New Theory on Chatbots' Text Understanding

A recent article in Quanta Magazine explores a new theory by Sanjeev Arora and Anirudh Goyal that challenges the notion of chatbots as "stochastic parrots." The researchers argue that large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 can understand and generate text by developing and combining language-related skills, demonstrating abilities beyond mere mimicry. Their theoretical framework, supported by mathematical proofs and empirical tests, suggests that as LLMs grow in size and training data, they acquire and combine skills in ways indicative of genuine understanding.