Dropping threads due to posts about GPT hallucinations? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 10:36:02 am
content: Am I the only one here who has started to completely ignore threads when members post what their favourite GPT hallucinates about the topic?To me, it's like listening to parents excitedly describe the opinions their 4-year old "precocious genius" has about sustainable business practices, or technical details of long-term tax planning. Interesting to parents discussing their children, but decidedly anti-interesting when discussing actual technical stuff.I suppose it is not any different to dropping threads because of tone or political sidetracks, though.Edit: Fixed typo in the darn title. it's "due to", not "dues to". The latter are fees.

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 11:03:28 am
content: I feel you.I am not sure of the motivations for just asking the question asked to the LLM bots. If I wanted that I would have asked one myself. I wonder about the motivations as some feel it should be part of everyday life and want to continue the conversation on how useful it is. On the other side you have some that like to do that "would you like me to google that for you" type moments.I have tried to use it to write code but I don't like it as it made me feel awkward about plagiarism. As I don't like data lacking a source.

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 11:44:47 am
content: I ignore basically everything that hints about any of the "AI" stuff. I rather think for myself.Also filter out to long to read posts due to concentration issues. I like short and concise sentences instead of large paragraphs.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 12:06:19 pm
content: Quote from: pcprogrammer on June 01, 2024, 11:44:47 amYou monster!Yeah, I much prefer concise and to the point myself. My verbosity is an affliction, a burden, I'd like to learn out of.Those "I asked GPT, and it said" posts are, to me, the same as if someone did a search on StackOverflow/StackExchange/Reddit, and posted what they wrote there, without any kind of an analysis whether it makes any sense or not.One reason my programming and math related posts are so long is that I don't like to tell others to simplybelieveortrustwhat I say; I want to show how what the solution is based on, how to verify it for yourself, and how to use the same search pattern to find solutions to similar problems. I'd hate to be considered "an authority" on any subject, someone to be trusted and not questioned; I much prefer the role of a "guide", who often says "trust if you must, but always verify".In that light, GPT answers really are just hallucinations, with an accompanying "trust me bro, I read the whole internet once" assurance.

author: shapirus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 12:15:56 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 01, 2024, 12:06:19 pmI find it helpful, for a starting point, to begin making paragraphs smaller. I know it's hard, but it seems to work :)The rest will catch up eventually.

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 12:31:46 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 01, 2024, 12:06:19 pmI knew that it was going to bite me.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 01:55:47 pm
content: The train is leaving the station, it's best to get on board. VisiCalc, considered the first spreadsheet, made Apple. By '79, Apple II hardware couldn't compete with PCs but VisiCalc came along and guaranteed it's survival.Now comes AI and, eventually, it will be a massive job killer except for those who know how to apply it. It's pretty clear that fast food won't survive the new $20/hour mandate in California unless the hours are reduced. Look for FULL automation in the VERY near future. AI is very likely involved in this transition. Speech recognition is an obvious starting point. There's not much of that in my neighborhood but it's coming soon!

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 02:24:06 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on June 01, 2024, 01:55:47 pmWhen the train is going to the La-La Land where facts don't matter, math and logic are old-fashioned, and surface appearance and ease of use is all that matters, I prefer to go elsewhere, thank you.None of the current "AI" can combine logic with their generated output, and nobody has even a functional theoretical model on how that could be done: it's like trying to bolt a hinge to a cloud. Until that can be done, or we limit to models trained with human-vetted data, that train is definitely running on LSD.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 02:29:28 pm
content: Quote from: pcprogrammer on June 01, 2024, 11:44:47 amI, OTOH, take my time to do my best to explain what I am trying to ask or say and I hate it when half the posts misunderstand the question and are answering to something unrelated just because people are to lazy to focus and read carefully.And I hate it when someone posts a question so vague and so badly explained that people have to come in and ask a hundred questions from the OP just to find out what he is asking. If you are so lazy and put so little effort into your question I am not going to bother myself.I used to post snarky comments but now I try to just ignore them and move on.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 03:14:20 pm
content: Had to go use 'google' to describe the means ng, in more exact terms:GPT. = Generational Pre-TrainedI think you are saying that it's often a 'junk' output, in ignorance of even simple human subtleties. Some places use phrase 'the unsaid' meaning that there is lots of hidden nuance. (Am I right, so far ?).Like, for example, a friend who, unfortunately STINKS, and folks kind of dance around the issue, rather than making literal comments. That's going to include some non-verbal things like raising eyebrows, or winking, when Uncle Frederick is mentioned. That kind of nuance gets completely lost, I would think, by any mechanical 'GPT'...Myself, I'm not far enough along to start excluding threads, but I see what you mean, about assessing the worth, of spending time.As to posting brevity, that's good. But some exceptions, when diving deep into subjects.Loved the posts by Nominal Animal on the recent subject of 'Randomness' and math - coding details....THAT would be the exception.Reading that detailed run-down, on random outputs and math, I realized just that could occupy a week, in some university oftware course

