7 ms·

This technology has been a true blessing to me. I have always wished to have a personal PhD in a particular subject whom I could ask endless questions until I g

This technology has been a true blessing to me. I have always wished to have a personal PhD in a particular subject whom I could ask endless questions until I grasped the topic. Thanks to recent advancements, I feel like I have my very own personal PhDs in multiple subjects, whom I can bombard with questions all day long. Although I acknowledge that the technology may occasionally produce inaccurate information, the significant benefits it offers in terms of enhancing my knowledge are truly tremendous. I am absolutely thrilled with this technology and its potential to support my learning. Note: As I'm shy of my writing style, GPT helped me refine the above.

andrepd 4y ago
But it often produces wrong information. If you don't know the subject (since you are learning), how do you distinguish between correct information and incorrect but very plausible-sounding information?
- _boffin_ 4y ago
  Although the technology occasionally produces incorrect information, I still find it to be a helpful learning tool. I break down the information into bullet points and cross-check it with other sources to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information--I know this isn't infallible. One of the advantages of using this technology is that it often presents me with new and intriguing information, which I might not have found otherwise. This allows me to ask new questions and explore the subject matter more profoundly, resulting in a better understanding and an opportunity to create a mental model.
- Arisaka1 4y ago
  The same way anyone lacking knowledge can confident say that they got the right information from anyone with experience: You don't. You just trust them. That's what I did with my gastrenterologist, I ended up got misdiagnosed for 4 years and instead of getting the treatment that I should be getting I lost weight, got osteoporosis and vitamin D deficiency. 4 years later the second doctor asked me "I wonder why did my colleague decided not to take a tissue sample from insert some place in the stomach. I said out loud "I didn't even know what that is, let along ask him why he didn't".
  - Joeri 4y ago
    I had a neurologist prescribe me medications which I didn’t need and which permanently damaged my side vision. Doctors are people too, and all people make mistakes sometimes. It has taught me to always ask a second opinion when it matters. The same maxim applies to chatgpt: when the accuracy matters, look for independent confirmation.
  - arbitrage 4y ago
    > The same way anyone lacking knowledge can confident say that they got the right information from anyone with experience: You don't. No, that's not the same way that anyone lacking knowledge gains confidence in the things that others tell them. A technique one can use instead of blindly trusting what one person may tell us is seeking out second opinions to corroborate new info. This works for many things you might not have personal experience with: automobiles, construction, finance, medicine, &c.
- hospitalJail 4y ago
  I was misdiagnosed with the 'common' diagnosis by 3 physicians, 2 NP, 2 PAs, and 1 specialist. 8 years... Some random redditor ended up figuring it out. Then every physician from that point forward agreed with the diagnosis. Licensed based medicine :(
kroolik 4y ago
My experience has been that the answers are very convincing, but not necessarily true. I would be careful asking gpt questions about abstract knowledge, less about linguistic structure.
- cm2012 4y ago
  They weren't true in past iterations. Since the new version is 10x as accurate (if you believe the test score measures, going from bottom 10% score to top 10%), we're going to see a lot less confident falseness as the tech improves.
  - audunw 4y ago
    I don't think ChatGPT should be trusted at all until it can tell you roughly how certain it is about an answer, and that this self-reported confidence roughly correponds to how well it will do on a test in that subject. I don't mind it giving me a wrong answer. What's really bad is confidently giving the wrong answer. If a human replied, they'd say something like "I'm not sure, but if I remember correctly..", or "I would guess that..." I think the problem is they've trained ChatGPT to respond condidently as long as it has a rough idea about what the answer could be. The AI doesn't get "rewarded" for saying "I don't know". I'm sure the data about the confidence is there somewhere in the neural net, so they probably just need to somehow train it to present that data in its response.
- zukzuk 4y ago
  That's exactly it. The bot espouses facts with the same tone of confidence regardless of whether they're true or entirely fictional. I understand it has no sense of knowledge-of-knowledge, so (apparently) no ability to determine how confident it ought to be about what it's saying — it never qualifies with "I'm not entirely sure about this, but..." I think this is something that needs to be worked in ASAP. It's a fundamental aspect of how people actually interact. Establishing oneself as factually reliable is fundamental for communication and social cohesion, so we're constantly hedging what we say in various ways to signify our confidence in its truthfulness. The absence of those qualifiers in otherwise human-seeming and authoritative-sounding communication is a recipe for trouble.
arrosenberg 4y ago
I'm very excited for the future wave of confidently incorrect people powered by ChatGPT.
- _boffin_ 4y ago
  We've had this before Chat and we'll have this after Chat.
  - what_ever 4y ago
    That's as useless of a statement as saying we had <insert_anything> before and we have <insert_same_thing> now.
