The debate in question is very much in the training set, right? Are they pointing to 'language is just like this' or to 'English is just like this' or to 'the english-language corpus has this strange attractor in it and if you train me on that corpus I may well fall into that attractor'

Someone who knows things has tried to explain it to him, he nodded sagely while they spoke bc that's what smart looks like, he parrots a few phrases that stuck with him, bc that's what smart sounds like, and he fills in the rest with really bad jello salad.

I'm imagining a gruff but adorable librarian pushing a library ladder around wherever they go so they can always reach the knowledge on the top shelf

Sending this on to my grown child who spent many determined hours with ONI

He sucks in all he does, but mobilizing a whole new set of corporate lawyers into the resistance might not go well for him

I loved Frans de Waal's book on this - we're not so good at knowing what we're measuring, even for visible outcomes. Elephants can't recognize themselves in a mirror... until you test them with an elephant-size mirror. Oops.