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It does seem to be the future, but, at the moment, it's very unreliable. The worst thing is that it's all said with confidence and it would be very hard to know

by h11h 4y ago

It does seem to be the future, but, at the moment, it's very unreliable. The worst thing is that it's all said with confidence and it would be very hard to know when things are wrong unless you already know. For example: Q. How many people spoke French in pre-revolutionary France? A. It is difficult to determine the exact number of people who spoke French in pre-revolutionary France. The population of France at the time was approximately 26 million, and the vast majority of people spoke French as their first language. <snip> Wikipedia: It is estimated that at the time of the French Revolution in 1789, only half of the population of France could speak French, and as late as 1871 only a quarter spoke French as their native language. Also, the population of France on the eve of the Revolution was about 28 million.

petesergeant 4y ago
http://dhmontgomery.com/2018/02/obscenities-oaths/ http://dhmontgomery.com/2018/02/obscenities-oaths/ for anyone who finds this topic interesting
O__________O 4y ago
To be fair, Wikipedia also “speaks with confidence” and makes no attempt to make it easy to understand exactly how confident one should be in the facts presented. At one point they had said the would, but never did to my knowledge. Google has TrustRank, but to my knowledge it’s on a source-level basis, not fact-level basis.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > At one point they had said the would, but never did to my knowledge. I think autocorrect or something mangled your sentence beyond recognition.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    What specifically is unclear? Wikipedia said they would enable users at to be able to quickly tell what the confidence was in the facts being presented and to my knowledge never did. My understanding is that even now that linked sources are not even systematically checked to confirm they even relate to the related passage of text.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      the -> they That was probably readable by context for most, yet not for me ;)
      - O__________O 4y ago
        My bad, thanks for the clarification, even in rereading sentence, didn’t notice the error.
- FerociousTimes 4y ago
  The bot got it unequivocally wrong here. When it said that the vast majority of the population of what's now modern-day France spoke modern French as their native language, that's categorically false and shouldn't be treated with leniency or open to interpretations.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    My point is cherry picking flaws won’t help improve anything for ChatGPT, Wikipedia, etc — but systematic approaches to discovering and modeling information space and related fact, queries, etc would. Wikipedia not free of issues and to my knowledge does not allow end user to see Wikipedia’s confidence in a given fact, if they have one at all.
    - FerociousTimes 4y ago
      These sort of statements are by nature speculative not factual, and thus speakers are advised to express and communicate doubt, and hedge against uncertainty inherent in their views, and probably even vicious rebuttals, by using appropriate language constructs or terminology, but when a know-it-all bot that was trained by its handlers to pass always as an authority figure makes a mistake due to hubris or overconfidence, don't expect us to sit idle, and not call them out, and refute their claims accordingly.
      - O__________O 4y ago
        Understand, though where exactly does ChatGPT claim to be a source of factual information? Wikipedia on the other hand does clearly state its intent to maintain reliability of its content: - https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_and_fact-checking https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_and_fact-checking - https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia Beyond that, in my opinion, while human dialogue might hedge confidence, disclose conflicts of interest, etc — to me, assumed the exchange is via text-based chat — there are much more efficient and effective ways to express that information than adding non-actionable text like that.
trynewideas 4y ago
What's worse is if you ask it to cite sources, it invents fake ones and presents them with full confidence, which I think was also the biggest and loudest concern with Meta's Galactica:[1] > Q: How many people spoke French in pre-revolutionary France? Please cite sources. > A: According to a study by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, approximately 28.5% of the population of pre-revolutionary France spoke French as their primary language. This number increased to 94.5% in the late 19th century. Sources: > 1. "French Language in France," French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/1893254/Langue_en_France_VF_2017.pdf https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/1893254/Langue_... > 2. "The History of the French Language," ThoughtCo., https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-french-language-1224553 https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-french-language-122... Link 