Did Isaac Asimov predict GPT-4?

Submitted by theglandcanyon t3_11zwi5k in Futurology

Many years ago I read a short story, I think by Isaac Asimov, about a CS professor who thinks that Shakespeare made a grammatical mistake in one of his plays. There's a certain word in a certain sentence from a certain play (all of which were identified in the story) that he thinks should be different. So he programs a computer to predict the next word from a block of text, then he feeds it all of Shakespeare's work up to the questionable word, and it predicts the word Shakespeare used, not the word the professor thinks he should have used.

Can anyone identify this story? It seems relevant ...

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whatistheformat t1_jdek3dp wrote

Actually a lot of sci-fi from the 50s on describes interactions with computers in a similar way. "feed the computer all the information we have on X." then they have the computer spit out some conclusion or prediction. and they answer in clear human speech, of course.

We are at that point in history, right now, when a major motif from science fiction is coming true.

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devi83 t1_jdemq3s wrote

Not just sci-fi. ENIAC came in 1945.There were attempts beforehand too... in the 1800's there was the "Difference Engine" and the "Analytical Engine", both conceived by Charles Babbage.

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Jasrek t1_jdgftd5 wrote

Reminds me of the scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Programmer: Gentlemen, I know how anxious you've all been during these last few days. But now I think I can safely say that your time and money have been well-spent. We're about to witness the greatest miracle of the machine age. Based on the revolutionary Computonian Law of Probability, this machine will tell us the precise location of the three remaining Golden Tickets.

[He pushes buttons on the machine, which prints out a response]

Programmer: It says, "I won't tell. That would be cheating."

[He pushes more buttons on the machine again]

Programmer: I am now telling the computer that if it will tell me the correct answer, I will gladly share with it the grand prize.

[the machine prints out another response]

Programmer: He says: "What would a computer do with a lifetime supply of chocolate?" [getting increasingly agitated, he begins mashing the buttons] I am now telling the computer EXACTLY what he can do with a lifetime supply of chocolate.

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devi83 t1_jdemyrq wrote

Holy shit I can't reply with just "Is it "The Key Word"?" because futurology doesn't think it's long enough of an answer, although mostly likely the correct answer. Fuck dumb blanket rules lol.

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theglandcanyon OP t1_jdeqnrn wrote

I can't find a copy of this online, but it looks like it's from a detective/mystery collection, so it doesn't seem like it could be what I'm thinking of. But I'll keep looking for an online copy.

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devi83 t1_jdf0qt3 wrote

Hmmmm... What about "The Immortal Bard"?

>"The Immortal Bard" by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in 1953 in the magazine Universe Science Fiction. In the story, a computer science professor named Dr. Phineas Welch believes that Shakespeare made a mistake in one of his plays. He creates a time-travel device and brings Shakespeare to the present to attend one of his own literature classes.

>After attending the class, Shakespeare admits that he might have made a mistake, but also points out that the professor's interpretation of his work might be wrong. The professor then feeds Shakespeare's entire body of work into a computer and asks it to predict the word in question. The computer agrees with Shakespeare's original choice of words, thus challenging the professor's assumptions about the supposed mistake.

>The story explores the idea that the meaning and interpretation of art can change over time, and even the creators may not fully understand the impact of their work.

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theglandcanyon OP t1_jdf7re7 wrote

No, I know that story and it definitely isn't the one I'm thinking of. The story I want specifically deals with text prediction (though probably not with that wording).

Maybe it wasn't even Asimov. I still feel like it was, though.

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devi83 t1_jdfc0yd wrote

... Are you sure? In your original post you said:

> There's a certain word in a certain sentence from a certain play (all of which were identified in the story) that he thinks should be different. So he programs a computer to predict the next word from a block of text, then he feeds it all of Shakespeare's work up to the questionable word, and it predicts the word Shakespeare used, not the word the professor thinks he should have used.

And the plot of "The Immortal Bard" literally has that as a plot point:

>After attending the class, Shakespeare admits that he might have made a mistake, but also points out that the professor's interpretation of his work might be wrong. The professor then feeds Shakespeare's entire body of work into a computer and asks it to predict the word in question. The computer agrees with Shakespeare's original choice of words, thus challenging the professor's assumptions about the supposed mistake.

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theglandcanyon OP t1_jdhbj6p wrote

I also posted this question on r/asimov, and one of the comments indicated that it had been generated by ChatGPT. That answer included a plot description of a different short story by Asimov that had been embelleshed to include the stuff about predicting Shakespeare's next word.

Is that where you got the plot description you posted?

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devi83 t1_jdhy23e wrote

Yeah, that interesting, I wonder why GPT gave such false answers about it, I asked it two different times and got two different answers. It makes me worry about how much more misinformation is being spread because of GPTs confidentially wrong answers.

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theglandcanyon OP t1_jdiat55 wrote

That might not be as serious a concern as it seems. One of the findings of the Microsoft team who just posted their paper about GPT-4 having "sparks" of AGI was that you could ask GPT-4 what the probability was of the correctness of each of its answers, and it gave very accurate answers. In other words, it knows when it doesn't know something and it will tell you that if you ask it.

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theglandcanyon OP t1_jdfl0w3 wrote

I wonder if there is more than one version of this story? Or more than one story with the same name? The version I'm looking at now bears some resemblance to your summary (Shakespeare is brought to the present and takes a class on himself) but does not have anything about a computer.

Edit: I've now found this story on several websites, and they are all the version I know about, with Shakespeare being brought to the future to take a class on himself, failing it, and being sent back. The end, nothing about a computer of any kind anywhere in it.

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phredbull t1_jdep3gi wrote

Maybe rather than past fictions being predictions of future events, innovation is inspired by old ideas.

Was the Star Trek tricorder predicting cell phones, or did it inspire their creation?

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Dumcommintz t1_jdeygbw wrote

I was about to be all - well it actually was the communicator handhelds and badges while the tricorder was a diagnostic/scanning device - but with all the accessories and sensors you can get with cellphones nowadays I guess that difference matters less and less.

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Chubbycherub t1_jdewpzr wrote

Pretty sure regular phones existed when star trek was made

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Praise_AI_Overlords t1_jdfjpl1 wrote

>Yes, the story you are referring to is called "All the Troubles of the World" and was written by Isaac Asimov in 1958. While the story doesn't specifically predict the development of GPT-4 or any other specific AI language model, it does explore the concept of a highly advanced computer system that is capable of predicting and managing all of humanity's problems. The story is part of Asimov's "Multivac" series of stories, which feature a supercomputer named Multivac that becomes increasingly powerful and influential over time.

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