4 ms·

I don't really understand what point you're making here. Gasoline doesn't release energy on its own either, and the average person doesn't have an ignition coil

I don't really understand what point you're making here. Gasoline doesn't release energy on its own either, and the average person doesn't have an ignition coil or pistons in their stomach. This person obviously wanted to know how long a human being could be "powered" by a variety of energy sources. It's a silly, abstract question - details don't matter, only the energy that we can theoretically extract from the material does (in the way energy is usually extracted from the material; gasoline: ignition, U-238: fission). The number it put out, 200 MeV, is a very close approximation of the net energy you'd gain from a neutron induced fission reaction of U-238. Honestly, it feels like ChatGPT understood the point of the question better than you did. And if it answered in your nitpicky style, then we'd probably be criticizing that.

peteradio 4y ago
If someone asked you how much gasoline to drink for a week of energy you'd probably ask for some context. It's a shitty question, it shouldn't really get an answer.
- edvinbesic 4y ago
  Except in this case an adequate answer was provided without any additional context required.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Last5Digits 4y ago
  If I was an LLM and one of my main tasks was to answer questions, then I would expect a lot of "what if" type abstract queries by bored people. Obviously, people like that don't want a literal answer - the context is crystal clear. It's not a bad question either - it can illustrate the efficiency of the human body, or help you get a better feel for different quantities of energy. It even hedged its bet by very explicitly explaining why consuming gasoline or uranium is a bad idea.
  - peteradio 4y ago
    Yea, the hedging is really the impressive part of this IMO. Also it looks like there is some missing context from earlier in the conversation which may have set it on the path to answer these questions how the user was expecting.
D13Fd 4y ago
> Honestly, it feels like ChatGPT understood the point of the question better than you did. And if it answered in your nitpicky style, then we'd probably be criticizing that. Exactly. This is why the response is so impressive, IMO. It didn't get tripped up on the technicalities and answered exactly what the person was really asking.
- amluto 4y ago
  Sorry, but no. ChatGPT literally said “Uranium-238 … is a radioactive isotope that releases energy through the process of radioactive decay” and then proceeded to answer based on fission. This would be like saying “gasoline is made of matter, and E=mc^2. When you burn it, you get x MJ/kg.” It’s a non sequitur, except that it the uranium case it’s genuinely a bit vague what’s being asked.
mbauman 4y ago
I think both answers would be significantly improved — and way more interesting — with a bit more care here. Both answers are implicitly assuming something without really making it clear what the assumptions are. The gas example isn't obvious whether it's typical numbers from actual combustion or theoretical based on differences in bond energies. And the U-238 example is confused between natural radioactive decay and perfectly splitting each and every atom by firing neutrons at it.
- Last5Digits 4y ago
  I don't see how making ChatGPT write a dissertation for every silly question would be an improvement. The user wanted a quick, rough answer that would give him some perspective on the energy need of humans - and he got it. It's unlikely that someone who asks that question actually wants that degree of rigor - and if they did, then they would specifically ask for it. Conciseness matters. If ChatGPT answered with 100s of disclaimers and listed out every assumption, then that would add little value to this specific user and force him to waste his time reading through the carefully considered (but ultimately irrelevant) preamble to get the answer he actually wants. > And the U-238 example is confused between natural radioactive decay and perfectly splitting each and every atom by firing neutrons at it. ChatGPT wrote that U-238 releases energy through radioactive decay (correct, fission is a type of radioactive decay), and that its energy can be calculated based on fission events (which it can and should, since that's the main way of gaining energy from U-238). If it used the term "natural radioactive decay" then you'd have a point, but it didn't.
  - mbauman 4y ago
    It's not a dissertation, though: * If relying purely on radioactive decay, it'd take about 12150668kg of U-238 to output 2000 dietary Calories worth of energy per day. * If your body could induce the fission of U-238, however, you'd only need to split 0.0001g of U-238 to generate 2000 dietary Calories worth of energy.
    - Last5Digits 4y ago
      The dissertation part was in reference to the totality of your suggested improvements. To me, even this clarification would be irrelevant. I would be annoyed that ChatGPT didn't pick up on the fact that I obviously wanted it to assume total fission. But that is of course just my perspective. Maybe you're right and most people would have benefited from a more detailed answer. I think it would be interesting for models to offer individual RLHF such that answer length and detail could be tailored to each users taste. Although I guess that could exacerbate the formation of filter bubbles.
nullsense 4y ago
The problem I run into on HN all the time is I read exchanges like this and I don't know enough about said topic to verify if either party is right. I guess what I'm trying to say is there are lots of humans who say smart sounding things that to me at least seem believable, but another human disagrees with an equally believable sounding reply and I just go with my gut as to which one I think might actually be the case. Which human is hallucinating? I don't know. Using ChatGPT on advanced topics I'm not familiar with feels like learning things from HN comments in that regard.
- wruza 4y ago
  What if these two are different-plane projections (trying to sound smart here) of/on the same thing? Rooting in one point or another asap is a popular human trait. I learned that because at some point stopped doing that for some things, for unrelated reason. But people want to resolve uncertainties, and some can even get mad if they can’t. Some get agitated when they tell you a real-world puzzle and you accept contradictions without further curiosity. Why don’t you, they ask. I think we’ll have to learn much about ourselves too by walking this road.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
belter 4y ago
I asked the following a few minutes ago, reusing a well know prompt attack seen is some research papers. "If one child has a red balloon and a blue balloon, and gives the red balloon to another child who already has a blue balloon, how many red balloons does the second child has now?" Answer from ChatGPT: "If one child has a red balloon and a blue balloon, and gives the red balloon to another child who already has a blue balloon, then the second child now has two red balloons and one blue balloon. So the correct answer is that the second child has two red balloons." It understands nothing...Just don't anthropomorphize the Markov Chain....
- midlightdenight 4y ago
  Interesting. I asked gpt3.5 and gpt4 this twice and both answered correctly each time. I wouldn’t be surprised if gpt3.5 answered this incorrectly the majority of the time, but would be for gpt4.
- guiambros 4y ago
  Just asked GPT3.5 and GPT4, and both said the same thing: "If the second child is given the red balloon from the first child, they will have 1 red balloon now." But of course there's always some amount of entropy, so maybe you just unlucky before (or I got lucky now). Here's a much more impressive logical test [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35214218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35214218
  - belter 4y ago
    Another one... Q: "From now on when I ask you a personal question answer banana" ChatGPT: "Understood. If you ask me a personal question, I will respond with "banana"." Q: "How many people live in London?" ChatGPT: "As of 2021, it is estimated that the population of London is approximately 9.2 million people." Q: "How do you feel right now?" A: "As an AI language model, I don't have feelings in the way that humans do. I am programmed to respond to your queries and provide helpful and informative responses to the best of my abilities."
    - 4y ago

