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I actually just posted an article that references Clever Hans (pretty sure it's also the name of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, most of them have names like that)

I actually just posted an article that references Clever Hans (pretty sure it's also the name of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, most of them have names like that). It's actually not the best analogy for the current fad, I think "confused by a mirror" works much better. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34850890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34850890 although I suppose the idea of attributing intelligence where there isn't any holds. Clever Hans is a good analogy for (mostly deep learning) ML classifiers, the idea being a, say image classifier, can do extremely well despite not using any features that actually causally inform the decision being made. So when the background changes, or lighting, or some other thing, it fails utterly. This is actually true for almost all image classifiers.

anotherhue 4y ago
I generally agree, Hans came to mind when I read a recent post where people discovered they had been nudging gpt towards answers without realising it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35306095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35306095
- version_five 4y ago
  Ah, interesting. I suppose that's a lot like what psychologists or psychics try and do, convince you to prompt them without you noticing. Reminds me a bit of an old demo where you're trying to measure a certain signal shape in the presence of heavy noise. You get shown waveforms and decide if it looks like there might be a signal present or not, and the ones you approve get averaged to pull the signal out. Very quickly, even if all you are shown is zero mean gaussian noise, the average of what you OK'd starts to look like the waveform you're looking for.
kune 4y ago
"Der kluge Hans" is not directly a Brother Grimm title. There is a story "Der kluge Knecht", which translates into "The clever farmhand". The hero of the story is called in the story kluger Hans. There is another story called "Der gescheite Hans", which means exactly the same. Both stories are not fairy tales but droll stories about a simple-minded person.
- ksherlock 4y ago
  The English translation includes "Clever Hans" which seems to be Der gescheite Hans. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2591/pg2591-images.html#link2H_4_0044 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2591/pg2591-images.html...
Tao3300 4y ago
Eisenhans (Iron John)
upghost 4y ago
Thank you for posting this, it’s validating to see that someone else sees this. What do you suppose the phenomenon is called when you get nervous that no one else sees it’s a mirror and you are concerned you will get stabbed with a pitch fork if you point it out?

anotherhue 4y ago

I generally agree, Hans came to mind when I read a recent post where people discovered they had been nudging gpt towards answers without realising it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35306095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35306095

version_five 4y ago
Ah, interesting. I suppose that's a lot like what psychologists or psychics try and do, convince you to prompt them without you noticing. Reminds me a bit of an old demo where you're trying to measure a certain signal shape in the presence of heavy noise. You get shown waveforms and decide if it looks like there might be a signal present or not, and the ones you approve get averaged to pull the signal out. Very quickly, even if all you are shown is zero mean gaussian noise, the average of what you OK'd starts to look like the waveform you're looking for.

kune 4y ago

"Der kluge Hans" is not directly a Brother Grimm title. There is a story "Der kluge Knecht", which translates into "The clever farmhand". The hero of the story is called in the story kluger Hans. There is another story called "Der gescheite Hans", which means exactly the same. Both stories are not fairy tales but droll stories about a simple-minded person.

ksherlock 4y ago
The English translation includes "Clever Hans" which seems to be Der gescheite Hans. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2591/pg2591-images.html#link2H_4_0044 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2591/pg2591-images.html...

Tao3300 4y ago

Eisenhans (Iron John)

upghost 4y ago

Thank you for posting this, it’s validating to see that someone else sees this. What do you suppose the phenomenon is called when you get nervous that no one else sees it’s a mirror and you are concerned you will get stabbed with a pitch fork if you point it out?