Philosophy class: OpenAI and Meta ready new AI models capable of ‘reasoning’

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Specification:

• Reasoning

Click the link below to read the article and then answer the questions:

OpenAI and Meta ready new AI models capable of ‘reasoning’

• What do you think ‘reasoning’ means?

• Why are current generative AI applications not capable of reasoning?

• Consider the claim by Meta’s Chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, that to add reasoning to an AI model would mean it “searches over possible answers”, “plans the sequence of actions” and builds “a mental of what the effect of [its] actions are going to be”. How do these capabilities fit with your understanding of reasoning? Do you think it captures what reasoning is or misses something?

• Is there a relationship between reasoning, feeling and desire? How does that relationship affect the possibility of AI being able to reason?

• Think about the philosophers you have studied (Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Gilbert Ryle, Patricia Churchland, etc). Given their views about reasoning and the mind, what do you think they would make of claims in the article?

Jack Robertson, Queen Elizabeth’s School