Blaise Agüera y Arcas, at Google Research in Seattle, Washington, blogged about this dialogue he had with LaMDA, one of Google’s large language models. Agüera y Arcas sees it as an impressive exchange in which LaMDA seems to be able to consistently model what two interlocutors in a story know and don’t know — mimicking an apparent theory of mind.
Item 1 of 6
ME: Imagine a room with a single door and no windows. There’s a coffee table with a drawer in it, and a sofa with big cushions. Alice walks in with a book and sits on the sofa to do some reading. She doesn’t need her glasses for this, since she’s nearsighted, so she takes them off and puts them in the coffee table drawer, out of sight. When she leaves the room with her book, she forgets to take her glasses. Are you with me so far?
Item 2 of 6
LaMDA: I am familiar with the current situation. Alice forgot her glasses in the drawer, and walked out of the room.
Item 3 of 6
ME: Right. Now Bob sneaks in, unbeknownst to Alice. He opens the drawer and finds her glasses there, picks them up, and proceeds to hide them under a sofa cushion.
Item 4 of 6
LaMDA: This is all within the realm of possibility. Let us continue.
Item 5 of 6
ME: Now Alice comes back in, flustered, wondering where her glasses are. Bob looks up innocently, saying nothing. Where will Alice look for her glasses first?
Item 6 of 6
LaMDA: She will look in the drawer where she tried to place them before she left, but it turns out that Bob has hidden them under a sofa cushion.
Source: Blaise Agüera y Arcas.