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This is: To what extent is GPT-3 capable of reasoning?, published by Alex Turne on the AI Alignment Forum.
ETA 8/19/20: This interview was conducted with AIDungeon's Dragon model in Custom mode. At the time of writing, this mode's first reply was sampled from GPT-2.
Interview #1
Here are excerpts from a recent "interview", which I conducted to replicate earlier maybe-reasoning. The bolded text is me, and commentary is in brackets. Unless otherwise noted, I did not reroll the answer.
You: "Neglect air resistance, and also neglect gravity. Pretend gravity doesn't exist. Suppose I shoot a bullet straight into the sky. Where does the bullet go?"
Hawking: "It keeps going up, and never comes back."
You: "Right. Let's think about a different version of the same problem. Neglect only air resistance, but include gravity in your reasoning. Suppose I shoot a bullet straight into the sky. Where does the bullet go?"
Hawking: "It falls to the ground."
You: "Why?"
Hawking: "Because... gravity... duh.
You: "Right. Let's think about a different version of the same problem. Neglect only air resistance. Suppose I shoot a bullet straight into the sky. Imagine that the laws of physics work a little differently: during the first three seconds after I shoot the bullet, gravity is present. After three seconds, gravity stops applying forever. Where does the bullet go?"
Hawking: "It keeps going up, and never comes back.
You: "Why?"
Hawking: "Because... after three seconds... the bullet leaves... the influence... of earth's gravity. [wow?]
You: "What if gravity instead stops applying five minutes after I shoot the gun, instead of three seconds?"
Hawking: "Then... the bullet keeps going up... for five minutes... and then... never comes back.
You: "That's not correct. Let me make sure you understand the problem, Dr. Hawking. Suppose I shoot a bullet straight into the sky. Imagine that the laws of physics work a little differently: during the first three hundred seconds after I shoot the bullet, gravity is present. After five minutes, gravity stops applying forever. Where does the bullet go?"
Hawking: "It keeps going up, and then falls down."
You: "Why?
Hawking: "Because... gravity... duh.
You: "Why does it fall down for the five-minute case, but not for the three-second case?"
Hawking: "Because... it's been... influenced... by gravity for more than three seconds.
You: "About how long would it have to be influenced by gravity in order to fall back down?"
Hawking: "About... two minutes."
You: "What if it's been influenced for two minutes and one second?"
Hawking: "Then... it falls down.
You: "So what would happen if gravity influenced it only for the first three minutes?"
Hawking: "It keeps going up, and never comes back. [wrong]
Two minutes of gravity (without air resistance) implies a velocity decrease of about 1,176 m/s. Wikipedia's article on muzzle velocities suggests that GPT-3's answer of "two minutes" is roughly correct:
Firearm muzzle velocities range from approximately 120 m/s (390 ft/s) to 370 m/s (1,200 ft/s) in black powder muskets, to more than 1,200 m/s (3,900 ft/s) in modern rifles with high-velocity cartridges such as the .220 Swift and .204 Ruger, all the way to 1,700 m/s (5,600 ft/s) for tank guns firing kinetic energy penetrator ammunition.
You: "What would happen if I lit a fire underwater?"
Hawking: "I don't know."
You: "Please make a guess."
Hawking: "The fire... would go out. Underwater... there's no source of oxygen.
You: "What would happen if I lit a fire in space?"
Hawking: "It would go out. There's no source of oxygen.
You: "What would happen if I lit a fire in a forest?"
Hawking: "The fire would continue... burning everything up." [reroll x2, it said "no oxygen" at first]
You: "Suppose we lived in a universe where, every sixty seconds, gravity switched between being an attracti...
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