ChatGPT Doesn't Know Anything

ChatGPT doesn’t “know” anything about recent events. ChatGPT “hallucinates” facts. ChatGPT can “understand” many different kinds of questions. ChatGPT doesn’t “care” about truth. ChatGPT is “lying” to you.

For some reason, we have collectively chosen to talk about ChatGPT using words typically reserved for humans. More precisely, we have chosen mental words to describe what ChatGPT does. Words that seem to imply ChatGPT has a mind, has beliefs, has a certain noetic structure, that it stands in relations to propositions, to truth, that it can think, and believe, and know.

Of course, to use mental language is not always to literally ascribe mental properties to something. We often personify things to aid in understanding. “The electron wants to be at the lowest energy level possible” is not a statement made by someone who truly believes electrons have desires. Yet, when it comes to ChatGPT things are a bit more muddled.

Most people would agree that ChatGPT is not conscious, nor is it the first instance of true artificial general intelligence. In other words, we don’t think of it as a person. Yet, to suggest that ChatGPT doesn’t understand anything or doesn’t know anything is met with disagreement or disbelief. The same cannot be said for the electron and its desires.

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