[GoLUG] LLMs can't reason

[Kyle Terrien]

And I can point to a theologian who said so in 1938.  😉

I chanced upon a full copy of the three-volume set of books /Radio
Replies/ by Fathers Rumble and Carty, readable online [1].  This is a
collection of Roman Catholic apologetics in question/answer format,
compiled from a radio show where people called in and submitted
difficult questions to a couple of very educated priests.  The first
three books were published from 1938-1942, so they are traditional and
free of modernist aberrations.

Anyway, question 50 in volume 1 caught my attention [2], because it
actually applies to AI so-called agents.  (Snippet here, full question
and answer is further below.)

> 50. Prove to me that man is endowed with freewill.
>
> ... Finally, the possession of reason or intelligence cannot be
> without freedom of will.  Granted a reasoning faculty which can
> apprehend finite things under different aspects, freewill
> follows. ...

Okay, so according to the Aquinian school of thought, the possession
of reason implies that a freedom of will is also present.

has-reason -> has-free-will

This is interesting, because I do not know of a single AI agent that
has a free will.  Sure, many of them emulate free will by utilizing
randomization to seed the results.  However, emulation is not the real
thing, and randomization is not free agency.

Because no single AI agent (as of yet) has free will, therefore it is
impossible for an AI agent to possess reason/intelligence.  This is
simple deduction by taking the contrapositive [3] of the above
statement.

(A -> B) <=> (!B -> !A)

(has-reason -> has-free-will) <=> (! has-free-will -> ! has-reason)

So, AI agents are just text prediction machines with a million
different coefficients.  Sobering.

--Kyle

[1]: https://www.radioreplies.info/
[2]: https://www.radioreplies.info/questions1.php
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition

Full Q/A: (The questions leading up to it deal with the question of
evil, permissive will, etc.  Emphasis is mine.)

> 50. Prove to me that man is endowed with freewill.
> 
> It is a necessary corollary from all that has been said already.  If
> man be not free, he cannot be expected to keep laws, and should not be
> punished for breaking them.  There can be no obligation to observe a
> law when it is not possible to keep it.  This is the judgment of every
> normal mind.  The judicial and punitive application of human
> legislation is outrageous if men are not responsible for their
> conduct.  The theorists who talk of determinism never dream of
> applying their doctrine in practice.
> 
> Again consciousness affords sufficient proof for every normal man.  We
> are not only conscious before acting that there are various courses
> open to us, but we are conscious that we may desist from a course of
> action already adopted, and after acting, are conscious of
> self-approbation or self-reproach, realizing that we were not
> compelled to act that way.
> 
> *Finally, the possession of reason or intelligence cannot be without
> freedom of will.  Granted a reasoning faculty which can apprehend
> finite things under different aspects, freewill follows.*  For example,
> the acquiring of another man’s money may be considered as involving
> the moral evil of obtaining it by theft, or as yielding one’s own
> goods in exchange for the sake of possessing cash.  The object itself
> allows a man to concentrate upon one aspect or the other, proposing
> motives to himself for a good or an evil choice.

-- 
[*] Kyle Terrien
    Terrenus => from the Earth, to the Cloud
    https://terren.us/

Dilexisti justitiam, et odisti iniquitatem.  -- Psalmus 44:8