4 ms·

> People are always confidently right about things they have no clue about. I'm going to get pedantic for a second and say that people are not ALWAYS confident

> People are always confidently right about things they have no clue about. I'm going to get pedantic for a second and say that people are not ALWAYS confidently wrong about things they have no clue about. Perhaps they are OFTEN confidently wrong, but not ALWAYS. And you know, I could be wrong here, but in my experience it's totally normal for people to say "I don't know" or to make it clear when they are guessing about something. And we as humans have heuristics that we can use to gauge when other humans are guessing or are confidently wrong. The problem is ChatGPT very very rarely transmits any level of confidence other than "extremely confident" which makes it much harder to gauge than when people are "confidently wrong."

pixl97 4y ago
I think the issue here is ChatGPT is behaving like a child that was not taught to say "I don't know". I don't know is a learned behavior and not all people do this. Like on sales calls where someone's trying to push a product I've seen the salepeople confabulate bullshit rather than simply saying "I can find out for you, let me write that down".
- rustyminnow 4y ago
  Well, I think you are right - ChatGPT should learn to say "I don't know". Keep in mind that generating BS is also a learned behavior. The salesperson probably learned that it is a technique that can help make sales. The key IMO is that it's easier to tell when a human is doing it than when ChatGPT is doing it.
- danaris 4y ago
  The deeper issue is that ChatGPT cannot accurately determine whether it "knows" something or not. If its training data includes rants by flat-earthers, then it may "know" that the earth is flat (in addition to "knowing" that it is round). ChatGPT does not have a single, consistent model of the world. It has a bulk of training data that may be ample in one area, deficient in another, and strongly self-contradictory in a third.
- danans 4y ago
  > I think the issue here is ChatGPT is behaving like a child that was not taught to say "I don't know". I don't know is a learned behavior and not all people do this. Even in humans, this "pretending to know" type of bullshit - however irritating and trust destroying - is motivated to a large extent by an underlying insecurity about appearing unknowledgeable. Unless the bullshitter is also some kind of sociopath - that insecurity is at least genuinely felt. Being aware of that is what can allow us to feel empathy for people bullshitting even when we know they are doing it (like the salespeople from the play Glengarry Glen Ross). Can we really say that ChatGPT is motivated by anything like that sort of insecurity? I don't think so. It's just compelled to fill in bytes, with extremely erroneous information if needed (try asking it for driving directions). If we are going to draw analogies to human behavior (a dubious thing, but oh well), its traits seem more sociopathic to me.
iinnPP 4y ago
I said confidently right.
- rustyminnow 4y ago
  You said 'confident "wrong" ' the first time then 'confidently right' the second time. We both know what you meant though
gjvc 4y ago
>> People are always confidently right about things they have no clue about. >I'm going to get pedantic for a second and say that people are not ALWAYS confidently wrong about things they have no clue about. Perhaps they are OFTEN confidently wrong, but not ALWAYS. meta

pixl97 4y ago

I think the issue here is ChatGPT is behaving like a child that was not taught to say "I don't know". I don't know is a learned behavior and not all people do this. Like on sales calls where someone's trying to push a product I've seen the salepeople confabulate bullshit rather than simply saying "I can find out for you, let me write that down".

rustyminnow 4y ago
Well, I think you are right - ChatGPT should learn to say "I don't know". Keep in mind that generating BS is also a learned behavior. The salesperson probably learned that it is a technique that can help make sales. The key IMO is that it's easier to tell when a human is doing it than when ChatGPT is doing it.
danaris 4y ago
The deeper issue is that ChatGPT cannot accurately determine whether it "knows" something or not. If its training data includes rants by flat-earthers, then it may "know" that the earth is flat (in addition to "knowing" that it is round). ChatGPT does not have a single, consistent model of the world. It has a bulk of training data that may be ample in one area, deficient in another, and strongly self-contradictory in a third.
danans 4y ago
> I think the issue here is ChatGPT is behaving like a child that was not taught to say "I don't know". I don't know is a learned behavior and not all people do this. Even in humans, this "pretending to know" type of bullshit - however irritating and trust destroying - is motivated to a large extent by an underlying insecurity about appearing unknowledgeable. Unless the bullshitter is also some kind of sociopath - that insecurity is at least genuinely felt. Being aware of that is what can allow us to feel empathy for people bullshitting even when we know they are doing it (like the salespeople from the play Glengarry Glen Ross). Can we really say that ChatGPT is motivated by anything like that sort of insecurity? I don't think so. It's just compelled to fill in bytes, with extremely erroneous information if needed (try asking it for driving directions). If we are going to draw analogies to human behavior (a dubious thing, but oh well), its traits seem more sociopathic to me.

iinnPP 4y ago

I said confidently right.

rustyminnow 4y ago
You said 'confident "wrong" ' the first time then 'confidently right' the second time. We both know what you meant though

gjvc 4y ago

>> People are always confidently right about things they have no clue about. >I'm going to get pedantic for a second and say that people are not ALWAYS confidently wrong about things they have no clue about. Perhaps they are OFTEN confidently wrong, but not ALWAYS. meta