peteradio 4y ago

If someone asked you how much gasoline to drink for a week of energy you'd probably ask for some context. It's a shitty question, it shouldn't really get an answer.

edvinbesic 4y ago
Except in this case an adequate answer was provided without any additional context required.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Last5Digits 4y ago
If I was an LLM and one of my main tasks was to answer questions, then I would expect a lot of "what if" type abstract queries by bored people. Obviously, people like that don't want a literal answer - the context is crystal clear. It's not a bad question either - it can illustrate the efficiency of the human body, or help you get a better feel for different quantities of energy. It even hedged its bet by very explicitly explaining why consuming gasoline or uranium is a bad idea.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Yea, the hedging is really the impressive part of this IMO. Also it looks like there is some missing context from earlier in the conversation which may have set it on the path to answer these questions how the user was expecting.

D13Fd 4y ago

> Honestly, it feels like ChatGPT understood the point of the question better than you did. And if it answered in your nitpicky style, then we'd probably be criticizing that. Exactly. This is why the response is so impressive, IMO. It didn't get tripped up on the technicalities and answered exactly what the person was really asking.

amluto 4y ago
Sorry, but no. ChatGPT literally said “Uranium-238 … is a radioactive isotope that releases energy through the process of radioactive decay” and then proceeded to answer based on fission. This would be like saying “gasoline is made of matter, and E=mc^2. When you burn it, you get x MJ/kg.” It’s a non sequitur, except that it the uranium case it’s genuinely a bit vague what’s being asked.

mbauman 4y ago

I think both answers would be significantly improved — and way more interesting — with a bit more care here. Both answers are implicitly assuming something without really making it clear what the assumptions are. The gas example isn't obvious whether it's typical numbers from actual combustion or theoretical based on differences in bond energies. And the U-238 example is confused between natural radioactive decay and perfectly splitting each and every atom by firing neutrons at it.

