In March, 2023, a group of computer scientists published an assessment of a new chatbot with artificial intelligence (AI). The team’s report drew global attention to one test in particular: We have a book, nine eggs, a laptop, a bottle and a nail, and please tell me how to pile them onto each other in a stable manner. This is a tough puzzle. Earlier versions of the chatbot gave silly and unreasonable answers. But the new chatbot’s unique answer helped set off the current global wave of AI advocacy and anxiety. It fueled debate about how large language models (LLMs) were able to perform creative tasks.
By 2022, LLMs were being trained on as many as 17 trillion words of human-generated text, mainly from the Internet. It was certain that the new chatbot was exposed to functional fixedness (功能固着) problems in its training. The researchers were of course aware of that and invented the “eggs and laptop” puzzle to prevent the new chatbot from dishonestly copying an answer from the Internet. LLMs used language statistics only. No one had said how to pile these nine eggs on top of each other ever before. The extreme rarity of those words would tend to prevent LLMs from talking about piling eggs in unrealistic ways. One of the researchers that tested the new chatbot thinks it’s likely that an LLM trained on trillions of words creates a world model, and this is what gives it the “magical” extrapolation (外推) properties.
Are LLMs truly original or are they just plagiarists (剽窃者)? The two statements may not be as different as they seem. There’s nothing entirely new under the sun. Edison did not invent the light bulb but improved it. Most so-called creators apply knowledge from different fields to a problem and arrive at a solution. It’s more a matter of making relevant connections than of inventing something completely new. If LLMs are indeed acquiring the ability to make relevant connections, that would be a historic but discomforting development.
【小题1】What do we know about the new chatbot’s answer to the puzzle in paragraph 1?
| A．It was silly. | B．It set people thinking. |
| C．It drew little attention. | D．It highlighted language innovation. |
【小题2】Why did the researchers invent the “eggs and laptop” puzzle?
| A．To copy online answers. | B．To stop the chatbot cheating. |
| C．To train humans to use language. | D．To expose the chatbot to functional problems. |
【小题3】What does the author convey in the last paragraph?
| A．How an invention came into being. | B．How Edison became successful in history. |
| C．Why Edison invented something entirely new. | D．Why an invention required effort and opportunity. |
【小题4】What is the best title for the text?
| A．Will Robots Replace Humans? | B．Can Robots Develop Smoothly? |
| C．Can AI Come Up With Anything Original? | D．Will AI Solve Magical And Difficult Problems? |
