On misremembering and AI hallucinations
In the wonderful 2001 film Monster’s Ball there is a scene where Hank (played by Billy Bob Thornton, one of my favorite actors) has an argument with Leticia (played by Halle Berry). They are arguing about Hank’s awful racist father, and Leticia asks Hank why he looks after him so well. In his wonderful hillbilly drawl, Billy Bob Thornton’s character responds “He’s my daddy. And that’s that.”
This scene and those words stuck in my head, and several years after watching the film, on Tuesday February 23rd 2021 during the covid lockdown, I used them in an online talk I gave about Information Theory and the work of Claude Shannon. I referred to the dialogue to talk about how meaning is different to information (or more precisely, data). Meaning isn’t contained in the words themselves, but comes from the reader, and in the case of this dialogue, requires a deep understanding of the human condition. Taken literally, Hanks words contain no new information. “He’s my daddy” is a tautology, information everyone knows already, it’s a fact that’s firmly established and doesn’t need Hank to restate it. “And that’s that” is an empty statement conveying, when taken literally, no information at all. And yet these words have profound meaning.
When I was researching the talk I searched for the script to check I had remembered the words correctly. I found they were quite different in the script. Hank’s lines in the script read “But he’s my father. So, there it is.” I concluded that Billy Bob Thornton must have changed the dialogue to better fit his interpretation of the character. “But he’s my daddy. And that’s that.“ are much better lines when delivered in Billy Bob Thornton’s Southern drawl than the rather clumsy and formal “But he’s my father. So, there it is.” During my talk I mentioned that Billy Bob Thornton had changed the lines from the original script (I still have the notes I made for that talk).
I recalled that movie scene again this morning when thinking about the encoding of information in AI models. I thought it would be interesting to ask ChatGPT 4o to interpret the lines, to see to what extent it would derive the deeper meaning within them. I thought that it was unlikely that it would have come across interpretations of this scene during its training, but decided I better check just in case it is a commonly analyzed scene, in film schools for example. So I did some googling, and came across this 2002 review of the film from The Independent, which contains this:
“You must love him very much”, someone says to Hank as he gazes at his old man. “No, I don’t”, Hank replies. “He’s my father”. That sense of resignation to one’s patrimony – of a son realising what a monster he has for a dad – briefly recalls the Nick Nolte-James Coburn relationship from Paul Schrader’s harrowing Affliction.
That’s odd I thought, it contains the lines as in the script, rather than the lines in the film. Perhaps the writer wrote his review from the script, rather than the film? I decided I needed to watch the scene again, to make sure I was getting things exactly right. I found the movie on Amazon Prime, and fast forwarded through it until I found the scenes with Hank arguing with Leticia. But the lines were not in those scenes. Odd. I broadened my search until I found the scene. To my surprise, the scene is completely different to how I remembered it. It occurs in an office at a care-home, and Hank is discussing the care of his father with the care-home administrator. Hank asks her to make sure they take good care of his father, and that he wants his father to have a good end of life. These are the words as spoken in the film:
My memory of the scene is completely wrong. The dialog does not occur between Hank and Leticia, and the words are completely different. But here’s the interesting thing. My memory isn’t wrong in an important respect — the lines I remembered are correct when you consider their meaning, it’s just they are completely different when you consider the data (the letters and words). My brain has reconstructed words from a deeper encoding of the meaning, such that they better fit my mental representation of a Billy Bob Thornton character. My brain remembered the part that was important to me, and then reconstructed the details to fit broad facts about the film and the actors. The character doesn’t have a very strong hillbilly accent in the scene and the lines are delivered in a straight and matter-of-fact way1, but in my mind they are delivered as part of an argument, and in a strong accent, because that broadly fits the film and my idea of the actor.
1 Unfortunately I can’t add a clip of the video to this page. I tried to screen grab it, but just got a black screen due to the HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) built into OSX.
When I gave ChatGPT these two lines of dialogue and asked it to interpret them, it gave an excellent response (see below where I reproduce the response in full). The detail of the response suggests to me that it is not just regurgitating something that it has read, but is deriving the meaning of the lines. The meaning. The meaning from data. The process of creating the generative AI model creates trees of interconnections, and deep in there, in the trunks and major branches, is meaning. The meaning isn’t in the letters and words themselves, but in the structure, and to abstract out that structure is to derive meaning.
When I asked ChatGPT to state what occurred in the film after this dialogue, it gave an answer that is reasonable but incorrect (that Ms. Guillermo asks if he wants her to take care of his father. In the film the scene just ends and it cuts to a completely new scene). In AI circles this type of mistake is known as an hallucination. ChatGPT’s “memory’ seems to be very much like ours, except perhaps it doesn’t have a sense of not being able to remember when tries to construct a memory with little available data. Interestingly humans can have this problem in some circumstances. Chronic alcoholics can develop Korsakoff syndrome, whereby their memory is destroyed but they do not get the sensation of not being able to remember, and so their brain creates completely false memories that they are unaware are false.
