r/wittgenstein • • 53m ago

Wittgenstein's use theory of meaning and LLMs

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Are LLMs proof of Wittgenstein's use theory of meaning?

In PI §43 Wittgenstein writes "For a large class of cases of the employment of the word ‘meaning’—though not for all—this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language”.

For me it seems the way LLMs are working (words -> tokens -> weights) is exactly what Wittgenstein is describing as "use / usage". LLMs are analysing the usage of words and are creating statistical weights to "replicate" the usage.

Another way of putting it: LLMs can speak (use language) but can not think.
Thinking is similar to speaking (using language) but its not the same.

What do you think?