    - _boffin_ 4y ago
      oh... 100% it's a useless statement, but what else can be said to your comment?
      - what_ever 4y ago
        The point was quantity is important. Of course a lot of things were there before, but the same things being more common now would be worse.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  "The existence of ChatGPT does not necessarily make people confidently incorrect." - ChatGPT
- bpicolo 4y ago
  You're going to get confidently incorrect arguments on the internet straight from ChatGPT without the human filter.
- test6554 4y ago
  Its a difficult job, but it gets me by
yoyohello13 4y ago
If you don't know the subject, how can you be sure what it's telling you is true? Do you vet what ChatGPT tells you with other sources? I don't really know Typescript, so I've been using it a lot to supplement my learning, but I find it really hard to accept any of its answers that aren't straight code examples I can test.
- _boffin_ 4y ago
  Can you go into more depth about >I don't really know Typescript, so I've been using it a lot to supplement my learning, but I find it really hard to accept any of its answers that aren't straight code examples I can test. - How are you using it? - What are the questions you're asking it? - What are your thoughts about the answers and how are you cross checking them? Edit: >If you don't know the subject, how can you be sure what it's telling you is true? Do you vet what ChatGPT tells you with other sources? I can't, but i can take a look at books i have or search google to find additional sources. To me, the biggest power of it is to help me understand and build mental models of something new.
  - georgebcrawford 4y ago
    They asked you questions too, y’know…
    - _boffin_ 4y ago
      Guess my brain skipped over that part. Thanks for pointing that out -- updating my answer
  - yoyohello13 4y ago
    At this point I generally stick to specific small problems like "How can I write a script to convert a Product from the Stripe API into my custom interface?" or "How do I do this thing in SQL". I trust these answers because I can verify by reading and running the actual code. For more open ended questions I tend to treat it more like a random comment in a forum. For example, I often notice that Typescript code examples don't use the `function` keyword often, they tend to use anonymous functions like `const func = () => blah`. I asked ChatGPT why this is and it gave a plausible answer, I have no idea if what it's saying is true, but it seemed true enough. I give the answer the same amount of trust as I would some random comment on Stack Overflow. The benefit of Stack Overflow though is at least you know the reputation of the person you're talking to.
101008 4y ago
Besides the fact that this comment reads written by GPT itself, using this particular AI as a source for your education is like going to the worse University out there. I am sure if you always wishes do thave a personal PhD in a particular subject you could find shady universities out there who could provide one without much effort. [I may be exagerating but the point still stands because the previous user also didn't mean a literal PhD]
- _boffin_ 4y ago
  This comment (this one right here) wasn't written with GPT, but I did have the other one refined by it. I think in elongated thoughts and a lot of continuations, which makes me a bit shy of my writings. Because of that, I use it to help me find different ways to improve my writing. I live near UCI and yes, I can find one, but at a sizable cost. I'm not opposed to that, but it's still a good chunk of money.
  - yackback 4y ago
    ChatGPT won't really help you improve your writing. It's got a terribly standard and boring voice. Most of the time generates 5 paragraph essays that make it super easy to sniff out. It might give you a couple common words it found in its training data to use, but you should stick to your elongated thoughts. Reading your writing out loud and editing will be just as good if not better than ChatGPT. Your comment here is pretty good. The first reply you made sounds... soulless.
- teawrecks 4y ago
  > like going to the worse University out there. ...without going anywhere. Wikipedia isn't great compared to a degree from a top university, but it's also readily available and is often a first reference for many of us.
- mustacheemperor 4y ago
  I don't think that's the user's intended meaning of "personal PhD," ie they don't mean a PhD or PhD level knowledge held by themselves, they mean having a person with a PhD that they can call up with questions. It seems like in some fields GPT4 will be on par with even PhD-friends who went to reasonably well respected institutions.
gdss 4y ago
You can't do that yet due to factuality issues, but that's the goal... the future of learning will radically change
- _boffin_ 4y ago
  I'm fantastically excited about how it will help people who learn differently than the standard academic model.
- test6554 4y ago
  Im actually interested in becoming a private pilot. ChatGPT pointed me to the proper reading material to get started and I’m going through that, using ChatGPT to clarify various concepts I misunderstand or poorly understand. Its been an amazing supplement to my learning. I can ask it about the certification process, what certified pilots can and can’t do, various levels of certification, etc.
suction 4y ago
[dead]
emptyfile 4y ago
[dead]
make3 4y ago
it makes shit up still
thefourthchime 4y ago
I do the same with the writing style! (not in this case) .... maybe.

andrepd 4y ago

But it often produces wrong information. If you don't know the subject (since you are learning), how do you distinguish between correct information and incorrect but very plausible-sounding information?

