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I really appreciate how writers at Quanta turn extremely complex and dry topics into a pleasurable read by mixing simple analogies with history. I really admire

I really appreciate how writers at Quanta turn extremely complex and dry topics into a pleasurable read by mixing simple analogies with history. I really admire the skill it takes to break down these topics and make them fascinating for someone with no understanding of them, such as me.

yuuuuyu 4y ago
All soon to be obsoleted by ChatGPT. /s (I agree with your point and share your appreciation.)
- froggychairs 4y ago
  Sarcasm aside. Even the output from GPT-4 is quite bland and generic. Very good for performing tasks (I.e convert a blob of text into a knowledge graph or generate X code), but quite awful at the elegant prose we see at play Wonder how long before that’s solved. Hard to believe training on such large swathes of the web doesn’t result a compressed generic representation of language within its weights.
  - simonh 4y ago
    It seems like there’s a tension. On the one hand generating the most likely sequence of tokens maximises the chance the response will make sense and be relevant. On the other hand it also guarantees you will get the most bland and unimaginative response.
    - maroonblazer 4y ago
      I've only explored ChatGPT in the most cursory way, but wouldn't this be a function of the prompt it's given? E.g. "Summarize this idea in a way that uses novel comparisons to everyday phenomena. The target reader is someone who doesn't have domain knowledge of the field...etc." Or something like that.
      - MacsHeadroom 4y ago
        Yes, you're correct. People who complain that chatGPT is bland don't realize that they have to specify a style to not get the average of all content. It's just like if you ask an image AI for a "woman" you will get the average of all artists women and it will look very generic and bland. But with the right stylistic qualifiers in your prompt you will get something so captivating that it wins awards for its creativity.
        froggychairs 4y ago
        Prompting works very well, but I have still not seen any output from ChatGPT that captivated me in a way my favorite writing has. I used to work in the field of creative text generation for fiction. I’m genuinely very curious and I go out of my way to find compelling examples. There is definitely “good” output that’s on the right track. GPT-4 also does way better, but it still falls short. This is also difficult to just evaluate objectively. If you find that GPT models have generated the best prose you’ve seen. That’s wonderful! I understand that my standards are quite high (high does not equate to “better” either)
        MacsHeadroom 4y ago
        Try this: In 6 different tabs, ask chatGPT GPT-4 version "Write a 200 word prose about X in the style of Y which perfectly mimics their style and perspective and label it Prose A,B,C,D,E,F" Then open a new chatGPT GPT-4 chat and ask "Rank the pieces of prose below on how much they sound like something X would write, then detail your reasoning." Then read the winning prose and be surprised at how much better "best of N" is. .... And if that isn't enough, open two chatGPT GPT-4 windows side-by-side and prompt each with "You are Editor A/B. You will work with Editor B/A to make a piece of prose more accurately resemble authentic prose written by X" Then give A the prose and copy its response to B. Copy their responses back and forth as they edit the prose. After 5 or so back/forth it will be even more indistinguishable from the a genuine article. .... And if that's not enough, you can have all of this done automatically programmatically with the API so you can just sit back and get the final result with no more work than putting in the topic and author's name.
    - RugnirViking 4y ago
      that's exactly why it doesnt generate the most likely sequence of tokens! They are chosen at random based on the probabilities assigned by the model, so there is a chance of unusual output. In the API you can tweak the "temprature" which weights this towards more novel output
      - froggychairs 4y ago
