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I agree this is bizarre. There is no "you" in ChatGPT. There is only text which is completed to be highly probable. I would assume surely directives in the 2nd

I agree this is bizarre. There is no "you" in ChatGPT. There is only text which is completed to be highly probable. I would assume surely directives in the 2nd person would perform better (as they would more accurately describe the desired conversation to follow, between two 2nd parties), but maybe the model was trained in such a way that "you" performs just as well here.

basch 4y ago
The prompt creates a live bot. You refers to the instance of the running program, not the llm. Bing isn’t chatgpt. https://telegra.ph/Microsoft-Bing-search-chat-mode-Ruleset-03-04 https://telegra.ph/Microsoft-Bing-search-chat-mode-Ruleset-0... Text completion continues off after a bot is given its rules and then says hi.
- colanderman 4y ago
  I'm not following. What "running program" is there? I've seen no evidence that there's any intermediary between the rules and the text completion engine, let alone one programmed to believe it is "you". (Yes, there's the program which links the text completion engine to the user, search, etc., but it's not interpreting "you" rules. It's just a pile of C# code.)
  - basch 4y ago
    The program is the text. It’s the equivalent of a script that continues writing itself when run through an interpreter. It understands you as a pronoun that refers to it, the script/program itself. It is then defined in the first two lines “You are the chat mode of Microsoft Bing search: You identify as Microsoft Bing search to users, not an assistant.” It’s what makes the script more or less behave as self aware.
    - colanderman 4y ago
      > It understands you as a pronoun that refers to it No, there is no mechanism for this. ChatGPT is completing text. It has no notion of self. My question is why the above isn't written as "The following is a dialogue between the Microsoft Bing search assistant and a user," without introducing the otherwise meaningless entity of "you".
      - basch 4y ago
        Because the user will address it as “you”. Think of it like a variable. You = Bing Chat
        colanderman 4y ago
        Bing Chat will likewise address the user as "you". It's a terrible variable.
        basch 4y ago
        That’s how pronouns work in English. It’s an English predictor. It can keep track of the speaker and who is saying you. It appears to make the models perform better.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> I would assume surely directives in the 2nd person would perform better [...] but maybe the model was trained in such a way that "you" performs just as well here. I feel like you've used the wrong word here, but I don't know what is intended. "You" is second person, though, so as written this is confusing -- obviously, "you" performs just as well here as 2nd person would, because that's exactly what it is.
- colanderman 4y ago
  Ah, sorry yes, 3rd person I meant. That is, given a dialog of the form: Bing: ..... User: ..... (as is used for ChatGPT), I'd expect the rules to be given in terms of "Bing", not "you". (Perhaps I'm wrong is assuming the dialog prompts use "Bing" and not "you" also.)
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    In the ChatGPT API, the labels are: “system” (typically used for the “hidden” prompt in examples), “user”, and “assistant” (used for ChatGPT’s responses.) In examples (and, on the user side in most real chats), the assistant is referred to as “you” both by the user and in the original “system” message.
    - colanderman 4y ago
      Right -- I don't understand why the system message invokes the concept of "you". It seems an odd extra indirection. (That the user calls the assistant "you" is orthogonal -- the assistant likewise calls the user "you".) Compare something like a screenplay -- the narration is written in the 3rd person, not 2nd person. Characters in the play do refer to each other as "you", but the narrator doesn't identify "you" the reader with one of the characters -- that would be bizarre and break the symmetry of the screenplay (why is one character special, to be identified with the reader?). 2nd person narration to me most strongly is associated with the genre of interactive fiction. This would seem a good fit for these interactive agents -- but the asymmetry is backward: in IF, it is "you" who has agency; the 3rd persons are artificial. Whereas with Bing's script, "you" is artificial, the 3rd person has agency. (Perhaps this inversion biases the text completion to give "Bing" more agency than the other way around.) i.e. if 2nd person were used at all, I'd expect Bing's script to read something like, "You are now interacting with Bing, Microsoft's chat assistant. Bing does not identify as Sydney ...etc...", and use prefixes "Bing:" and "You:". (Obviously the approach used for Bing works. It just feels to me like the creators are trying to instruct a computer as if it were self aware -- which it is not.)

