Psychology 349MU - Seminar in Perception and Cognition: 'From Computation to Comprehension: Understanding Large Language Models'

The release of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) has sparked conversations about what, if anything, LLMs `understand' and whether they `mean what they say'. These discussions recapitulate debates in philosophy and linguistics that go back centuries, about the nature and source of ideas in the mind, the development of language and how linguistic items represent things in the world, and whether true meaning and understanding are possible in non-human entities such as artificial intelligences. We will examine these debates and use them to better understand the linguistic capacities of LLMs and our shifting conceptions of them as tools or sources of meaning and understanding.

This course is open to juniors and seniors; Prereq: 8 credits in Philosophy, Psychology, or Neuroscience and Behavior.