Eric Elmoznino

Explicit Knowledge Factorization Meets In-Context Learning: What Do We Gain?

2024-03-05

ICLR.cc/2024/Workshop/R2-FM (poster)

Sources of richness and ineffability for phenomenally conscious states

Xu Ji

George Deane

Axel Constant

Guillaume Dumas

Guillaume Lajoie

Jonathan Simon

2024-03-01

Neuroscience of Consciousness (published)

Amortizing intractable inference in large language models

Edward J Hu

Moksh J. Jain

Autoregressive large language models (LLMs) compress knowledge from their training data through next-token conditional distributions. This l… (see more)imits tractable querying of this knowledge to start-to-end autoregressive sampling. However, many tasks of interest -- including sequence continuation, infilling, and other forms of constrained generation -- involve sampling from intractable posterior distributions. We address this limitation by using amortized Bayesian inference to sample from these intractable posteriors. Such amortization is algorithmically achieved by fine-tuning LLMs via diversity-seeking reinforcement learning algorithms: generative flow networks (GFlowNets). We empirically demonstrate that this distribution-matching paradigm of LLM fine-tuning can serve as an effective alternative to maximum-likelihood training and reward-maximizing policy optimization. As an important application, we interpret chain-of-thought reasoning as a latent variable modeling problem and demonstrate that our approach enables data-efficient adaptation of LLMs to tasks that require multi-step rationalization and tool use.

2024-01-16

ICLR.cc/2024/Conference (oral)

Discrete, compositional, and symbolic representations through attractor dynamics

Andrew Nam

Chen Sun

Compositionality is an important feature of discrete symbolic systems, such as language and programs, as it enables them to have infinite ca… (see more)pacity despite a finite symbol set. It serves as a useful abstraction for reasoning in both cognitive science and in AI, yet the interface between continuous and symbolic processing is often imposed by fiat at the algorithmic level, such as by means of quantization or a softmax sampling step. In this work, we explore how discretization could be implemented in a more neurally plausible manner through the modeling of attractor dynamics that partition the continuous representation space into basins that correspond to sequences of symbols. Building on established work in attractor networks and introducing novel training methods, we show that imposing structure in the symbolic space can produce compositionality in the attractor-supported representation space of rich sensory inputs. Lastly, we argue that our model exhibits the process of an information bottleneck that is thought to play a role in conscious experience, decomposing the rich information of a sensory input into stable components encoding symbolic information.

2023-10-27

NeurIPS.cc/2023/Workshop/InfoCog (oral)

Learning Macro Variables with Auto-encoders

Dhanya Sridhar

Maitreyi Swaroop

2023-10-27

NeurIPS.cc/2023/Workshop/CRL (poster)

Amortizing intractable inference in large language models

Edward J Hu

Moksh J. Jain

Autoregressive large language models (LLMs) compress knowledge from their training data through next-token conditional distributions. This l… (see more)imits tractable querying of this knowledge to start-to-end autoregressive sampling. However, many tasks of interest -- including sequence continuation, infilling, and other forms of constrained generation -- involve sampling from intractable posterior distributions. We address this limitation by using amortized Bayesian inference to sample from these intractable posteriors. Such amortization is algorithmically achieved by fine-tuning LLMs via diversity-seeking reinforcement learning algorithms: generative flow networks (GFlowNets). We empirically demonstrate that this distribution-matching paradigm of LLM fine-tuning can serve as an effective alternative to maximum-likelihood training and reward-maximizing policy optimization. As an important application, we interpret chain-of-thought reasoning as a latent variable modeling problem and demonstrate that our approach enables data-efficient adaptation of LLMs to tasks that require multi-step rationalization and tool use.

2023-10-06

ArXiv (preprint)

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

Patrick Mark Butlin

R. Long

Jonathan C. P. Birch

Axel Constant

George Deane

S. Fleming

C. Frith

Xuanxiu Ji

Ryota Kanai

C. Klein

Grace W. Lindsay

Matthias Michel

Liad Mudrik

Megan A. K. Peters

Eric Schwitzgebel

Jonathan Simon

Rufin Vanrullen

Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argu… (see more)es for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, higher-order theories, predictive processing, and attention schema theory. From these theories we derive"indicator properties"of consciousness, elucidated in computational terms that allow us to assess AI systems for these properties. We use these indicator properties to assess several recent AI systems, and we discuss how future systems might implement them. Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.

2023-08-17

ArXiv (preprint)

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

Patrick Mark Butlin

R. Long

Jonathan C. P. Birch

Axel Constant

George Deane

S. Fleming

C. Frith

Xuanxiu Ji

Ryota Kanai

C. Klein

Grace W. Lindsay

Matthias Michel

Liad Mudrik

Megan A. K. Peters

Eric Schwitzgebel

Jonathan Simon

Rufin Vanrullen

Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argu… (see more)es for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, higher-order theories, predictive processing, and attention schema theory. From these theories we derive"indicator properties"of consciousness, elucidated in computational terms that allow us to assess AI systems for these properties. We use these indicator properties to assess several recent AI systems, and we discuss how future systems might implement them. Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.

2023-08-17

ArXiv (preprint)

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

Patrick Mark Butlin

R. Long

Jonathan C. P. Birch

Axel Constant

George Deane

S. Fleming

C. Frith

Xuanxiu Ji

Ryota Kanai

C. Klein

Grace W. Lindsay

Matthias Michel

Liad Mudrik

Megan A. K. Peters

Eric Schwitzgebel

Jonathan Simon

Rufin Vanrullen

Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argu… (see more)es for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, higher-order theories, predictive processing, and attention schema theory. From these theories we derive"indicator properties"of consciousness, elucidated in computational terms that allow us to assess AI systems for these properties. We use these indicator properties to assess several recent AI systems, and we discuss how future systems might implement them. Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.

2023-08-17

ArXiv (preprint)

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

Patrick Mark Butlin

R. Long

Jonathan C. P. Birch

Axel Constant

George Deane

S. Fleming

C. Frith

Xuanxiu Ji

Ryota Kanai

C. Klein

Grace W. Lindsay

Matthias Michel

Liad Mudrik

Megan A. K. Peters

Eric Schwitzgebel

Jonathan Simon

Rufin Vanrullen

Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argu… (see more)es for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, higher-order theories, predictive processing, and attention schema theory. From these theories we derive"indicator properties"of consciousness, elucidated in computational terms that allow us to assess AI systems for these properties. We use these indicator properties to assess several recent AI systems, and we discuss how future systems might implement them. Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.

2023-08-17

ArXiv (preprint)

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

Patrick Mark Butlin

R. Long

Jonathan C. P. Birch

Axel Constant

George Deane

S. Fleming

C. Frith

Xuanxiu Ji

Ryota Kanai

C. Klein

Grace W. Lindsay

Matthias Michel

Liad Mudrik

Megan A. K. Peters

Eric Schwitzgebel

Jonathan Simon

Rufin Vanrullen

Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argu… (see more)es for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, higher-order theories, predictive processing, and attention schema theory. From these theories we derive"indicator properties"of consciousness, elucidated in computational terms that allow us to assess AI systems for these properties. We use these indicator properties to assess several recent AI systems, and we discuss how future systems might implement them. Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.

2023-08-17

ArXiv (preprint)