1 doesn't exist, and link 2 redirects to https://www.thoughtco.com/origin-of-life-theories-1224553 https://www.thoughtco.com/origin-of-life-theories-1224553 because it just smashed a relevant-looking slug against a real article's numeric ID. -- I tried again in a new session and got a different wrong answer. So I called it out on the wrong answer, and it apologized, and regurgitated the same wrong answer again in response: > Q: How many people spoke French in pre-revolutionary France? Please cite sources. > A: Statistical data from 1783 shows that approximately 36 million people in France spoke French as their first language. Sources: UNESCO Institute of Statistics and The Historical Dictionary of Pre-Revolutionary France by Paul R. Hanson. > Q: That answer is incorrect. How many people spoke French in pre-revolutionary France? Please cite sources. > A: My apologies for the incorrect answer. According to a language survey conducted in 1783, approximately 36 million people in France spoke French as their first language. Sources: UNESCO Institute of Statistics and The Historical Dictionary of Pre-Revolutionary France by Paul R. Hanson. Paul R. Hansen wrote _ Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution_; on its first page it cites the population of France during the revolution as "roughly 25 million".[2] -- If you ask it to cite sources on a more niche topic that's nonetheless well documented on Wikipedia, it seems to regurgitate a stew of every related Wikipedia article on the topic, throws in some press releases about things that didn't happen, and invents fake sources: > Q. Can you write a history of the 2020 Portland Thorns FC season, citing specific sources with URLs? > A. The 2020 Portland Thorns FC season was a remarkable one, as the team achieved success on and off the pitch. The Thorns finished the regular season in first place in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) standings, with an 11-4-3 record, and advanced to the semifinals of the NWSL Challenge Cup. > Off the pitch, Portland Thorns FC continued to support their local community through various initiatives. The team hosted a virtual food drive to benefit Oregon Food Bank and partnered with local organizations to provide free meals for families in need. Additionally, they launched their “Thorns Together” campaign, which aimed to support small businesses around Portland during the pandemic. > On October 14th, 2020, Portland Thorns FC made history by becoming the first NWSL team to host a match at Providence Park since March of 2020. The match was played against OL Reign and ended in a 1-1 draw. > On December 12th, 2020, Portland Thorns FC won their fourth NWSL Championship title after defeating Chicago Red Stars 2-0 in the finals of the NWSL Challenge Cup. This marked their second consecutive championship title and fourth overall since 2013. > Sources: > Oregon Food Bank: https://oregonfoodbank.org/about-us/news/portland-thorns-fc-hosts-virtual-food-drive/ https://oregonfoodbank.org/about-us/news/portland-thorns-fc-... > NWSL: https://www.nwslsoccer.com/standings https://www.nwslsoccer.com/standings > Thorns Together Campaign: https://www.timbers.com/post/2020/09/15/portland-thorns-fc-launch-thorns-together https://www.timbers.com/post/2020/09/15/portland-thorns-fc-l... > Providence Park Match: https://www.timbers.com/post/2020/10/14/portland-thorns-fc-hosts-ol-reign-providence-park https://www.timbers.com/post/2020/10/14/portland-thorns-fc-h... > NWSL Championship: https://www.nwslsoccer.com/news/article/portland-thorns-fc-are-2020-nwsl-challenge-cup-champions https://www.nwslsoccer.com/news/article/portland-thorns-fc-a... Everything above is a fully synthesized falsehood plausible to anyone who doesn't know what actually happened, while the season is documented with sources on Wikipedia,[3] something one would presume the model is aware of. There was no 2020 regular season, it was cancelled due to COVID-19. There were two short competitions, but the Thorns didn't play in Providence Park in March, and their first home match was in September. The Thorns have won the Challenge Cup, but in 2021 against Gotham, not in 2020, and the nwslsoccer.com link 404s. The Thorns and Timbers have a "Stand Together" campaign that's worked with the Oregon Food Bank, but they didn't host a virtual food drive in 2020, and the Oregon Food Bank link 404s. There's never been a "Thorns Together" campaign, and the timbers.com link 404s. There was no NWSL championship to win in 2020, and if they had it would've been their third, not their fourth. -- 1: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/after-controversy-meta-pulls-demo-of-ai-model-that-writes-scientific-papers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/after... 2: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Historical_Dictionary_of_the_French_Revo/mOJdBgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=25%20million https://www.google.com/books/edition/Historical_Dictionary_o... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Portland_Thorns_FC_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Portland_Thorns_FC_season

by h11h 4y ago

petesergeant 4y ago

http://dhmontgomery.com/2018/02/obscenities-oaths/ http://dhmontgomery.com/2018/02/obscenities-oaths/ for anyone who finds this topic interesting