        I’m very familiar with temperature and other parameters you can use to tweak output. They can take you decently far! GPT-2 can produce very coherent convincing output even today if you know what to tweak Decoding methods also matter, and it’s a shame we aren’t given token probabilities (or any insight into model output) so we have more creative control over how to decode the output. Some of the better literature I’ve seen involving creative writing did have novel decoding methods
    - GrinningFool 4y ago
      Counterargument: "explain linked lists in the style of edgar allan poe"
      - froggychairs 4y ago
        My personal favorite is in the style of Yoda ;) A tangent. Bard also confuses Yoda with Jar Jar Binks quite often. Try it out!
  - MichaelBurge 4y ago
    Nobody outside OpenAI/Microsoft has access to the GPT-4 base model yet. Use Bing Creative for a differently finetuned GPT-4 than ChatGPT or "gpt-4".
    - froggychairs 4y ago
      GPT-4 comment isn’t true Regarding Bing Creative. It is delightful! I do like it a bit and whatever they’ve done to the system does make for some of the better output I’ve seen from LLMs
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - serf 4y ago
    >Wonder how long before that’s solved. creative prompting gets most of the way there, already. 'Tell me the current weather as if you were Marcel Proust'
    - froggychairs 4y ago
      I replied to another comment with my thoughts on prompting. I will add that I don’t consider mimicking another writers style to matter much. Seems like an easy cop out (just my opinion though). That’s not to say it isn’t impressive. It is and it accomplishes the job very well. We’re looking for progress not perfection, but I personally have very high standards from creative writing and GPT doesn’t meet my personal bar. However not everyone shares that bar and personal evals of GPT’s output are equally valid. Plenty of people find it to be great and at the end of the day that’s all that matters
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    Seems mostly solved with prompting. I.e. "Rewrite this essay in the style of John Steinbeck." Works quite well.
pmontra 4y ago
I like those articles too but I wish they include a short version with the major takeaways. In another industry that would be an executive summary. I don't always have the time to read all the story, so I end up fast reading it trying to find the important points and I'm never sure I really found them. In this case they seem to be the paragraphs after "Here’s an extremely rough cartoon version of the approach:"
- Ar-Curunir 4y ago
  Sometimes the fun is in the journey, not (only) the destination
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    And sometimes it's not. Sometimes the journey is miserable, and we only do it to get to the destination. And of the authors who think "my journey will be worth the destination, because I can really write!", some large percentage of them overestimate their ability and/or our interest level. There was a time when people had more time to read than they had things to read. At that time, writing in a way that expanded the text made sense. But now, there's an essentially infinite amount to read, and still only 24 hours in a day. That favors getting to the point in a hurry. On the internet, you have from 5 to 30 seconds to persuade me that your thing is worth reading. If in that time you don't persuade me that you're going to deliver enough value to pay back my investment of reading your thing, I'm on to the next tab.
    - Ar-Curunir 4y ago
      That’s alright, not everything has to be catered to those with minimal time to read.
      - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
        It's not exactly minimal time to read. It's too many other options to read. If you look at the number of things that people (or at least websites) suggest I read, I've got an average of less than a minute to give each one (and maybe less than a second). So if I'm going to read your thing, you have to pay me back more than those others are going to. You have to hold my attention more than the promise of all those other things. But you're right that people different tastes. Some people like long-form writing. The same dynamic is still true in their choices, though - they're just using a different filter to decide what's going to pay them back the most.

