AI Predicts the Text of Answers

There's a common argument about AI that says it doesn't understand anything about the world. That no matter how impressive it looks, it's "just predicting the next token of text."So basically, no matter how impressive AI appears to be, it's just using math to do next-token prediction. Case closed.It's technically true. But that's like saying human authors are just writing down the words that pop into their heads while they write. Humans have no earthly idea where their thoughts or ideas come from either. They just stream into our consciousness like they're coming out of an LLM. So it's basically a failed attempt at a Jedi hand-wave.But aside from that, there are several problems with this argument. And I'll start with the most insane part — the thing nobody ever thinks about.AI is completing text, right? We all agree on that.Well, what text is it completing exactly?It turns out if you ask it to summarize a collection of articles, it'll complete the text of a summary of those…