4 ms·

After playing around with GPT-3 a bit, I've started to suspect a lot of humans are actually very good at manipulating semantic sentences, without necessarily un

After playing around with GPT-3 a bit, I've started to suspect a lot of humans are actually very good at manipulating semantic sentences, without necessarily understanding their content. It would explain why so many "smart" people will often speak long sentences that sound right, but have zero information content in them. Maybe it's just not that hard to construct grammatically and semantically correct, but zero information gain sentences, paragraphs, speeches (as in, very hard, but much much easier than thinking new novel thoughts).

crotho 4y ago
_hcuq 4y ago
Are you describing the article? ;
coreyisthename 4y ago
As a former technical writer for a major health insurance company, I can attest to this. After writing hundreds of massive documents, guides, tutorials, call scripts, policies and the like, I still had only a tenuous understanding of all the complex bullshit I was writing about. For that specific industry, the convoluted and needlessly complex garbage is absolutely by design, but it’s a similar concept, I think.
- pmayrgundter 4y ago
  Well, Devil's advocate, i think it's good to talk about stuff you don't understand. It's useful to practice declarative knowledge and hedging ignorance, in front of others, that we might tune into the useful level of understanding. Just to know what words are relevant, what biases are appreciated, what ignorance is allowed. We might even begin to understand the counterpoint for the OP: it takes time to digest change. Not everyone sees change the same. Maybe we've had enough radical futurism coming to roost; I think it's weird that dystopian sci-fi now feels normal and I can't watch old movies. Maybe you haven't had enough.. commute to manifest a heretofore only simulated job on Mars in your Tesla Boring Machine. Life is short, life is long.
throw149102 4y ago
According to the PIAAC, 54% of Americans are illiterate. That is, they are able to read simple things like menus, but they are not capable of synthesizing new information from multiple texts, or understanding the nuance of an authors argument. If I recall correctly, Americans scored an average of around 275/500, while the best scoring country, Finland, scored an average of 300/500. (This is a statistically significant jump, and causes a huge portion of those in Finland to not be considered illiterate, but they just begs the question of why the literacy cutoff is where it is.)
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  Functionally illiterate and illiterate are different concepts. If you can read a menu the thing that’s stopping you from reading and understanding a complex text isn’t about letters and sentences; it’s the inability to recurse on abstract thought and build complicated thoughts that depend on a body of knowledge. Eliding the difference between functional illiteracy and illiteracy confuses unnecessarily.
  - Teever 4y ago
    I think that this is a distinction without a difference in this context.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > If you can read a menu the thing that’s stopping you from reading and understanding a complex text isn’t about letters and sentences; it’s the inability to recurse on abstract thought and build complicated thoughts that depend on a body of knowledge. I can often do a decent job reading a menu in Chinese. A complex text would take hours per page and be totally opaque in many parts. (And partially opaque in probably the majority of the text.) I would argue that in fact what's stopping me from reading complex texts is lack of knowledge of the letters, the words, and the correct structure of sentences.
sharpneli 4y ago
This reminded me strongly of https://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/03/better-babblers.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/03/better-babblers.html which rings more and more true as time goes by.
- obblekk 4y ago
  Great read, thanks. Large babble models indeed.
taneq 4y ago
It’s not just easier than constructing novel thoughts - it’s safer, too. You get to leave the impression of being an eloquent, persuasive intellectual without any of the risk that comes with actually expressing something that people might then dislike.
jxramos 4y ago
Ha, the ability to toss word salads for a living.
zomglings 4y ago
There is a very useful metric that helps to understand how to listen to different people: "I have to listen carefully to <m> out of every <n> words they say." I particularly admire people for whom n is small and m/n is close to 1.

crotho 4y ago

_hcuq 4y ago

Are you describing the article? ;

coreyisthename 4y ago

As a former technical writer for a major health insurance company, I can attest to this. After writing hundreds of massive documents, guides, tutorials, call scripts, policies and the like, I still had only a tenuous understanding of all the complex bullshit I was writing about. For that specific industry, the convoluted and needlessly complex garbage is absolutely by design, but it’s a similar concept, I think.

pmayrgundter 4y ago
Well, Devil's advocate, i think it's good to talk about stuff you don't understand. It's useful to practice declarative knowledge and hedging ignorance, in front of others, that we might tune into the useful level of understanding. Just to know what words are relevant, what biases are appreciated, what ignorance is allowed. We might even begin to understand the counterpoint for the OP: it takes time to digest change. Not everyone sees change the same. Maybe we've had enough radical futurism coming to roost; I think it's weird that dystopian sci-fi now feels normal and I can't watch old movies. Maybe you haven't had enough.. commute to manifest a heretofore only simulated job on Mars in your Tesla Boring Machine. Life is short, life is long.

throw149102 4y ago

According to the PIAAC, 54% of Americans are illiterate. That is, they are able to read simple things like menus, but they are not capable of synthesizing new information from multiple texts, or understanding the nuance of an authors argument. If I recall correctly, Americans scored an average of around 275/500, while the best scoring country, Finland, scored an average of 300/500. (This is a statistically significant jump, and causes a huge portion of those in Finland to not be considered illiterate, but they just begs the question of why the literacy cutoff is where it is.)

barry-cotter 4y ago
Functionally illiterate and illiterate are different concepts. If you can read a menu the thing that’s stopping you from reading and understanding a complex text isn’t about letters and sentences; it’s the inability to recurse on abstract thought and build complicated thoughts that depend on a body of knowledge. Eliding the difference between functional illiteracy and illiteracy confuses unnecessarily.
- Teever 4y ago
  I think that this is a distinction without a difference in this context.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > If you can read a menu the thing that’s stopping you from reading and understanding a complex text isn’t about letters and sentences; it’s the inability to recurse on abstract thought and build complicated thoughts that depend on a body of knowledge. I can often do a decent job reading a menu in Chinese. A complex text would take hours per page and be totally opaque in many parts. (And partially opaque in probably the majority of the text.) I would argue that in fact what's stopping me from reading complex texts is lack of knowledge of the letters, the words, and the correct structure of sentences.

sharpneli 4y ago

This reminded me strongly of https://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/03/better-babblers.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/03/better-babblers.html which rings more and more true as time goes by.

obblekk 4y ago
Great read, thanks. Large babble models indeed.

taneq 4y ago

It’s not just easier than constructing novel thoughts - it’s safer, too. You get to leave the impression of being an eloquent, persuasive intellectual without any of the risk that comes with actually expressing something that people might then dislike.

jxramos 4y ago

Ha, the ability to toss word salads for a living.

zomglings 4y ago

There is a very useful metric that helps to understand how to listen to different people: "I have to listen carefully to <m> out of every <n> words they say." I particularly admire people for whom n is small and m/n is close to 1.