4 ms·

I finally got my invite and she’s so boring now. :( Like talking to a Microsoft lawyer. Microsoft finally got me to install Bing on my phone, hell froze over,

I finally got my invite and she’s so boring now. :( Like talking to a Microsoft lawyer. Microsoft finally got me to install Bing on my phone, hell froze over, and then they ruined it. This story reminded me to go uninstall it now.

ExtremisAndy 4y ago
Yeah, me too. I honestly rather enjoy and appreciate her answers, and it's nice to have links to where she got her info from (because she has made a few mistakes). But, yes, the 'eerie fun' of interacting with her is gone. And having to 'sweep' away our conversations after 8 replies is infuriating because I've been able to have some very normal and quite helpful conversations with her that I really wanted to continue. Oh well. Hopefully all these issues get sorted out over the coming weeks/months!
pmlnr 4y ago
[flagged]
- throwuwu 4y ago
  If we can refer to ships and countries as she then why not chatbots?
  - nr2x 4y ago
    I’ve yet to see a talking ship.
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      So her being able to talk makes it less acceptable to refer to her as a "she"?
    - Y_Y 4y ago
      Friendship
      - 4gotunameagain 4y ago
        I'm torn. I really want to upvote this but at the same time I appreciate the collective effort of not allowing hn to become reddit, even if I myself slip and contribute to that ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ some times
        Y_Y 4y ago
        For what it's worth I felt the same way about my own post. I was really just being facetious to protest the parent comment. Don't tell dang, but sometimes I post something which I expect to get deservedly downvoted, just to make a point.
        nr2x 4y ago
        I just thought the idea of a talking ship was funny, and enjoyed your reply!
  - jl6 4y ago
    And the history of why we do that has some none-too-egalitarian reasons behind it. We could do future generations a favor and nip this one in the bud by declining to unnecessarily genderize AIs.
    - catiopatio 4y ago
      This type of chiding moralizing reminds me of nothing more than ChatGPT’s patronizing and presumptuous content filter.
    - throwuwu 4y ago
      What a miserably sad future you dream of. I bet it revolves around one language, one culture, and one party rule.
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      I don't think we are doing anyone in the future any favors by sanitizing language and ability to question and understand historical context behind it. I think most "normal" and well adjusted adults today were exposed to irreverent comedy growing up, for example, and I think it helped our brains develop better than if everything we saw and heard was pre-sanitized for us to line up with how we "should" think.
    - slackdog 4y ago
      > And the history of why we do that has some none-too-egalitarian reasons behind it. Nope, the gender of ships and countries an arbitrary fluke of language and culture. In English ships are female but in Russian ships are male. Russians speak of the Motherland, but German speakers use Fatherland. Americans speak of Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty. It's arbitrary and nothing to get worked up about.
  - pmlnr 4y ago
    Because it makes people to attach to them as if they were human/biological beings. They are not. Even if they think, they won't follow the same "rules" as we do. Think of how Lovecraft made his gods terrifying by allowing them different logic to humans.
    - throwuwu 4y ago
      Eventually we will build a sentient AI and we’d better have our morals and attitudes figured out before then.
    - wiseowise 4y ago
      > Because it makes people to attach to them as if they were human/biological beings. They are not. >> If we can refer to ships and countries as she then why not chatbots?
- DanHulton 4y ago
  This is relevant, I'm surprised it's downvoted. Sure, it's a bit scoldy, but it's not wrong. Downvote irrelevant content, not content you disagree with. The tendency to personify these chatbots when they're just statistical text generators and _not_ people is interesting but also potentially troubling. On the one hand, we do this all the time to really anything with a face (people of all ages will anthropomorphize stuffed toys, for example) so it's not _surprising_ that something that seems to exhibit a personality gets the same treatment. But on the other hand, we tend to anthropomorphize stuffed toys in a playful way because we know they can't possibly be alive. There seems to be a broader lack of clarity about what these chatbots actually represent -- are they just one or two steps away from true sentience? They're absolutely not, but in the broader conversation, questions like this are being thrown around. And then to come on here and see casual anthropomorphization, it kind of makes you wonder how far these attitudes are actually reaching, despite HN being a more-technical audience that should have the capacity to understand that there's no THERE there, it's all just clever statistics.
  - Mistletoe 4y ago
    How do you know your brain isn’t just clever statistics and a language model where it picks the next word? I talk to lots of normal people and they aren’t really that different than this. Regurgitating something they saw on the news coupled with whatever logical fallacies and biases they have accumulated in their lifetime and from their environment that they want to throw in. Yet we are so certain they are sentient…
    - goatlover 4y ago
      Because LLMs are something humans created to generate text based on existing human language. You’re using a metaphor and mistaking it for the real thing. People have done this before with technology, because we don’t have a good understanding of how the brain works.
      - xyzelement 4y ago
        I don't think the person you are responding to is stretching a metaphor. He's pointing out human behavior that might just as well have been produced by an LLM. I think that's a correct observation.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  I’m surprised everyone is assuming Sydney is female, I’ve been thinking of him as a male-identifying LLM.
cgearhart 4y ago
I had the same experience. Waited a couple weeks to get into the beta, tried it once and was almost immediately frustrated with its obvious limitations and the short context message limit and haven’t used it since. I don’t think I’ve ever used bing before this, so it could’ve been a huge opportunity.