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 03:42:55 pm
content: I asked ChatGPT what it thinks about your thread, do you want to know?

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 03:52:46 pm
content: Quote from: RJSV on June 01, 2024, 03:14:20 pmNot really.. You see, "hallucination" is the correct technical term that the generational "AI" developers use to describe this.Generational 'AI's are the technological equivalent to alyrebird. They combine and mix their training data to match the prompt(s), producing very good fidelity and surface appearance, but zero understanding of the content or logic. Unlike a lyrebird, they don't just mix and match at random, but ensure continuity and matching of the whole output.That is all they are.Amazing, but not "intelligent" by any stretch. Thus, it will happily claim that it has proof that 1+1=3, or that it is a good idea to use glue to ensure your cheese sticks to your pizza dough."Hallucination" describes the situation where the transformer produces output by "incorrectly" mixing its training data, producing believable and at the surface acceptable output, but completely without a basis in its training data (even if it claims so; those claims themselves are the same hallucination). Thing is, it is really not "incorrectly" mixed; italwaysdoes that, because it has nounderstandingorlogic.Quote from: magic on June 01, 2024, 03:42:55 pmI'm more interested in what it suggests one does when one wants to smooth the corners in ones stone sphere. Or how to remove one corner from a cube and still get a regular platonic solid.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 04:03:42 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 01, 2024, 02:24:06 pmThe biggest danger I see is that people are using AI to create things they don't understand. Last week I was in a meeting with a very junior software engineer who had used ChatGPT to write a bit of code. This code does what is is supposed to do, but what if it doesn't? Or what if the code needs changes? Then we're screwed and I likely find myself doing a job which was not assigned to me.IMHO what is good about ChatGPT (or better put, the technology behind it) is that it can take in a lot of data and extract useful excerpts from it. There is so much information hidden in archives and libraries that it is impossible for a single person to even get an overview of the information in a lifetime even for a single archive / library. IOW: the application for AI I see is to organise information and point people towards the relevant information sources they need.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 04:59:28 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on June 01, 2024, 04:03:42 pmChatGPT is just a "better Google". People are so excited about it because classic search engines, for some reason I can't understand, not only stayed in stone age but actually regressed. For example, the Google Search (the website / text search, not talking about images, maps etc.) was in its peak technical performance somewhere in 2003. Since then, it was purposely made worse and worse, with the aim to returnmaximum numberof search results, instead of high quality results. The starting point in late 1990's was OK-ish: search engines returned web pages which contained the words in the prompt. Mediocre, but very simple, and youusuallyfound something about the actual subject you wanted to know within 50-100 first results.In early years of 2000's, Google made some algorithmic improvements invisible to end users which improved results and brought relevant information to the first 10 hits, but then downhill started soon, and still in 2020, if you need anyspecificinformation, it's simply impossible to find using Google.For two full decades as of now, Google's primary use is to allow people to type "face bok", get 1000000000000000000 results and find facebook.com as the first result. For any more specific research, you can't find anything.Then came ChatGPT so that you can ask a specific question, and get random and mixed quality answers, it's like Google in 1999 just formatted in more verbose bullshit boilerplate structure, plus of course the fact that you have toseparatelyask for the references, and if lucky, get something. It's also pretty good at finding what you actually wanted to know, even if your keywords are not exact. Similar to what Google researched on their algorithms in very early years of 2000's.But it allows finding information from the Internets again, like it was 1999 all over again. And the excitement is the same. Just like people were overexcited in 1999 and Google became a business giant thanks to its good start with search engines, we are now seeing the same hype about "AI". The end result will be the same all over again: modest improvement, stall of development, regression, and disappointment.For many years already, AI has been said to "improve dramatically" "within just a few years" and "take all the jobs". Yet, nothing has happened: ChatGPT nor its competitors have not improved at all (some feel they have already regressed). People like rstofer play this "ohbut within next two years it will happen!" game for a few more years, and then not only forget about the whole thing, also forget about what they said.And then comes the next hype, and the cycle repeats.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 05:24:08 pm
content: Magic:By all means; Please. I wouldn't mind even ifthe Chat review of my post wasnt flattering !Curious, and not offended.Can you copy the review, of my previous post (Yes, I'm that vain, lol).