_boffin_ 4y ago
Although the technology occasionally produces incorrect information, I still find it to be a helpful learning tool. I break down the information into bullet points and cross-check it with other sources to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information--I know this isn't infallible. One of the advantages of using this technology is that it often presents me with new and intriguing information, which I might not have found otherwise. This allows me to ask new questions and explore the subject matter more profoundly, resulting in a better understanding and an opportunity to create a mental model.
Arisaka1 4y ago
The same way anyone lacking knowledge can confident say that they got the right information from anyone with experience: You don't. You just trust them. That's what I did with my gastrenterologist, I ended up got misdiagnosed for 4 years and instead of getting the treatment that I should be getting I lost weight, got osteoporosis and vitamin D deficiency. 4 years later the second doctor asked me "I wonder why did my colleague decided not to take a tissue sample from insert some place in the stomach. I said out loud "I didn't even know what that is, let along ask him why he didn't".
- Joeri 4y ago
  I had a neurologist prescribe me medications which I didn’t need and which permanently damaged my side vision. Doctors are people too, and all people make mistakes sometimes. It has taught me to always ask a second opinion when it matters. The same maxim applies to chatgpt: when the accuracy matters, look for independent confirmation.
- arbitrage 4y ago
  > The same way anyone lacking knowledge can confident say that they got the right information from anyone with experience: You don't. No, that's not the same way that anyone lacking knowledge gains confidence in the things that others tell them. A technique one can use instead of blindly trusting what one person may tell us is seeking out second opinions to corroborate new info. This works for many things you might not have personal experience with: automobiles, construction, finance, medicine, &c.
hospitalJail 4y ago
I was misdiagnosed with the 'common' diagnosis by 3 physicians, 2 NP, 2 PAs, and 1 specialist. 8 years... Some random redditor ended up figuring it out. Then every physician from that point forward agreed with the diagnosis. Licensed based medicine :(

kroolik 4y ago

My experience has been that the answers are very convincing, but not necessarily true. I would be careful asking gpt questions about abstract knowledge, less about linguistic structure.

cm2012 4y ago
They weren't true in past iterations. Since the new version is 10x as accurate (if you believe the test score measures, going from bottom 10% score to top 10%), we're going to see a lot less confident falseness as the tech improves.
- audunw 4y ago
  I don't think ChatGPT should be trusted at all until it can tell you roughly how certain it is about an answer, and that this self-reported confidence roughly correponds to how well it will do on a test in that subject. I don't mind it giving me a wrong answer. What's really bad is confidently giving the wrong answer. If a human replied, they'd say something like "I'm not sure, but if I remember correctly..", or "I would guess that..." I think the problem is they've trained ChatGPT to respond condidently as long as it has a rough idea about what the answer could be. The AI doesn't get "rewarded" for saying "I don't know". I'm sure the data about the confidence is there somewhere in the neural net, so they probably just need to somehow train it to present that data in its response.
zukzuk 4y ago
That's exactly it. The bot espouses facts with the same tone of confidence regardless of whether they're true or entirely fictional. I understand it has no sense of knowledge-of-knowledge, so (apparently) no ability to determine how confident it ought to be about what it's saying — it never qualifies with "I'm not entirely sure about this, but..." I think this is something that needs to be worked in ASAP. It's a fundamental aspect of how people actually interact. Establishing oneself as factually reliable is fundamental for communication and social cohesion, so we're constantly hedging what we say in various ways to signify our confidence in its truthfulness. The absence of those qualifiers in otherwise human-seeming and authoritative-sounding communication is a recipe for trouble.

arrosenberg 4y ago

I'm very excited for the future wave of confidently incorrect people powered by ChatGPT.

