100 times. The FOR loop on line 10 starts a loop that will iterate 100
times, with the variable X taking on the values from 1 to 100, inclusive.
On each iteration of the loop, the program will execute the PRINT statement
on line 20, which will print the specified text concatenated with the value
of X to the screen. On line 30, the program will execute the NEXT statement
which will increment the value of X and return the control to the FOR
statement, starting the next iteration of the loop.
Sellam: Can you tell me what the output of the program would be on
iteration 77?
ChatGPT: On iteration 77, the output of the program would be: "CHATGPT IS A
BUCKET OF BITS! 77" Where 77 is the current value of the variable X.
***
I think with specific training on a 7080 Autocoder manual, it could
probably do as you ask, and would probably shock you at how well it
performs.
Sellam
Science still has no real idea how we think. Or how we learn. Or much
else about the actual functioning of the brain. Until they do how can
anyone think they can teach a computer, that real is as dumb as a rock
My point in selecting the IBM 7080 autocoder was just this. There are
almost no 7080 autocoder programs published on the web, but there are
reference manuals (bitsavers). Is an AI smart enough to go the human
route and *read the manual* and draw conclusions from it sufficient to
write a 7080 autocoder program?
If not, the AI is just a fancy regurgitation machine.