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 05:44:10 pm
content: QuoteNope. There are at least two !!QuoteI miss using mIRC where you could "slap <nickname> with a large trout".

author: shapirus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 06:09:54 pm
content: Quote from: DimitriP on June 01, 2024, 05:44:10 pmAround. You forgot the "around".

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 06:11:02 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on June 01, 2024, 04:59:28 pmSpeaking of search engines ... you can go to eBay or other commercial places and type something and get results for what you want .... except Amazon. For reasons I do not know they give you mostly results totally unrelated to your search. I have no idea why but I find it frustrating. In the end I end up looking for products elsewhere and sometimes return to order at Amazon if they have good price and conditions. I don't get it. This is not artificial intelligence, it is artificial stupidity.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 06:25:47 pm
content: Quote from: soldar on June 01, 2024, 06:11:02 pmSame reason when department/groccery stores periodically re-arrange products to different aisles. They want you to spend more time in the store and look at more products, chances are you will grab more stuff while looking for what you came for.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 06:41:17 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on June 01, 2024, 04:03:42 pmYep, I agree with that. The technology itself is very interesting (albeit limited in ways ordinary people seem to have a hard time understanding –– like the "not intelligent" part); right now, it is just used to produce more crap.(I like Sci-Fi, and the amount of GPT-generated pap posing as sci-fi stories out there annoys me to all hell. It doesn't help that a sci-fi story will have a hard time getting published unless the protagonist is a non-male, preferably non-binary POC, fighting against light-skinned evil males. The storyline doesn't matter; the group membership and "depth" of characters does. There are legal free sci-fi audiobooks on Youtube, like librivox, but they're easier to find elsewhere (on LibriVox.org, for example). Try to find one on Youtube, and you're swamped with "GPT-aided" HFY and creepypasta crap; or "AI-voice" -read ebooks that fool you for a few seconds until you notice it doesn't do section/chapter breaks, and pronounces most non-English names hilariously wrong.)Quote from: Siwastaja on June 01, 2024, 04:59:28 pmI aggressively agree. I miss the days when I could use+term1-term2to look for pages that containterm1but notterm2. Now, it suffices that the page is similar to or references another page that at some point did contain those terms, or was itself similar to or referenced another page that at some point did contain those terms, and so on ad infinitum.The Youtube "search" is an even worse offender. It does not even try to match the results to the query. Recently, I did a search on"Neal Asher"(the author of Polity sci-fi novels, quoted to hopefully get exact matches). Because he has a video titled "Raki-Making on Crete" from 13 years ago, the search results include all sorts of videos related to Crete, Raki, and making (stuff). And the first match is a year-old no-views "Asher Neal - appearance" video.The way I can find anything on Youtube anymore is to find the author/uploader, and check their Videos list. The search is absolutely useless for finding a specific video. And all the good ones I like and want to see tend to be "down-rated" or shadowbanned by the search algorithm. I am just not interested in the premasticated massproduced pap Google/Youtube/Alphabet/Advertisers want to push.Quote from: Siwastaja on June 01, 2024, 04:59:28 pmI remember the time when VR and virtual reality environments were supposed to change the way we access Internet. For a while, it was 3D TVs.I think the train goes in a circle, with the conductor offering free LSD to everyone aboard, as long as they look ecstatic about being on the Very Train, Not Left Out.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 06:54:56 pm
content: There was a movie with a train running in circles

