In some ways no, because to learn something you have to LEARN that then thats in the training data. But humans can do it continuously and sometimes randomly, and also being without prompted.
In some ways no, because to learn something you have to LEARN that then thats in the training data. But humans can do it continuously and sometimes randomly, and also being without prompted.
If you're a scientist -- and in many cases if you're an engineer, or a philosopher, or even perhaps a theologian -- your job is quite literally to add to humanity's training data.
I'd add that fiction is much more complicated. LLMs can clearly write original fiction, even if they are, as yet, not very good at it. There's an idea (often attributed to John Gardner or Leo Tolstoy) that all stories boil down to one of two scenarios:
> "A stranger comes to town."
> "A person goes on a journey."
Christopher Booker wrote that there are seven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots
So I'd tentatively expect tomorrow's LLMs to write good fiction along those well-trodden paths. I'm less sanguine about their applications in scientific invention and in producing original music.