4 ms·

It shouldn't be surprising that we see a proliferation of negative articles on LLMs in the media. Much of the reporting is self-serving, with reporters trying

It shouldn't be surprising that we see a proliferation of negative articles on LLMs in the media. Much of the reporting is self-serving, with reporters trying to protect their livelihood. Among others, LLMs outright replace journalists, especially those reporting on science and technology. Why pay a human money to understand and report on something when ChatGPT can generate a digest for pennies on the dollar? I find LLMs fascinating, and do not perceive them as an existential threat on par with nuclear warheads. Rather I see it as a liberating mechanism. Llama.cpp lets me run a Googlesque search on my local hardware, no connectivity required. That's incredibly exciting!

blackbear_ 4y ago
> I find LLMs fascinating, and do not perceive them as an existential threat What do you think of this? http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16200 http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16200
- paddw 4y ago
  There are many reasons to be nervous about AI, but this line of argumentation seems unscientific.
  - blackbear_ 4y ago
    Does "unscientific" mean "unworthy"? Is it even possible to be scientific when evaluating innovations?
    - paddw 4y ago
      Unscientific implies there is no reasonable experiment to be able to evaluate a hypothesis. Generally, it is very much possible to conduct scientific experiments on innovations, and even LLMs can be tested to a degree by comparative evaluation and other techniques which OpenAI has used. What can not be tested, and therefore is not scientific as I see it, is a broad and analogical train of argument which tries to understand the development of AI through something like natural selection. There may be some value in trying to think of things this way, but to my mind, that kind of argument should not be made in an academic paper.
      - blackbear_ 4y ago
        I certainly agree that the arguments in that paper are unscientific and not testable. But dismissing all of it simply because it does not present any data is unfair. Thoughts experiments [1] have been a very important catalyst of human thought and yes, of scientific progress itself. If the opinion in the paper is based on sound reasoning and logic, I would argue it deserves to be considered seriously, even if it does not contain any empirical data. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/
        paddw 4y ago
        I think we essentially agree here. My main qualm is that the way the paper is presented implies a false degree of rigor (not "rigor" exactly but more so the idea that the arguments are based on some incontrovertible formal reasoning).
- glitchc 4y ago
  Sounds like hyperbole rather than serious research. There's no evidence presented to support the paper's claims.
abeppu 4y ago
Given that LLMs are prone to making stuff up, we should not be using them to "replace" journalists. However, if as a tool, LLMs could allow journalists to focus on getting and understanding facts, talking to more parties with specific knowledge, etc, and less the writing itself, perhaps we would be well served.
- Veen 4y ago
  I suppose the idea is that you feed a scientific paper or research institute's PR to an LLM and it spits out an article. That's the bread and butter of many science journalists. An editor can make sure it isn't a load of nonsense, which is one of the things editors already do. But, that leaves a lot of space for "proper" journalism: gathering facts on the ground, interviewing relevant people, assessing impact, and so on.
  - abeppu 4y ago
    > I suppose the idea is that you feed a scientific paper or research institute's PR to an LLM and it spits out an article. I'm sure many journalists do this, but I would argue that science journalists also need to: - consult other, independent sources with knowledge of the field. These parties may be able to highlight weaknesses or limitations of the work, framing assumptions that the work is dependent on etc. - consulting broader background sources to provide context for the work, and potential relevance. A science journalist who merely extracts from the research institution's PR is exactly as bad as a business reporter who merely extracts from a company's PR is exactly as bad as a political reporter who merely extracts from a politician's grandstanding. All of them are bad journalists who are merely tools of some other organization's public relations effort.
    - JieJie 4y ago
      If we think of it in the same way we think of programming, journalists are the junior developers of the writing world, editors are the senior developers of the writing world. Editors are also writers and also do journalism, they just do it at a more high level, and that includes directing journalists on how to better do their job. It isn't necessarily a supervisory role, but more of a pedagogic relationship. It seems to me, and I have experience in the alternative weekly newspaper world (which is long dead as a business model, but as a model of journalism, I feel one that we would do well to resurrect in some form) would prefer if all writers took on a more supervisory role, directing AI to do all of the investigatory work of showing up at the records office and sifting through city council transcripts. Then the human writer would do what humans do well and work those personal connections that they have much more time to do now that the AI is doing all the tedious grunt work. I understand that people are frightened and in a bit of a panic, but these generative AI could do a vast amount to bring back truth to journalism, if we do this correctly. Will we? <shrug>
mattferderer 4y ago
I've seen headlines of 1 major publication that's been non-stop ChatGPT is evil for the past month. I don't think it replaces real journalists. Real journalism just got much easier to do & analyze research. I will gladly pay a human money who understands what they're reporting on, can gather sources of quality data & use a tool like ChatGPT to help discover & summarize the data. Journalism that is quality over quantity will increase in value, especially the kind that helps filter out fearmongering & overusing the 7 deadly sins. I don't want or need daily news. I want quality & value my time.
- marcus_holmes 4y ago
  Now we just need to find a business model for Real Journalism that actually works so that we can pay journalists to do it. And we desperately need it. Part of why everything is getting more corrupt is that we don't have newspapers funding journos to go and dig up the dirt.
  - MSFT_Edging 4y ago
    The business of News and Journalism almost inherently corrupts the journalism sadly. How can you report on wrongdoings, when the one doing wrong sponsors the publication. A challenge going forward would be to figure out how one can fund journalism in a way that is separate from motive and bias of those funding. State funded means state gets the last say more or less. Corporate funding means journalism is inherently pro-corporate. Local news(tv and paper) is no longer profitable which means we lose the most independent investigative journalism.
    - marcus_holmes 4y ago
      In traditional newspapers, there was a very clear line between the editorial staff and the business/management staff. The business side could not interfere in the editorial - the editorial staff would walk out if the CEO tried to interfere in editorial control. Sadly that hasn't been true for most journalism for decades. The only way forward is for the readers to pay for it. But we've trained everyone that the news is free - it's going to be a hard task to undo that training and get people to pay for their news again.