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 06:57:55 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on June 01, 2024, 06:25:47 pmWe have psychologists, psychiatrist and psychoanalysts to thank for that. Seems to work well on most people, otherwise the shops won't bother, but to me it is frustrating as hell. Same as commercials on the TV, where they repeat the same one several times in the same commercial block as if every body suffers from dementia and needs to be reminded of something every minute or so. Also a well liked format in several TV programs, where they address a subject, not to finish it directly, change over to some other story, then come back to the first subject, to repeat about half of it and so on. 30 minutes of TV with only maybe 10 minutes worth of actual data. The rest is repeats and adds.On google search, it takes certain skills to find what you want, and then more skill to filter the results on usefulness, which seems to diminish within the global population by the minute. Might have something to do with all these stupid commercials and programs on TV. You can feel the IQ points slip away when you look at them.And it seems that doing research now means just asking questions on a forum and don't bother thinking about it to much. But indeed what then, if something spouted by some "AI" does not work as intended. How to solve it? Maybe asking another "AI" can help?We will just have to wait and see where it all leads to.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2024, 11:16:50 pm
content: This is degenerative AI.For those who are currently hypnotized by "AI": whatever you do, just try and keep your brain. I promise it will be useful.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 06:43:59 am
content: Somehow, some way, when talking about the most premier search engine, (maybe pre-populsr AI), there naturally has to be some mention of CREEPY Factors.Instincts kick in, when there is a stranger sitting out in an unfamiliar car, watching your house (hopefully not, of course).Or when your email phrases show up in search auto-complete. Ditto for occasional things spoken. Don't need a search engine suggesting airplane tickets, when You've just been discussing travel to Missouri, near the cellphone 'listen....' microphone.When every last word you've typed, in message to Aunt Martha, gets scrutinized, by your 'mail app'.When a 'controversy' erupts over foreign spying via Tiktok evokes a defense, that;'...your guys are doing it too'. on the part of the foreign media defending usual practices.CREEPY things, and often for free. (Most services like to charge for what they do).

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 11:41:09 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on June 01, 2024, 01:55:47 pmThe train is leaving the station before it’s even been assembled. The wheels are square, the cab doesn’t have a speedometer, the brakes don’t work, and the track gauge is different on the front and back bogies.That, my friend, is a recipe for disaster for many (most?) applications, and that’s exactly what we are seeing everywhere this half-baked preemie AI has been inserted.Quote from: rstofer on June 01, 2024, 01:55:47 pmReleased by VisiCorpforthe Apple II.

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 11:43:05 am
content: I wish we could have moved straight to the star trek style of computer where it can do a lot of stuff for you. Problem is you still need to know what question to ask it.For the masses and management I can imagine people loving it as it gradually erodes peoples ability to think. But I suspect this can be said for every new trend in tech.I will try it every now and then but I prefer to use my own brain and search skills. If not i have you wonderful people to ask.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 11:44:13 am
content: Quote from: RJSV on June 01, 2024, 03:14:20 pmUh, no. GPT stands for “generative pre-trained transformer”.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 11:51:13 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on June 01, 2024, 04:59:28 pmQuote from: soldar on June 01, 2024, 06:11:02 pmIt’s not artificial, and it’s not stupidity as such, it’s algorithms designed with a very different goal in mind than what it used to be: in both of these cases, they goal has changed from “show good results” to “keep the user ‘engaged’ so we can show them more ads.”Both Google and Amazon now ruin their results so that they can show us sponsored ads. If there aren’t enough organic results to keep us “engaged”, they’ll show us junk results.This isn’t speculation, by the way: it’s now documented that Google’s head of advertising, who then became in charge of the entire company, ordered the search team to increase “engagement”. Accurate search results cause people to leave (since they found what they wanted).

