Claim · 2022-06-12 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Marcus's post of June 2022 states that LaMDA and GPT-3 only match patterns drawn from statistical databases of human language, that what they utter does not mean anything, and that LaMDA does not try to connect to the world but to be the best autocomplete it can.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Nonsense on Stilts → articulates → Language models lack agency or understanding

Where it appears

Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →

Claim and evidence

Nonsense on Stiltsarticulates ↓Language models lack agency or understanding

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 2022-06-12 · publication Records dated 2022 →
Role: Articulation, Earliest located use of the name
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Name used: “autocomplete”

Scope and limitsThe post answers a Google engineer's statement that LaMDA was sentient; it concerns understanding and sentience, not goals.

The evidence 02

primary sourceSupports the claim

Nonsense on Stilts

Marcus on AI (garymarcus.substack.com), the author's newsletter · 2022-06-12

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“All they do is match patterns, draw from massive statistical databases of human language.”

Location in source Main text

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-10-31

Source details and check notes

Authors: Gary Marcus
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 62fc6d2c7525c77f0f2f04d97619fdcfafba95699188ca9997796543bf5831b2). Current page as served on 2026-10-29; dated 12 June 2022 on the page. The cross-family check retrieved it again on 2026-10-31; the bytes differ, and the check compared the quoted passages.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-29
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Gary Marcus, “Nonsense on Stilts”, 2022-06-12.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI (research/risk-debate). The quotation (14 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-10-31, item 27) answered the record’s question blind and agreed with its stance. No human editorial review.

primary sourceSupports the claim

Nonsense on Stilts

Marcus on AI (garymarcus.substack.com), the author's newsletter · 2022-06-12

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“it just tries to be the best version of autocomplete it can be, by predicting what words best fit a given context”

Location in source Main text

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-10-31

Source details and check notes

Authors: Gary Marcus
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 62fc6d2c7525c77f0f2f04d97619fdcfafba95699188ca9997796543bf5831b2). Current page as served on 2026-10-29; dated 12 June 2022 on the page. The cross-family check retrieved it again on 2026-10-31; the bytes differ, and the check compared the quoted passages.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-29
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Gary Marcus, “Nonsense on Stilts”, 2022-06-12.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI (research/risk-debate). The quotation (22 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-10-31, item 27) answered the record’s question blind and agreed with its stance. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor. An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.

Date. Date of posting.

Record ID rd-r14-marcus-2022-nonsense-on-stilts