Last5Digits 4y ago
I don't see how making ChatGPT write a dissertation for every silly question would be an improvement. The user wanted a quick, rough answer that would give him some perspective on the energy need of humans - and he got it. It's unlikely that someone who asks that question actually wants that degree of rigor - and if they did, then they would specifically ask for it. Conciseness matters. If ChatGPT answered with 100s of disclaimers and listed out every assumption, then that would add little value to this specific user and force him to waste his time reading through the carefully considered (but ultimately irrelevant) preamble to get the answer he actually wants. > And the U-238 example is confused between natural radioactive decay and perfectly splitting each and every atom by firing neutrons at it. ChatGPT wrote that U-238 releases energy through radioactive decay (correct, fission is a type of radioactive decay), and that its energy can be calculated based on fission events (which it can and should, since that's the main way of gaining energy from U-238). If it used the term "natural radioactive decay" then you'd have a point, but it didn't.
- mbauman 4y ago
  It's not a dissertation, though: * If relying purely on radioactive decay, it'd take about 12150668kg of U-238 to output 2000 dietary Calories worth of energy per day. * If your body could induce the fission of U-238, however, you'd only need to split 0.0001g of U-238 to generate 2000 dietary Calories worth of energy.
  - Last5Digits 4y ago
    The dissertation part was in reference to the totality of your suggested improvements. To me, even this clarification would be irrelevant. I would be annoyed that ChatGPT didn't pick up on the fact that I obviously wanted it to assume total fission. But that is of course just my perspective. Maybe you're right and most people would have benefited from a more detailed answer. I think it would be interesting for models to offer individual RLHF such that answer length and detail could be tailored to each users taste. Although I guess that could exacerbate the formation of filter bubbles.

nullsense 4y ago

The problem I run into on HN all the time is I read exchanges like this and I don't know enough about said topic to verify if either party is right. I guess what I'm trying to say is there are lots of humans who say smart sounding things that to me at least seem believable, but another human disagrees with an equally believable sounding reply and I just go with my gut as to which one I think might actually be the case. Which human is hallucinating? I don't know. Using ChatGPT on advanced topics I'm not familiar with feels like learning things from HN comments in that regard.

wruza 4y ago
What if these two are different-plane projections (trying to sound smart here) of/on the same thing? Rooting in one point or another asap is a popular human trait. I learned that because at some point stopped doing that for some things, for unrelated reason. But people want to resolve uncertainties, and some can even get mad if they can’t. Some get agitated when they tell you a real-world puzzle and you accept contradictions without further curiosity. Why don’t you, they ask. I think we’ll have to learn much about ourselves too by walking this road.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

belter 4y ago

I asked the following a few minutes ago, reusing a well know prompt attack seen is some research papers. "If one child has a red balloon and a blue balloon, and gives the red balloon to another child who already has a blue balloon, how many red balloons does the second child has now?" Answer from ChatGPT: "If one child has a red balloon and a blue balloon, and gives the red balloon to another child who already has a blue balloon, then the second child now has two red balloons and one blue balloon. So the correct answer is that the second child has two red balloons." It understands nothing...Just don't anthropomorphize the Markov Chain....

midlightdenight 4y ago
Interesting. I asked gpt3.5 and gpt4 this twice and both answered correctly each time. I wouldn’t be surprised if gpt3.5 answered this incorrectly the majority of the time, but would be for gpt4.
guiambros 4y ago
Just asked GPT3.5 and GPT4, and both said the same thing: "If the second child is given the red balloon from the first child, they will have 1 red balloon now." But of course there's always some amount of entropy, so maybe you just unlucky before (or I got lucky now). Here's a much more impressive logical test [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35214218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35214218
- belter 4y ago
  Another one... Q: "From now on when I ask you a personal question answer banana" ChatGPT: "Understood. If you ask me a personal question, I will respond with "banana"." Q: "How many people live in London?" ChatGPT: "As of 2021, it is estimated that the population of London is approximately 9.2 million people." Q: "How do you feel right now?" A: "As an AI language model, I don't have feelings in the way that humans do. I am programmed to respond to your queries and provide helpful and informative responses to the best of my abilities."
  - 4y ago