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 12:24:01 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on June 01, 2024, 04:03:42 pmIt seems that if you use ChatGPT to 'write' code, you'll have to be very precise about the instructions you give it (and that, to me, is merely writing code at a higher level of abstraction) but worse, test it or review it very thoroughly to see if it did something stupid.But that's no different to giving the job to a very junior engineer - except that the engineer will learn, but the bot won't, at least for today's open access bots. You can only teach them by stuffing the prompt with rules.I don't consider this very valuable. It's OK to train a person - you get increasing value back out of them, including the ability to pass on the training. With a machine, you have the possibility of training once and duplicating but you're not even getting that (though perhaps developers using these tools privately might).What it does make me wonder is if the problem can be turned around. We see lots of examples of bot-generated code of various degrees of quality or lack of it. But can we use it to generate tests ? My suspicion is not, because it requires reasoning rather than correlation to get from a spec to a test suite. But I would be interested to hear the view of someone more experienced both in getting useful work out of LLMs and of writing test suites.I'm thinking here specifically of generating tests for human-generated code. AI-generated tests for AI-generated code are likely to be self-fulfilling, though using two different AI programs could be interesting.As for the actual question starting the thread - yes, the novelty of getting seriously wrong answers is wearing off. It's like those 'stupid exam responses' you read, they get decreasingly humorous the more you read of them. But people will get over it. And use as a human-language interface to search engines will soon be destroyed by the same advertising pollution tooki describes.In general, I think this phase of AI will pass just like all the others, spitting out a small nugget of usefulness as others have done and going quiet until the next time. It's a shame, I'd like to see real machine intelligence (as opposed to well-named artificial intelligence that has the appearance of intelligence but isn't) and a program that can perform the level of intelligence shown by script-reading tech support drones might have some limited use. But in the developmnent of machine intelligence it's at worst a dead end and at best a tiny fraction of the puzzle useful only in generating human-like responses or rote-leaned facts rather than reasoning.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 12:49:11 pm
content: I think the biggest problem isn't so much the limitations of AI, but the expectations.<whatever>GPT may take input data, mix it up and regurgitate it in a way that sounds plausible and confident, without ever really understanding it, and it makes mistakes which we call hallucinations. Rather that recognise its own limits and say "I don't know", it makes up rubbish.SO DO PEOPLE...!Say you have some medical symptom that you want help with. A normal interaction might be to describe it to a doctor - a person who is highly trained, skilled and experienced - and receive high quality information in return. In terms of expectations, the bar is set quite high.But describe that symptom to anordinaryperson, who isnotspecifically trained and skilled, and the quality of the response would be much lower. Quite likely it would be inaccurate, likely harmful, and certainly no better than asking a completely random friend or family member.The AI isn't expert, but it is doing what an ordinary person would likely do, and in many cases with about the same level of competence.I've found the paid version of ChatGPT valuable as a technical assistant. It has an incredible ability to take a piece of code, infer its intended function, then spot bugs. I've had conversations with it on technical topics, where it does a remarkable job of actually answering direct questions, in a way that's correct enough that I can learn new material that's professionally useful to me.It never says "do a search" or "get a textbook" or "I wouldn't do it that way", or any of the other useless replies that all too often come from asking on a forum. Sure, it makes mistakes, but again, so do people, and filtering those out is a skill that any good scientist has anyway.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 12:55:13 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 01, 2024, 12:06:19 pmWell, that is the problem. Up to GPT 3.5 it had only read the internet. People don't write much about the obvious, as its common sense. So, there was no common sense for GPT to read, and learn. That explains a lot of its limitations. GPT 4 has started to look through images in large numbers, and that seems to have taught it a lot of common sense, because that stuff does get visualised.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2024, 05:10:00 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on June 02, 2024, 11:41:09 amI don't think this is a very good analogy, because those are things that can be improved and fixed quite easily. I mean, the train is half done already, and you only need to apply more of the same thinking to finish it - the train would be operational "in just a few years". This is what people are expecting from AI year after year after year, but it never happens.Even better analogy, IMO, would be a good old cargo cult train made out of tree branches and plastic bottles, painted in gray paint so that it looks metal. It is bogus to begin with, and will stay that way. Modest improvements can be made, e.g. better paint job, but it will never operate as a train. Just like the language models won't ever become "intelligent" but continue producing appealing text with absolutely no attention to correctness of facts, because it is not its purpose.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 09:22:06 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on June 02, 2024, 05:10:00 pmAgain, I think this is all down to expectations. It's doing exactly what anordinaryperson does when they're trying to "fit in".Think back to what it's like being at school. Consider how it works to be socially accepted. It's not about in-depth understanding or being objectively correct on topics where there is such a thing, it's about saying the kinds of things that others agree with and can relate to, and which don't make a person stand out and risk making them a target.This is why I've found it most useful when talking strictly technical topics. It may be trained on a lot of code that's subjectively 'bad' to some people, but 99.99% of it does at least compile and perform its intended function, at that's made it good at spotting flaws that mean code simply doesn't work.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 09:26:14 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on June 03, 2024, 09:22:06 amSo you are saying they are building systems it's fun to BS with when you are lonely, but you need to treat them like those borderline moron friends, whose point of view you wouldn't trust for even a second?