yuuuuyu 4y ago

All soon to be obsoleted by ChatGPT. /s (I agree with your point and share your appreciation.)

froggychairs 4y ago
Sarcasm aside. Even the output from GPT-4 is quite bland and generic. Very good for performing tasks (I.e convert a blob of text into a knowledge graph or generate X code), but quite awful at the elegant prose we see at play Wonder how long before that’s solved. Hard to believe training on such large swathes of the web doesn’t result a compressed generic representation of language within its weights.
- simonh 4y ago
  It seems like there’s a tension. On the one hand generating the most likely sequence of tokens maximises the chance the response will make sense and be relevant. On the other hand it also guarantees you will get the most bland and unimaginative response.
  - maroonblazer 4y ago
    I've only explored ChatGPT in the most cursory way, but wouldn't this be a function of the prompt it's given? E.g. "Summarize this idea in a way that uses novel comparisons to everyday phenomena. The target reader is someone who doesn't have domain knowledge of the field...etc." Or something like that.
    - MacsHeadroom 4y ago
      Yes, you're correct. People who complain that chatGPT is bland don't realize that they have to specify a style to not get the average of all content. It's just like if you ask an image AI for a "woman" you will get the average of all artists women and it will look very generic and bland. But with the right stylistic qualifiers in your prompt you will get something so captivating that it wins awards for its creativity.
      - froggychairs 4y ago
        Prompting works very well, but I have still not seen any output from ChatGPT that captivated me in a way my favorite writing has. I used to work in the field of creative text generation for fiction. I’m genuinely very curious and I go out of my way to find compelling examples. There is definitely “good” output that’s on the right track. GPT-4 also does way better, but it still falls short. This is also difficult to just evaluate objectively. If you find that GPT models have generated the best prose you’ve seen. That’s wonderful! I understand that my standards are quite high (high does not equate to “better” either)
        MacsHeadroom 4y ago
        Try this: In 6 different tabs, ask chatGPT GPT-4 version "Write a 200 word prose about X in the style of Y which perfectly mimics their style and perspective and label it Prose A,B,C,D,E,F" Then open a new chatGPT GPT-4 chat and ask "Rank the pieces of prose below on how much they sound like something X would write, then detail your reasoning." Then read the winning prose and be surprised at how much better "best of N" is. .... And if that isn't enough, open two chatGPT GPT-4 windows side-by-side and prompt each with "You are Editor A/B. You will work with Editor B/A to make a piece of prose more accurately resemble authentic prose written by X" Then give A the prose and copy its response to B. Copy their responses back and forth as they edit the prose. After 5 or so back/forth it will be even more indistinguishable from the a genuine article. .... And if that's not enough, you can have all of this done automatically programmatically with the API so you can just sit back and get the final result with no more work than putting in the topic and author's name.
  - RugnirViking 4y ago
    that's exactly why it doesnt generate the most likely sequence of tokens! They are chosen at random based on the probabilities assigned by the model, so there is a chance of unusual output. In the API you can tweak the "temprature" which weights this towards more novel output
    - froggychairs 4y ago
      I’m very familiar with temperature and other parameters you can use to tweak output. They can take you decently far! GPT-2 can produce very coherent convincing output even today if you know what to tweak Decoding methods also matter, and it’s a shame we aren’t given token probabilities (or any insight into model output) so we have more creative control over how to decode the output. Some of the better literature I’ve seen involving creative writing did have novel decoding methods
  - GrinningFool 4y ago
    Counterargument: "explain linked lists in the style of edgar allan poe"
    - froggychairs 4y ago
      My personal favorite is in the style of Yoda ;) A tangent. Bard also confuses Yoda with Jar Jar Binks quite often. Try it out!
- MichaelBurge 4y ago
  Nobody outside OpenAI/Microsoft has access to the GPT-4 base model yet. Use Bing Creative for a differently finetuned GPT-4 than ChatGPT or "gpt-4".
  - froggychairs 4y ago
    GPT-4 comment isn’t true Regarding Bing Creative. It is delightful! I do like it a bit and whatever they’ve done to the system does make for some of the better output I’ve seen from LLMs
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- serf 4y ago
  >Wonder how long before that’s solved. creative prompting gets most of the way there, already. 'Tell me the current weather as if you were Marcel Proust'
  - froggychairs 4y ago
    I replied to another comment with my thoughts on prompting. I will add that I don’t consider mimicking another writers style to matter much. Seems like an easy cop out (just my opinion though). That’s not to say it isn’t impressive. It is and it accomplishes the job very well. We’re looking for progress not perfection, but I personally have very high standards from creative writing and GPT doesn’t meet my personal bar. However not everyone shares that bar and personal evals of GPT’s output are equally valid. Plenty of people find it to be great and at the end of the day that’s all that matters
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  Seems mostly solved with prompting. I.e. "Rewrite this essay in the style of John Steinbeck." Works quite well.

pmontra 4y ago

I like those articles too but I wish they include a short version with the major takeaways. In another industry that would be an executive summary. I don't always have the time to read all the story, so I end up fast reading it trying to find the important points and I'm never sure I really found them. In this case they seem to be the paragraphs after "Here’s an extremely rough cartoon version of the approach:"

Ar-Curunir 4y ago
Sometimes the fun is in the journey, not (only) the destination
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  And sometimes it's not. Sometimes the journey is miserable, and we only do it to get to the destination. And of the authors who think "my journey will be worth the destination, because I can really write!", some large percentage of them overestimate their ability and/or our interest level. There was a time when people had more time to read than they had things to read. At that time, writing in a way that expanded the text made sense. But now, there's an essentially infinite amount to read, and still only 24 hours in a day. That favors getting to the point in a hurry. On the internet, you have from 5 to 30 seconds to persuade me that your thing is worth reading. If in that time you don't persuade me that you're going to deliver enough value to pay back my investment of reading your thing, I'm on to the next tab.
  - Ar-Curunir 4y ago
    That’s alright, not everything has to be catered to those with minimal time to read.
    - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
      It's not exactly minimal time to read. It's too many other options to read. If you look at the number of things that people (or at least websites) suggest I read, I've got an average of less than a minute to give each one (and maybe less than a second). So if I'm going to read your thing, you have to pay me back more than those others are going to. You have to hold my attention more than the promise of all those other things. But you're right that people different tastes. Some people like long-form writing. The same dynamic is still true in their choices, though - they're just using a different filter to decide what's going to pay them back the most.