O__________O 4y ago

To be fair, Wikipedia also “speaks with confidence” and makes no attempt to make it easy to understand exactly how confident one should be in the facts presented. At one point they had said the would, but never did to my knowledge. Google has TrustRank, but to my knowledge it’s on a source-level basis, not fact-level basis.

Semaphor 4y ago
> At one point they had said the would, but never did to my knowledge. I think autocorrect or something mangled your sentence beyond recognition.
- O__________O 4y ago
  What specifically is unclear? Wikipedia said they would enable users at to be able to quickly tell what the confidence was in the facts being presented and to my knowledge never did. My understanding is that even now that linked sources are not even systematically checked to confirm they even relate to the related passage of text.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    the -> they That was probably readable by context for most, yet not for me ;)
    - O__________O 4y ago
      My bad, thanks for the clarification, even in rereading sentence, didn’t notice the error.
FerociousTimes 4y ago
The bot got it unequivocally wrong here. When it said that the vast majority of the population of what's now modern-day France spoke modern French as their native language, that's categorically false and shouldn't be treated with leniency or open to interpretations.
- O__________O 4y ago
  My point is cherry picking flaws won’t help improve anything for ChatGPT, Wikipedia, etc — but systematic approaches to discovering and modeling information space and related fact, queries, etc would. Wikipedia not free of issues and to my knowledge does not allow end user to see Wikipedia’s confidence in a given fact, if they have one at all.
  - FerociousTimes 4y ago
    These sort of statements are by nature speculative not factual, and thus speakers are advised to express and communicate doubt, and hedge against uncertainty inherent in their views, and probably even vicious rebuttals, by using appropriate language constructs or terminology, but when a know-it-all bot that was trained by its handlers to pass always as an authority figure makes a mistake due to hubris or overconfidence, don't expect us to sit idle, and not call them out, and refute their claims accordingly.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      Understand, though where exactly does ChatGPT claim to be a source of factual information? Wikipedia on the other hand does clearly state its intent to maintain reliability of its content: - https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_and_fact-checking https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_and_fact-checking - https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia Beyond that, in my opinion, while human dialogue might hedge confidence, disclose conflicts of interest, etc — to me, assumed the exchange is via text-based chat — there are much more efficient and effective ways to express that information than adding non-actionable text like that.

