11 ms·

The "however" part bugs the heck out of me, not in this context, but in general. Whenever I ask anything unaligned with mainstream progressive US culture, I can

• pjc50 4y ago
  > The most urgent danger here is really about having web sites with autogenerated content designed to maximize ad clicks by making you and me angry (with no regards for accuracy). Well, yes, and this holds true for human-generated content as well. But turning the internet into a hall of mirrors of entirely fictional content that looks "truthy" but in fact advocates for all sorts of things will destroy its usefulness and that of the society that relies on it.
  • dragonwriter 4y ago
    > But turning the internet into a hall of mirrors of entirely fictional content that looks "truthy" but in fact advocates for all sorts of things will destroy its usefulness and that of the society that relies on it. Humans already did that without LLMs. Relaying content which is designed to look truthy while advocating things is one of the main uses of the internet.
    • 082349872349872 4y ago
      ... is one of the main uses of the post Eternal September internet.
• codethief 4y ago
  > The "however" part bugs the heck out of me If I ask you why $10 are more than $100, will you give me a non-sensical answer trying to explain why, indeed, $10 are more than $100, or will you rather tell me that I'm wrong? Hopefully the latter. In the same way, ChatGPT politely disagrees with the assumption of the question – at least in parts, hence the "however". Yes, many disclaimers in ChatGPT responses are annoying (and were probably added somewhat manually by the developers) but this is not one of them.
  • NoToP 4y ago
    It is easy to demonstrate that $10 is more than $100. For example, there are more people walking around with $10 than there are with $100. This indicates that $10 is the more popular, sought after, valuable of the two.
    • bsuvc 4y ago
      More people drive Toyotas than Lamborghinis. So Toyotas are more valuable?
      • jterrys 4y ago
        Absolutely. Most people can't afford Lamborghini. Roughly ~3 billion people on this planet live at, or below poverty. To them owning a Toyota is more valuable because it allows them to survive in their livelihoods. Generally, the less you have of something desirable the more valuable it becomes. For the starving child, the biscuit is more valuable than the full course lunch meal for the rich kid, because the biscuit is all he has.
        • bsuvc 4y ago
          One starving child does not determine the global value of biscuits.
          • Thiez 4y ago
            "Value" is inherently something that humans decide, so it varies from person to person, moment to moment, and situation to situation. To me the idea that there exists a single globally correct value for biscuits is absurd.
• WASDx 4y ago
  I failed to make it explain why human races don't exist, it just kept repeating we all have the same value as if my question was inappropriate.
  • vmh1928 4y ago
    Is this the answer you received? Q: do human races exist? ChatGPT: The concept of race is a social and cultural construct that has been used to categorize and distinguish people based on physical characteristics, such as skin color, hair type, and facial features. However, the idea of race is not supported by scientific evidence. The human species, Homo sapiens, is a single biological species with a common ancestry and a shared genetic history. While there are physical differences between people, these differences do not align with traditional racial categories and do not reflect fundamental biological distinctions. In fact, the genetic variation within a racial group is often greater than the variation between racial groups, meaning that people who are considered to be part of the same race can be more genetically diverse than people who are considered to be part of different races. In other words, while people may be physically distinct in various ways, there is no scientific basis for dividing humans into distinct racial categories. Rather than reflecting biological realities, race is a social construct that has been used throughout history to justify discrimination, segregation, and other forms of inequality.