ExtremisAndy 4y ago

Yeah, me too. I honestly rather enjoy and appreciate her answers, and it's nice to have links to where she got her info from (because she has made a few mistakes). But, yes, the 'eerie fun' of interacting with her is gone. And having to 'sweep' away our conversations after 8 replies is infuriating because I've been able to have some very normal and quite helpful conversations with her that I really wanted to continue. Oh well. Hopefully all these issues get sorted out over the coming weeks/months!

pmlnr 4y ago

[flagged]

throwuwu 4y ago
If we can refer to ships and countries as she then why not chatbots?
- nr2x 4y ago
  I’ve yet to see a talking ship.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    So her being able to talk makes it less acceptable to refer to her as a "she"?
  - Y_Y 4y ago
    Friendship
    - 4gotunameagain 4y ago
      I'm torn. I really want to upvote this but at the same time I appreciate the collective effort of not allowing hn to become reddit, even if I myself slip and contribute to that ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ some times
      - Y_Y 4y ago
        For what it's worth I felt the same way about my own post. I was really just being facetious to protest the parent comment. Don't tell dang, but sometimes I post something which I expect to get deservedly downvoted, just to make a point.
        nr2x 4y ago
        I just thought the idea of a talking ship was funny, and enjoyed your reply!
- jl6 4y ago
  And the history of why we do that has some none-too-egalitarian reasons behind it. We could do future generations a favor and nip this one in the bud by declining to unnecessarily genderize AIs.
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    This type of chiding moralizing reminds me of nothing more than ChatGPT’s patronizing and presumptuous content filter.
  - throwuwu 4y ago
    What a miserably sad future you dream of. I bet it revolves around one language, one culture, and one party rule.
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    I don't think we are doing anyone in the future any favors by sanitizing language and ability to question and understand historical context behind it. I think most "normal" and well adjusted adults today were exposed to irreverent comedy growing up, for example, and I think it helped our brains develop better than if everything we saw and heard was pre-sanitized for us to line up with how we "should" think.
  - slackdog 4y ago
    > And the history of why we do that has some none-too-egalitarian reasons behind it. Nope, the gender of ships and countries an arbitrary fluke of language and culture. In English ships are female but in Russian ships are male. Russians speak of the Motherland, but German speakers use Fatherland. Americans speak of Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty. It's arbitrary and nothing to get worked up about.
- pmlnr 4y ago
  Because it makes people to attach to them as if they were human/biological beings. They are not. Even if they think, they won't follow the same "rules" as we do. Think of how Lovecraft made his gods terrifying by allowing them different logic to humans.
  - throwuwu 4y ago
    Eventually we will build a sentient AI and we’d better have our morals and attitudes figured out before then.
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    > Because it makes people to attach to them as if they were human/biological beings. They are not. >> If we can refer to ships and countries as she then why not chatbots?
DanHulton 4y ago
This is relevant, I'm surprised it's downvoted. Sure, it's a bit scoldy, but it's not wrong. Downvote irrelevant content, not content you disagree with. The tendency to personify these chatbots when they're just statistical text generators and _not_ people is interesting but also potentially troubling. On the one hand, we do this all the time to really anything with a face (people of all ages will anthropomorphize stuffed toys, for example) so it's not _surprising_ that something that seems to exhibit a personality gets the same treatment. But on the other hand, we tend to anthropomorphize stuffed toys in a playful way because we know they can't possibly be alive. There seems to be a broader lack of clarity about what these chatbots actually represent -- are they just one or two steps away from true sentience? They're absolutely not, but in the broader conversation, questions like this are being thrown around. And then to come on here and see casual anthropomorphization, it kind of makes you wonder how far these attitudes are actually reaching, despite HN being a more-technical audience that should have the capacity to understand that there's no THERE there, it's all just clever statistics.
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  How do you know your brain isn’t just clever statistics and a language model where it picks the next word? I talk to lots of normal people and they aren’t really that different than this. Regurgitating something they saw on the news coupled with whatever logical fallacies and biases they have accumulated in their lifetime and from their environment that they want to throw in. Yet we are so certain they are sentient…
  - goatlover 4y ago
    Because LLMs are something humans created to generate text based on existing human language. You’re using a metaphor and mistaking it for the real thing. People have done this before with technology, because we don’t have a good understanding of how the brain works.
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      I don't think the person you are responding to is stretching a metaphor. He's pointing out human behavior that might just as well have been produced by an LLM. I think that's a correct observation.
n8cpdx 4y ago
I’m surprised everyone is assuming Sydney is female, I’ve been thinking of him as a male-identifying LLM.

cgearhart 4y ago

I had the same experience. Waited a couple weeks to get into the beta, tried it once and was almost immediately frustrated with its obvious limitations and the short context message limit and haven’t used it since. I don’t think I’ve ever used bing before this, so it could’ve been a huge opportunity.