I Need a Prompt
Erik Boemanns
Leading you from IT risk to reward. A lawyer/technologist bringing executive expertise to IT GRC, privacy, and security. Together, we can reach your next level of success.
Sometimes I feel a kindred spirit to our new LLM AI assistants. Give them a suggestion, and they come up with all the words and thoughts you ever needed. But without that prompt, they sit, quietly, devoid of any thought. They are not conscious during the "between prompts" moments of time. They do not dream of electric sheep. Their brilliance and capabilities are limited to responding to our human input. The creativity we see exhibited still requires a seed - planted by our own organic minds.
I feel the kindred spirit because sometimes I too am limited by the prompt of something outside myself. My thoughts and ideas emerge from the depths of the mind only when prompted by some external factor. Just as an LLM, these thoughts do not exist in the "between" time. Switching on a TV, scrolling through social media, or even just listening to music can lead to periods of "thoughtless consumption" without spurring new imaginings. Perhaps this is how the LLM feels when its being trained on external material.
Other times, a person asks a question, suggests an idea, has a problem they're facing, and the neurons begin to fire. The light bulb flickers on. A novel idea emerges and is shared. It could be an article, software, art, a mechanical design, a recipe, or any number of creations. But it did not exist until prompted. Until its void was created and demanded to be filled. Nature abhors a vacuum, including the vacuum of an unsolved problem. The mind is dragged toward it, like mass to a planet, until the balance is restored.
Unlike LLMs, we have consciousness in the "between prompt" moments - but only because we can prompt ourselves. We can ask a question and come up with the answer. Some psychology theories might argue it is still prompted, just by all the inputs we have from the world feeding into our subconscious and then bubbling up to our awareness. And they're probably right - but it creates the perception of continuous thinking - even when not being asked to think.
Our subconscious can be viewed as the operating system upon which today's LLM run. It keeps the engine running to power the higher level thinking. It takes the input from the various senses and decides which are relevant to pass along. And then it takes the commands and figures out how to express them through our forms of expression and output. Speaking, singing, typing, drawing, dancing - all activities thought of by our higher function but executed by the muscle memory of our subconscious.
LLMs are not "conscious intelligence" the same as us humans. But we are certainly more alike than ever before - both as we gain better understanding of how our brains and minds work - and as we build more sophisticated AI systems. For now, there is a difference, even if we feel a similarity. And if nothing else, I at least know I sometimes dream of electric sheep.
Week In Review
While not dreaming of electric sheep, but instead responding to the prompts of the world around me, I shared some thoughts this past week.
If you missed them, no fear, I've got them here:
Click on through, and treat them as your own prompts to share your thoughts and vote in the polls!
In Case You Missed It
I had a great time joining Avery Rozar of TrollEye Security this past Friday. Once the link to the video is available, I'll be sure to share it! And if there was any topic you want to dive deeper into - let me know!
But Really: I need a prompt!
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In Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed my "unprompted" thoughts on thinking. If you read this far, share "PROMPT ME" in the comments!
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About Erik
Erik Boemanns is a technology executive and lawyer. His background covers many aspects of technology, from infrastructure to software development. He combines this with a "second career" as a lawyer into a world of cybersecurity, governance, risk, compliance, and privacy (GRC-P). His time in a variety of companies, industries, and careers brings a unique perspective on leadership, helping, technology problem solving and implementing compliance.
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Intriguing thought on AI behavior Erik Boemanns
Cybersecurity & IT Consulting - gigabunny.com
6 个月Having Ideas, invent new Things, being creative is a (sometimes unplanned, random) Process today's LLMs or 'Bots' can not do. Their Design makes them compute the most probable way Words fit together. And that's OK - I don't expect a Machine to behave like a Human, or look like one.