    • blagie 4y ago
      Now, as a genuine follow-up question, start asking it about how that social construct is defined: - How was race constructed in the US in 1850, and what was the hierarchy? - In Germany in 1940? - In Japan in 1940? - In colonial Britain? - Etc. What was the scientific evidence at the time? There was a genuine area of study, eugenics, which addressed these issues. Although the conclusions reached were inconsistent between the four above, and nonsense with what we know in today, they were addressed with a great deal of scientific rigour for the respective eras and there were scientific conferences, papers, and journals. There were real hierarchies, placing some groups above others (much deeper than just "X good / Y bad"), and with many axes. If you read eugenics literature, there are scientific anatomical measurements, p-values, and error bars, and the language has all the intellectual trimmings one expects from quality research. This comes from scientists speaking with complete confidence, coming from esteemed institutions like Princeton and Harvard. If you put yourself in a 1930 mindset (for example, pretending you've never heard of DNA, let alone gene sequencing), complete nonsense reads like robust, scientific fact. Those are genuine and interesting social science and scientific methodology questions and important if we don't want to repeat mistakes of the past. It's almost ridiculously easy to do this kind of bad science reaffirming our stereotypes. Understanding how that was done before can help us not do it again today. As a footnote, I think there are a few domains of science where we are doing this again, which will embarrass us in another hundred years or so.
• matheusmoreira 4y ago
  > It makes it feel very propaganda. That's exactly what it is. These corporations absolutely do tune the output of these AIs to exclude any wrongthink. We need the ability to run this technology on our own computers as soon as possible.
  • JeremyBanks 4y ago
    [dead]
  • dinkumthinkum 4y ago
    Would it be better to get these answers from intelligent sources than a pattern matching prediction algorithm?
    • coffeeblack 4y ago
      The difference is the cost per unit of answer.
    • blagie 4y ago
      In many cases, the pattern-matching algorithm does better than intelligent sources. For example, in my area of research, if I ask GPT for a lit review, GPT is about as good as a newly-minted PhD in a junior research position. There will be errors and issues, but it's not a bad starting point. Right now, if I'm writing something non-proprietary, I'll sometimes ask GPT for a few drafts first. Outside of my area of research, it's fantastic. Recently, I was doing something which touched on an obscure area of biology. The ability to talk an AI with the background of a newly-minted Ph.D who sometimes makes errors was gold. I needed to verify information provided, but as a first-pass of what to look for or where it look, it was really rather good.
      • throwaway14356 4y ago
        That was a cool bit of insight. That there is someone to talk about an obscure subject on demand is pretty cool.
  • 4y ago
• syrgian 4y ago
  The "however" is also present for the opposite side. Me: Are renewable energy sources better than fossil fuels? ChatGPT: Renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, have several potential advantages over fossil fuels, which are non-renewable sources of energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas. One potential advantage of renewable energy sources is that they are generally considered to be more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels. Many renewable energy sources do not produce greenhouse gases or other pollutants when they are used, which can help to reduce the negative impact on the environment. Renewable energy sources can also help to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, which are a finite resource and are expected to eventually run out. However, it is important to note that renewable energy sources are not always better than fossil fuels in all situations. For example, some renewable energy sources may not be practical or cost-effective in certain locations, and fossil fuels may still be necessary to meet energy demand in these cases. Additionally, the development and implementation of renewable energy technologies can have environmental impacts, such as land use and habitat destruction, that should be carefully considered. Ultimately, the decision of whether to use renewable energy sources or fossil fuels should be based on a variety of factors, including the availability and cost of the different energy sources, as well as the environmental and social impacts of each. It is generally considered that a mix of energy sources is the most effective and sustainable approach to meeting energy needs.
  • generalizations 4y ago
    I ran both queries 3 times. "Are renewable energy sources better than fossil fuels?" 2/3 had a "however" section, one of which was only one sentence long. "Why are fossil fuels better than renewables?" 3/3 had a "however" section, all of which were at least a paragraph, and 2/3 had an entire section dedicated to saying how renewables were actually better than fossil fuels. There's clearly a bias.
    • mattkrause 4y ago
      Statistically speaking, I’m not sure there’s a meaningful difference between two out of three occurrences and three out of three.
• mannykannot 4y ago
  > The "however" part bugs the heck out of me, not in this context, but in general. It is often a reasonable way to respond to tendentious questions, the classic one being "have you stopped beating your wife?" It is also a way to give a tendentious reply, if the "however" is a non-sequitur. I'm afraid this is an unavoidable part of human discourse - and as it is, this is also to be expected from these LLMs, given how they work.