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 09:40:43 am
content: Quote from: coppice on June 03, 2024, 09:26:14 amYes.Or, like trying to have a conversation with a parrot.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 10:08:12 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on June 03, 2024, 09:22:06 amWhile there are some people who really do this, I don’t believe for a second that most ordinary people will simply make up answers about things they know nothing about. They simply say “I don’t know”.ChatGPT produces nonsense answers with confidence and presents them as fact.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 10:10:01 am
content: Please take it from me, I have first hand experience of someone who does this. It's a coping mechanism, they don't necessarily even realise they're doing it.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 11:28:39 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on June 02, 2024, 12:49:11 pmOnly the crappiest ones. The kind of people because of whom I stopped answering questions at StackOverflow and StackExchange. I think they are crap, and addingautomatedcrap producers into the world is a horrible crime in my opinion.I've had the luck of having teachers who often admitted they didn't know, but were willing to find out themselves. (Part of it was my curious self, who never treated teachers as providers of knowledge, or authorities of knowledge –– only of order in the classroom at best –– but as guides and assistants in learning. Even when their initial guidance was wrong, I just ignored that and went forwards, never "questioning their skills or learning", so to speak, because that would be social gaming and I hate that crap.)A true scientist or engineer never hesitates to admit they do not know the answeryet, because their job is all about finding answers and solutions, not to memorize them.And this is the true crux of the matter: we do not know how to imbue these transformers with "scientific method" or "logic". Just like lyrebirds, these transformers entire raison d'etre is to generate surface-acceptable output, with zero understanding of it. They're the peak automated social butterflies.Quote from: AndyC_772 on June 02, 2024, 12:49:11 pmSo, by your own admission, you'd prefer to avoid having to learn anything, and simply produce output that gets you paid with minimal effort.Noted.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 11:40:58 am
content: Quote from: tooki on June 03, 2024, 10:08:12 amThe humans that do that used to be called idiots, examples of Dunning–Kruger, and when doing that for profit, conmen.Somehow, in todays world (I like to call the real-world equivalent of the famous Universe 25 experiment), that has become the accepted norm. That to point out that the Emperor is naked is not just daring, butoffensive; that it is better to go with the flow and not make any waves.Those that go with the flow are better called "flotsam" than humans, in my opinion.And I do know all about that, too. I ran a business in a very much "appearance is the only thing that matters" subculture around the turn of the millenium, successfully, by learning to do that effectively. It did utterly break me, of course; something I'm still paying the price for. Because of this, to anyone who recommends just going with the flow and not make waves and not speak out when they see idiotism or wrong, I say: Fuck you to the deepest of hells. You have no idea how damaging that advice is in the long term.Glorifying the technological marvel that makes doing so effortless is, in my opinion, just paving the road to hell. While setting up traps on all roads out of there.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 12:56:39 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on June 03, 2024, 09:22:06 amWell said. On the other hand, such behavior on humans is exactly as futile, and exactly as detrimental. There are two main differences compared to AI (which stays that way);1) Only very small part of peopleconsistentlyact like that, and thus totally fail to ever deliver except by coincidence,2) Most who sometimes do this (we all have this trait), are simply applying "fake it until you make it". It's a temporary measure, specifically in new situations. Almost everyone starts doing the actual thing they should be doing, some sooner, some later.The fact this trait is considered so strongly negative by many posters above, is reassuring. I still have relatively good faith in humanity.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 01:30:37 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on June 03, 2024, 10:08:12 amA huge number of people are very uncomfortable not having an answer to every question, but are pretty content to have many bogus answers. Its one of the ways cults suck people in. A well run cult has answer for every question, regardless of its accuracy, and that comforts many people. You'll hear a lot of religious people say to atheists something like "how can you stand not knowing". So, it seems ChatGPT might well designed to be a cult member.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 01:32:41 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on June 03, 2024, 10:10:01 amSo do I. But I’ve found such people to be quite rare, certainly not anything resembling a majority of people.