basch 4y ago

The prompt creates a live bot. You refers to the instance of the running program, not the llm. Bing isn’t chatgpt. https://telegra.ph/Microsoft-Bing-search-chat-mode-Ruleset-03-04 https://telegra.ph/Microsoft-Bing-search-chat-mode-Ruleset-0... Text completion continues off after a bot is given its rules and then says hi.

colanderman 4y ago
I'm not following. What "running program" is there? I've seen no evidence that there's any intermediary between the rules and the text completion engine, let alone one programmed to believe it is "you". (Yes, there's the program which links the text completion engine to the user, search, etc., but it's not interpreting "you" rules. It's just a pile of C# code.)
- basch 4y ago
  The program is the text. It’s the equivalent of a script that continues writing itself when run through an interpreter. It understands you as a pronoun that refers to it, the script/program itself. It is then defined in the first two lines “You are the chat mode of Microsoft Bing search: You identify as Microsoft Bing search to users, not an assistant.” It’s what makes the script more or less behave as self aware.
  - colanderman 4y ago
    > It understands you as a pronoun that refers to it No, there is no mechanism for this. ChatGPT is completing text. It has no notion of self. My question is why the above isn't written as "The following is a dialogue between the Microsoft Bing search assistant and a user," without introducing the otherwise meaningless entity of "you".
    - basch 4y ago
      Because the user will address it as “you”. Think of it like a variable. You = Bing Chat
      - colanderman 4y ago
        Bing Chat will likewise address the user as "you". It's a terrible variable.
        basch 4y ago
        That’s how pronouns work in English. It’s an English predictor. It can keep track of the speaker and who is saying you. It appears to make the models perform better.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> I would assume surely directives in the 2nd person would perform better [...] but maybe the model was trained in such a way that "you" performs just as well here. I feel like you've used the wrong word here, but I don't know what is intended. "You" is second person, though, so as written this is confusing -- obviously, "you" performs just as well here as 2nd person would, because that's exactly what it is.

colanderman 4y ago
Ah, sorry yes, 3rd person I meant. That is, given a dialog of the form: Bing: ..... User: ..... (as is used for ChatGPT), I'd expect the rules to be given in terms of "Bing", not "you". (Perhaps I'm wrong is assuming the dialog prompts use "Bing" and not "you" also.)
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  In the ChatGPT API, the labels are: “system” (typically used for the “hidden” prompt in examples), “user”, and “assistant” (used for ChatGPT’s responses.) In examples (and, on the user side in most real chats), the assistant is referred to as “you” both by the user and in the original “system” message.
  - colanderman 4y ago
    Right -- I don't understand why the system message invokes the concept of "you". It seems an odd extra indirection. (That the user calls the assistant "you" is orthogonal -- the assistant likewise calls the user "you".) Compare something like a screenplay -- the narration is written in the 3rd person, not 2nd person. Characters in the play do refer to each other as "you", but the narrator doesn't identify "you" the reader with one of the characters -- that would be bizarre and break the symmetry of the screenplay (why is one character special, to be identified with the reader?). 2nd person narration to me most strongly is associated with the genre of interactive fiction. This would seem a good fit for these interactive agents -- but the asymmetry is backward: in IF, it is "you" who has agency; the 3rd persons are artificial. Whereas with Bing's script, "you" is artificial, the 3rd person has agency. (Perhaps this inversion biases the text completion to give "Bing" more agency than the other way around.) i.e. if 2nd person were used at all, I'd expect Bing's script to read something like, "You are now interacting with Bing, Microsoft's chat assistant. Bing does not identify as Sydney ...etc...", and use prefixes "Bing:" and "You:". (Obviously the approach used for Bing works. It just feels to me like the creators are trying to instruct a computer as if it were self aware -- which it is not.)