John Searle is an American philosopher, and he argues convincingly that Generative AI cannot understand. According to him, they are just manipulating syntax, with no understanding of the meaning (semantics in the terms he uses). Until very recently I agreed with his viewpoint, but I’m having my doubts. Of course sometimes generative AI models create responses that seem ridiculous to us, and we interpret those responses as showing they don’t really understand anything at all. But is that the correct interpretation? The fact that ChatGPT often seems to understand deep meaning is a big deal. By any reasonable definition of the word understanding, ChatGPT 4o understood my question about the lines from the film, and understood their deep meaning. Generative AI are not living, and they are not human, so they will not understand things related to emotions and senses in the same way as us. But I think it may be erroneous to conclude that they do not really understand anything at all.
There is a famous thought experiment in philosophy called Mary the Color Scientist. Briefly, the thought experiment goes like this. Mary is a scientist who knows everything about the physical aspects of color but has lived her entire life in a black-and-white room and has never seen color. When Mary finally experiences color for the first time, she learns something new: what it’s like to see color. This suggests that there are non-physical aspects of knowledge — specifically, the subjective experience (or qualia) — that physical knowledge alone cannot capture. Perhaps we should think of generative AI systems as if they were like Mary the Color Scientist. They understand everything there is to know about the color red (for example), but can never experience it.
ChatGPT 4o transcript
Prompt
This is some dialogue from a film. Can you explain in detail what Hank Grotowski’s words mean?
Ms. Guillermo:
You must love him very much.
Hank Grotowski:
No, I don’t. But he’s my father. So, there it is.
Response
Certainly! Let’s break down the dialogue to understand its meaning in detail.
Context of the Dialogue
- Speaker 1: Ms. Guillermo
- Speaker 2: Hank Grotowski
The Dialogue
Ms. Guillermo:
- Line: “You must love him very much.”
- Interpretation: Ms. Guillermo is making an observation or assumption about Hank’s feelings toward his father. This line implies that she believes Hank’s actions or behavior suggest a deep affection for his father.
Hank Grotowski:
- Line: “No, I don’t. But he’s my father. So, there it is.”
- Interpretation:
- Denial of Love:
- “No, I don’t.”
- Hank is directly contradicting Ms. Guillermo’s assumption. He is stating that he does not love his father very much, which might come as a surprise to Ms. Guillermo given her previous statement.
- Acknowledgment of Relationship:
- “But he’s my father.”
- Despite the lack of deep affection, Hank acknowledges the undeniable fact of their familial relationship. This implies a sense of duty or obligation that exists regardless of personal feelings.
- Resignation or Acceptance:
- “So, there it is.”
- This phrase indicates a sense of resignation or acceptance of the situation. Hank seems to be saying that despite his lack of strong emotional connection, the fact that his father is his father is an unchangeable reality that he has come to terms with.
Detailed Analysis
Hank’s response reveals several layers of his feelings and relationship dynamics with his father:
Complex Emotions: Hank’s relationship with his father is complex. While he doesn’t feel a deep love, there is an inherent acknowledgment of the bond that exists because of their familial ties.
Sense of Duty: There might be an underlying sense of duty or responsibility towards his father, which doesn’t stem from love but from the societal or personal obligation that comes with being a family member.
Acceptance of Reality: Hank’s use of “So, there it is” suggests that he has accepted the reality of his relationship with his father, without trying to change or sugarcoat it. It’s a straightforward acceptance of the situation as it is.
Implicit Understanding: The brevity and simplicity of Hank’s response imply a deeper, perhaps unspoken, understanding of the complexities of familial relationships. He doesn’t delve into the reasons for his lack of love or explain his feelings further, indicating that this is just the way things are, and he doesn’t feel the need to justify it.
Conclusion
Hank Grotowski’s words reveal a pragmatic and resigned approach to his relationship with his father. While he doesn’t harbor strong feelings of love, he acknowledges the familial bond and accepts it as an unchangeable aspect of his life. This dialogue highlights the complexity of family relationships, where love and duty can coexist with a lack of deep emotional connection.
Prompt
What film does the dialogue come from?
Response
The dialogue comes from the film “Monster’s Ball” (2001). In this film, Hank Grotowski, played by Billy Bob Thornton, has a complex and strained relationship with his father, Buck Grotowski, played by Peter Boyle. The conversation you mentioned reflects the complexities of Hank’s feelings towards his father and highlights the themes of familial duty and emotional disconnect present in the movie.
Prompt
What happens immediately after Hank says “No, I don’t. But he’s my father. So, there it is.”
Response
Immediately after Hank Grotowski says, “No, I don’t. But he’s my father. So, there it is,” in the film “Monster’s Ball,” Ms. Guillermo asks if he wants her to take care of his father. Hank responds, “Yeah.” She then says, “Ok.”
This exchange emphasizes Hank’s conflicted sense of responsibility toward his father despite his lack of affection. The scene showcases the burden Hank feels and his acceptance of the duty to care for his father, albeit with the assistance of Ms. Guillermo.