blackbear_ 4y ago

> I find LLMs fascinating, and do not perceive them as an existential threat What do you think of this? http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16200 http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16200

paddw 4y ago
There are many reasons to be nervous about AI, but this line of argumentation seems unscientific.
- blackbear_ 4y ago
  Does "unscientific" mean "unworthy"? Is it even possible to be scientific when evaluating innovations?
  - paddw 4y ago
    Unscientific implies there is no reasonable experiment to be able to evaluate a hypothesis. Generally, it is very much possible to conduct scientific experiments on innovations, and even LLMs can be tested to a degree by comparative evaluation and other techniques which OpenAI has used. What can not be tested, and therefore is not scientific as I see it, is a broad and analogical train of argument which tries to understand the development of AI through something like natural selection. There may be some value in trying to think of things this way, but to my mind, that kind of argument should not be made in an academic paper.
    - blackbear_ 4y ago
      I certainly agree that the arguments in that paper are unscientific and not testable. But dismissing all of it simply because it does not present any data is unfair. Thoughts experiments [1] have been a very important catalyst of human thought and yes, of scientific progress itself. If the opinion in the paper is based on sound reasoning and logic, I would argue it deserves to be considered seriously, even if it does not contain any empirical data. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/
      - paddw 4y ago
        I think we essentially agree here. My main qualm is that the way the paper is presented implies a false degree of rigor (not "rigor" exactly but more so the idea that the arguments are based on some incontrovertible formal reasoning).
glitchc 4y ago
Sounds like hyperbole rather than serious research. There's no evidence presented to support the paper's claims.

abeppu 4y ago

Given that LLMs are prone to making stuff up, we should not be using them to "replace" journalists. However, if as a tool, LLMs could allow journalists to focus on getting and understanding facts, talking to more parties with specific knowledge, etc, and less the writing itself, perhaps we would be well served.

Veen 4y ago
I suppose the idea is that you feed a scientific paper or research institute's PR to an LLM and it spits out an article. That's the bread and butter of many science journalists. An editor can make sure it isn't a load of nonsense, which is one of the things editors already do. But, that leaves a lot of space for "proper" journalism: gathering facts on the ground, interviewing relevant people, assessing impact, and so on.
- abeppu 4y ago
  > I suppose the idea is that you feed a scientific paper or research institute's PR to an LLM and it spits out an article. I'm sure many journalists do this, but I would argue that science journalists also need to: - consult other, independent sources with knowledge of the field. These parties may be able to highlight weaknesses or limitations of the work, framing assumptions that the work is dependent on etc. - consulting broader background sources to provide context for the work, and potential relevance. A science journalist who merely extracts from the research institution's PR is exactly as bad as a business reporter who merely extracts from a company's PR is exactly as bad as a political reporter who merely extracts from a politician's grandstanding. All of them are bad journalists who are merely tools of some other organization's public relations effort.
  - JieJie 4y ago
    If we think of it in the same way we think of programming, journalists are the junior developers of the writing world, editors are the senior developers of the writing world. Editors are also writers and also do journalism, they just do it at a more high level, and that includes directing journalists on how to better do their job. It isn't necessarily a supervisory role, but more of a pedagogic relationship. It seems to me, and I have experience in the alternative weekly newspaper world (which is long dead as a business model, but as a model of journalism, I feel one that we would do well to resurrect in some form) would prefer if all writers took on a more supervisory role, directing AI to do all of the investigatory work of showing up at the records office and sifting through city council transcripts. Then the human writer would do what humans do well and work those personal connections that they have much more time to do now that the AI is doing all the tedious grunt work. I understand that people are frightened and in a bit of a panic, but these generative AI could do a vast amount to bring back truth to journalism, if we do this correctly. Will we? <shrug>

mattferderer 4y ago

I've seen headlines of 1 major publication that's been non-stop ChatGPT is evil for the past month. I don't think it replaces real journalists. Real journalism just got much easier to do & analyze research. I will gladly pay a human money who understands what they're reporting on, can gather sources of quality data & use a tool like ChatGPT to help discover & summarize the data. Journalism that is quality over quantity will increase in value, especially the kind that helps filter out fearmongering & overusing the 7 deadly sins. I don't want or need daily news. I want quality & value my time.

marcus_holmes 4y ago
Now we just need to find a business model for Real Journalism that actually works so that we can pay journalists to do it. And we desperately need it. Part of why everything is getting more corrupt is that we don't have newspapers funding journos to go and dig up the dirt.
- MSFT_Edging 4y ago
  The business of News and Journalism almost inherently corrupts the journalism sadly. How can you report on wrongdoings, when the one doing wrong sponsors the publication. A challenge going forward would be to figure out how one can fund journalism in a way that is separate from motive and bias of those funding. State funded means state gets the last say more or less. Corporate funding means journalism is inherently pro-corporate. Local news(tv and paper) is no longer profitable which means we lose the most independent investigative journalism.
  - marcus_holmes 4y ago
    In traditional newspapers, there was a very clear line between the editorial staff and the business/management staff. The business side could not interfere in the editorial - the editorial staff would walk out if the CEO tried to interfere in editorial control. Sadly that hasn't been true for most journalism for decades. The only way forward is for the readers to pay for it. But we've trained everyone that the news is free - it's going to be a hard task to undo that training and get people to pay for their news again.