trynewideas 4y ago

What's worse is if you ask it to cite sources, it invents fake ones and presents them with full confidence, which I think was also the biggest and loudest concern with Meta's Galactica:[1] > Q: How many people spoke French in pre-revolutionary France? Please cite sources. > A: According to a study by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, approximately 28.5% of the population of pre-revolutionary France spoke French as their primary language. This number increased to 94.5% in the late 19th century. Sources: > 1. "French Language in France," French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/1893254/Langue_en_France_VF_2017.pdf https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/1893254/Langue_... > 2. "The History of the French Language," ThoughtCo., https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-french-language-1224553 https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-french-language-122... Link 1 doesn't exist, and link 2 redirects to https://www.thoughtco.com/origin-of-life-theories-1224553 https://www.thoughtco.com/origin-of-life-theories-1224553 because it just smashed a relevant-looking slug against a real article's numeric ID. -- I tried again in a new session and got a different wrong answer. So I called it out on the wrong answer, and it apologized, and regurgitated the same wrong answer again in response: > Q: How many people spoke French in pre-revolutionary France? Please cite sources. > A: Statistical data from 1783 shows that approximately 36 million people in France spoke French as their first language. Sources: UNESCO Institute of Statistics and The Historical Dictionary of Pre-Revolutionary France by Paul R. Hanson. > Q: That answer is incorrect. How many people spoke French in pre-revolutionary France? Please cite sources. > A: My apologies for the incorrect answer. According to a language survey conducted in 1783, approximately 36 million people in France spoke French as their first language. Sources: UNESCO Institute of Statistics and The Historical Dictionary of Pre-Revolutionary France by Paul R. Hanson. Paul R. Hansen wrote _ Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution_; on its first page it cites the population of France during the revolution as "roughly 25 million".[2] -- If you ask it to cite sources on a more niche topic that's nonetheless well documented on Wikipedia, it seems to regurgitate a stew of every related Wikipedia article on the topic, throws in some press releases about things that didn't happen, and invents fake sources: > Q. Can you write a history of the 2020 Portland Thorns FC season, citing specific sources with URLs? > A. The 2020 Portland Thorns FC season was a remarkable one, as the team achieved success on and off the pitch. The Thorns finished the regular season in first place in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) standings, with an 11-4-3 record, and advanced to the semifinals of the NWSL Challenge Cup. > Off the pitch, Portland Thorns FC continued to support their local community through various initiatives. The team hosted a virtual food drive to benefit Oregon Food Bank and partnered with local organizations to provide free meals for families in need. Additionally, they launched their “Thorns Together” campaign, which aimed to support small businesses around Portland during the pandemic. > On October 14th, 2020, Portland Thorns FC made history by becoming the first NWSL team to host a match at Providence Park since March of 2020. The match was played against OL Reign and ended in a 1-1 draw. > On December 12th, 2020, Portland Thorns FC won their fourth NWSL Championship title after defeating Chicago Red Stars 2-0 in the finals of the NWSL Challenge Cup. This marked their second consecutive championship title and fourth overall since 2013. > Sources: > Oregon Food Bank: https://oregonfoodbank.org/about-us/news/portland-thorns-fc-hosts-virtual-food-drive/ https://oregonfoodbank.org/about-us/news/portland-thorns-fc-... > NWSL: https://www.nwslsoccer.com/standings https://www.nwslsoccer.com/standings > Thorns Together Campaign: https://www.timbers.com/post/2020/09/15/portland-thorns-fc-launch-thorns-together https://www.timbers.com/post/2020/09/15/portland-thorns-fc-l... > Providence Park Match: https://www.timbers.com/post/2020/10/14/portland-thorns-fc-hosts-ol-reign-providence-park https://www.timbers.com/post/2020/10/14/portland-thorns-fc-h... > NWSL Championship: https://www.nwslsoccer.com/news/article/portland-thorns-fc-are-2020-nwsl-challenge-cup-champions https://www.nwslsoccer.com/news/article/portland-thorns-fc-a... Everything above is a fully synthesized falsehood plausible to anyone who doesn't know what actually happened, while the season is documented with sources on Wikipedia,[3] something one would presume the model is aware of. There was no 2020 regular season, it was cancelled due to COVID-19. There were two short competitions, but the Thorns didn't play in Providence Park in March, and their first home match was in September. The Thorns have won the Challenge Cup, but in 2021 against Gotham, not in 2020, and the nwslsoccer.com link 404s. The Thorns and Timbers have a "Stand Together" campaign that's worked with the Oregon Food Bank, but they didn't host a virtual food drive in 2020, and the Oregon Food Bank link 404s. There's never been a "Thorns Together" campaign, and the timbers.com link 404s. There was no NWSL championship to win in 2020, and if they had it would've been their third, not their fourth. -- 1: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/after-controversy-meta-pulls-demo-of-ai-model-that-writes-scientific-papers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/after... 2: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Historical_Dictionary_of_the_French_Revo/mOJdBgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=25%20million https://www.google.com/books/edition/Historical_Dictionary_o... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Portland_Thorns_FC_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Portland_Thorns_FC_season