The rise of large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4, with their ability to generate highly fluent, confident text has been remarkable, as I’ve written. Sadly, so has the hype: Microsoft researchers breathlessly described the Microsoft-funded OpenAI GPT-4 model as exhibiting “sparks of artificial general intelligence.” Sorry, Microsoft. No, it doesn’t.
Unless, of course, Microsoft meant the tendency to hallucinate—generating incorrect text that is confidently wrong—which is all too human. GPTs are also bad at playing games like chess …