Do AI language models 'understand' the real world? On a basic level they do, suggests study

Most of what AI chatbots know about the world comes from devouring massive amounts of text from the internet—with all its facts, falsehoods, knowledge and nonsense. Given that input, is it possible that AI language models have an "understanding" of the real world? As it turns out, they do—or at least something like an understanding. That's according to a new study by researchers from Brown University to be presented on Saturday, April 25 at the International Conference on Learning Representations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The study is published on the arXiv preprint server.