the extraordinary claim would be that LLMs can only do things they've seen before exactly, given the compositional and emergent capabilities we observe. The evidence suggests they can generalize beyond their training in meaningful ways, even if imperfectly...if a human came out living but with a brain that had zero electrical activity, that would be extraordinary, we normally come out with a baseline of pre-programming. I sometimes think this debate happens because humans don't want to admit we're nothing more than LLMs programmed by nature and nurture, human seem to want to be especially special.
>if a human came out living but with a brain that had zero electrical activity, that would be extraordinary, we normally come out with a baseline of pre-programming.
That statement reveals deep deficiencies in your understanding of biological neural networks. "electrical activity" is very different from "pre-programming". Synapses fire all the time, no matter if meaningfully pre-programmed or not. In fact, electrical activity decreases over time in a human brain. So, if anything, programming over time reduces electrical activity (though there is no established causal link).
> I sometimes think this debate happens because humans don't want to admit we're nothing more than LLMs programmed by nature and nurture, human seem to want to be especially special.
It's not specific to humans. But indeed, we don't fully understand how brains of humans, apes, pigs, cats and other animals really work. We have some idea of synapses, but there is still a lot unclear. It's like thinking just because an internal combistion engine is made of atoms, and we mostly know how atom physics and chemistry work, that any body with this basic knowledge of atom physics can understand and even build an ICE. Good luck trying. It's similar with a brain. Yes, synapses play a role. But that doesn't mean a brain is "nothing more than an LLM".
Neural activity begins around 6 weeks gestation, electrical patterns help establish basic neural circuits, activity dependent neural development shapes connectivity before any sensory input, critical periods where electrical activity literally sculpts brain architecture. Motor patterns get programmed before birth (why babies can suck, grasp, etc.), language processing areas develop structural biases before hearing language, visual cortex develops orientation maps before seeing anything, basic learning algorithms get "wired in" through developmental processes. If a human emerged, was able to function in the world, do things, but had zero electrical activity in the brain, that would be... normal? No: extraordinary.
Humans arrive out of the VJJ with innate neural architectures to be filled and developed - not literal blank slates, there is an OS. The electrical activity during development is literally the biological process that creates our "base programming." LLMs have architectural inductive biases (attention mechanisms, etc.), human brains have evolved architectural biases established through fetal development. We're both "pre-programmed" systems, just through different mechanisms.
Your response about "electrical activity decreases over time" is irrelevant - you weren't talking about adult brain activity, you were talking about the developmental process that creates our initial neural architecture.
tbh: I can't tell if you're engaging in good faith or not.
Claiming anything else requires a proof.