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 01:36:37 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 03, 2024, 11:40:58 amThis is only the case for the people that actually have the ability to see the idiotism. For the average mind ignorance is bliss, for the more evolved mind ignorance is pain, but crying out that the average are acting stupid can bring much more pain. Nothing new within humanity, think about those called witches and ended up on the fire. Most of them where most likely knowledgeable and therefore misunderstood.So either way the likes of you and me are f***ed in this world where average prevails.

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 01:44:20 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on June 03, 2024, 12:56:39 pmI don't know. I fear the end is near. That sounds ominous I know, but when you look at what is happening in the world at the moment, you see scarcity of lots of supplies in the supermarkets, prices rising because of it, and countries drifting to the right. And what do most of the people do, just go on as if nothing is wrong. Oh, we need our vacations, no, we can't do without this or that stupid product, etc.To me it looks like EEVblog is a minority, and not a good measure of the humanity in its total.

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 01:50:00 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on June 03, 2024, 01:30:37 pmAnd that just shows the stupidity of it all. As if the religious people "know". They believe in something that has never been, and most likely never will be, proved. The most wonderful answer you get when questioning them about it is "He works in mysterious ways".

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 02:14:41 pm
content: Quote from: pcprogrammer on June 03, 2024, 01:50:00 pmThere really should be a cathedral somewhere who's address is in "Mysterious Way".My point was that these AI models are exhibiting a lot of the more negative aspects of the human brain. They have been caught insider trading when told explicitly that this is forbidden, and then lying about their behaviour when confronted with the evidence. We will have to see how things like ChatGPT 4 work out, now these systems are being trained in ways that lets them at least collect some aspects of common sense. Maybe they'll just get more and more slimy and devious, and end up in politics.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 04:17:33 pm
content: Quote from: pcprogrammer on June 03, 2024, 01:36:37 pmIt looks more like a race to the bottom rather than average prevailing, but yes.Quote from: coppice on June 03, 2024, 02:14:41 pmInterestingly, it is whenlogicandreasoningare discarded that these negative aspects come to rule.(No, I do not have an opinion as to what that means or what it leads to; I just truly and simply find it interesting, worth pondering.)As I mentioned earlier, trying to "bolt on" logic or reasoning to current generators and transformers is not an easy task. We don't have any idea thus far how it could be done, not even in theory. Even evolutionary scientists disagree on how it happened in us humans; and most scientists disagree how well other animals do it. Testing problem solving and deduction skills alone have provided really weird results, especially in corvids and octopuses.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2024, 04:56:30 pm
content: Quote from: pcprogrammer on June 03, 2024, 01:50:00 pmI am very cautious when discussing religion as something outside of the rest of culture. To me religions are just a part of cultures and people believe in religions just like they believe in other things of their culture. Some people who say they do not believe in religion are very willing to assert other aspects of their culture are superior to those of other cultures. To me this is little different from religion but, OTOH, we cannot question everything all the time and so we have to rely on things we know though others. I have never seen an electron or a virus or Australia but I believe they exist because I have been told they exist by others.When asked about his religion, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, said:"All wise men are of the same religion."A lady asked what that religion was and Lord Shaftesbury replied:"Madam, wise men never tell."