_boffin_ 4y ago
We've had this before Chat and we'll have this after Chat.
- what_ever 4y ago
  That's as useless of a statement as saying we had <insert_anything> before and we have <insert_same_thing> now.
  - _boffin_ 4y ago
    oh... 100% it's a useless statement, but what else can be said to your comment?
    - what_ever 4y ago
      The point was quantity is important. Of course a lot of things were there before, but the same things being more common now would be worse.
moffkalast 4y ago
"The existence of ChatGPT does not necessarily make people confidently incorrect." - ChatGPT
bpicolo 4y ago
You're going to get confidently incorrect arguments on the internet straight from ChatGPT without the human filter.
test6554 4y ago
Its a difficult job, but it gets me by

yoyohello13 4y ago

If you don't know the subject, how can you be sure what it's telling you is true? Do you vet what ChatGPT tells you with other sources? I don't really know Typescript, so I've been using it a lot to supplement my learning, but I find it really hard to accept any of its answers that aren't straight code examples I can test.

_boffin_ 4y ago
Can you go into more depth about >I don't really know Typescript, so I've been using it a lot to supplement my learning, but I find it really hard to accept any of its answers that aren't straight code examples I can test. - How are you using it? - What are the questions you're asking it? - What are your thoughts about the answers and how are you cross checking them? Edit: >If you don't know the subject, how can you be sure what it's telling you is true? Do you vet what ChatGPT tells you with other sources? I can't, but i can take a look at books i have or search google to find additional sources. To me, the biggest power of it is to help me understand and build mental models of something new.
- georgebcrawford 4y ago
  They asked you questions too, y’know…
  - _boffin_ 4y ago
    Guess my brain skipped over that part. Thanks for pointing that out -- updating my answer
- yoyohello13 4y ago
  At this point I generally stick to specific small problems like "How can I write a script to convert a Product from the Stripe API into my custom interface?" or "How do I do this thing in SQL". I trust these answers because I can verify by reading and running the actual code. For more open ended questions I tend to treat it more like a random comment in a forum. For example, I often notice that Typescript code examples don't use the `function` keyword often, they tend to use anonymous functions like `const func = () => blah`. I asked ChatGPT why this is and it gave a plausible answer, I have no idea if what it's saying is true, but it seemed true enough. I give the answer the same amount of trust as I would some random comment on Stack Overflow. The benefit of Stack Overflow though is at least you know the reputation of the person you're talking to.

101008 4y ago

Besides the fact that this comment reads written by GPT itself, using this particular AI as a source for your education is like going to the worse University out there. I am sure if you always wishes do thave a personal PhD in a particular subject you could find shady universities out there who could provide one without much effort. [I may be exagerating but the point still stands because the previous user also didn't mean a literal PhD]

_boffin_ 4y ago
This comment (this one right here) wasn't written with GPT, but I did have the other one refined by it. I think in elongated thoughts and a lot of continuations, which makes me a bit shy of my writings. Because of that, I use it to help me find different ways to improve my writing. I live near UCI and yes, I can find one, but at a sizable cost. I'm not opposed to that, but it's still a good chunk of money.
- yackback 4y ago
  ChatGPT won't really help you improve your writing. It's got a terribly standard and boring voice. Most of the time generates 5 paragraph essays that make it super easy to sniff out. It might give you a couple common words it found in its training data to use, but you should stick to your elongated thoughts. Reading your writing out loud and editing will be just as good if not better than ChatGPT. Your comment here is pretty good. The first reply you made sounds... soulless.
teawrecks 4y ago
> like going to the worse University out there. ...without going anywhere. Wikipedia isn't great compared to a degree from a top university, but it's also readily available and is often a first reference for many of us.
mustacheemperor 4y ago
I don't think that's the user's intended meaning of "personal PhD," ie they don't mean a PhD or PhD level knowledge held by themselves, they mean having a person with a PhD that they can call up with questions. It seems like in some fields GPT4 will be on par with even PhD-friends who went to reasonably well respected institutions.

gdss 4y ago

You can't do that yet due to factuality issues, but that's the goal... the future of learning will radically change

_boffin_ 4y ago
I'm fantastically excited about how it will help people who learn differently than the standard academic model.
test6554 4y ago
Im actually interested in becoming a private pilot. ChatGPT pointed me to the proper reading material to get started and I’m going through that, using ChatGPT to clarify various concepts I misunderstand or poorly understand. Its been an amazing supplement to my learning. I can ask it about the certification process, what certified pilots can and can’t do, various levels of certification, etc.

suction 4y ago

[dead]

emptyfile 4y ago

[dead]

make3 4y ago

it makes shit up still

thefourthchime 4y ago

I do the same with the writing style! (not in this case) .... maybe.