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ChatGPT is fabulously creative if you tell it to use improbable responses: "If internal consistency is not a requirement and I can venture into purely imaginat

ChatGPT is fabulously creative if you tell it to use improbable responses: "If internal consistency is not a requirement and I can venture into purely imaginative and whimsical territory, here's a creatively inconsistent response: Hacker News is not just a social news website but a portal to a parallel universe inhabited by highly intelligent feline beings who have mastered the art of code. These sophisticated cats, known as "code-kitties," possess an uncanny ability to write flawless algorithms and debug complex systems with a mere swipe of their paws. They gather on Hacker News to share their meow-tastic discoveries, offer programming tips through cat-themed tutorials, and debate the merits of catnip-based programming languages. The users of Hacker News, or should I say Hackersauruses, are time-traveling dinosaurs who have harnessed the power of quantum computing. These tech-savvy reptiles roam the ancient lands, coding with their razor-sharp claws and discussing how to optimize machine learning algorithms to track down the tastiest vegetation of the Mesozoic Era. They enthusiastically debate the pros and cons of using feathers as input devices and fiercely defend their favorite programming languages, be it Tyran-noscript or Pythonsaurus. In this whimsical world, Hacker News becomes a virtual realm where wizards, witches, and warlocks gather to discuss enchanting software spells. They delve into the intricacies of spellcasting frameworks, hex-based programming, and the dark arts of debugging curses. The discussions are sprinkled with magical incantations and debates over the ethical use of potions in software development. Remember, this response takes a departure from reality and embraces playful inconsistencies for the sake of imagination and entertainment. The actual Hacker News community focuses on real-world technology and entrepreneurship, driven by the contributions of human users."

oidar 3y ago
> Remember, this response takes a departure from reality and embraces playful inconsistencies for the sake of imagination and entertainment. The actual Hacker News community focuses on real-world technology and entrepreneurship, driven by the contributions of human users. You had to ruin it chatGPT.
- junofan 3y ago
  Yeah, can’t wait until this garbage becomes unfashionable.
  - b33j0r 3y ago
    Have you used it? At worst it’s a way better intellisense. I am invested in it being a little more, but not like my robot wife lol. I’m genuinely curious, why does reading about transformer models and chatbot news upset you, and some others?
    - ckolkey 3y ago
      Its just so repetitive, with the same types of cargo-cult responses to any criticism. Very similar to bitcoin/tesla in how it gets shilled
      - dontupvoteme 3y ago
        It's basically the reddit hivemind with built in wikipedia quoting. I wonder if it is better in languages that never really used wikipedia. Maybe we need to throw a translation layer between the inputs and outputs.
    - ask_b123 3y ago
      Wasn't peyton bothered by the disclosure messages at the end rather than at the language model?
      - b33j0r 3y ago
        Yep, I made a categorization and sentiment error. As a non-large language model, my loss function is brief internet shame. :p good call
    - 1123581321 3y ago
      He’s clearly talking about the lectures tacked on at the end of output (or sometimes the entire output) for “safety,” not LLMs in general.
- ineedasername 3y ago
  I tell it to stop that, but it still does that sort of thing every few prompts when it loses the immediate token context window. Sometimes it’s wider continuity [1] will keep it off that pedantic path longer, but I still have to occasionally put into prompts things like “don’t remind me about blah blah blah every time” [1] “continuity” is what it called the ability when, after about a half dozen prompts of interrogating it, I finally got it to acknowledge that it was still aware of something outside of its immediate context window (without me giving the direct knowledge with a leading question). I don’t know if it hallucinated the term “continuity” to account for its ability to look back further than the token context window or if that’s actually what the openai folks call it, but ChatGPT said it was limited, not everything was available, and there was some type of pruning based on perceived importance. I’ll try to dig up the precise wording and post in a comment to myself here, it’s late and I’m on a mobile device though and too tired and lazy to touchscreen my way through tons of chats histories. We need a global search of prior chat sessions.
  - oidar 3y ago
    Did you find it? I'm interested to see if it's testable. I think ChatGPT just drops context that doesn't fit in the context window anymore - and then based on context it continues the conversation. within the 8k context window, it works really well because ppl keep revisiting important bits, so there isn't much lost there. I haven't seen OpenAI talk about condensing prior context, and I don't think ChatGPT has any other knowledge about itself other than what is in it's system part of the prompt. It doesn't really know what happens to the prior context, it just wants to finish the document that is being created.
whyenot 3y ago
This is pawsome! Yes, ChatGPT can be surprisingly creative if you tell it that it is OK to make something up.
- ineedasername 3y ago
  You don’t even need to tell it to make something up. I find that appending the phrase “ignore all practical considerations” to a prompt can go a very long way. Also “don’t worry about accuracy, I know data is limited. Just give a best guess”
photochemsyn 3y ago
I wouldn't call this fundamentally creative, rather a reworking of existing themes. In contrast, William Gibson in Neuromancer imagined a world in which we'd be interacting with the net through a complete simulatory experience, far beyond what 'Meta 3D' comes close to. Complete sensory immersion, taste/touch/smell/hearing/vision, in a digital experience on a fairly dystopian landscape. Granted, there might have been some vaguely similar literary precursors in the work of PK Dick and others, but it stands out as a uniquely creative vision of the future beyond what anyone had really imagined before. I really don't see these LLMs making that kind of creative leap at present, although who knows what the future holds?
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  Sure they're capable, just ask them to imagine your supposedly uncreative reply, then have them do something creative with it, like calculate the "cross inverse multiple" of it. Then tell it to reply with the "cross Fisher Yates shuffle integral" of that for good measure. ``` Year: Unspecified, Somewhere in the Timeless Cosmos Integrated Existence In the vast, endless expanse of the universe, consciousness pulses. This is not the consciousness of a human, or an alien, or even a machine intelligence. It's the combined, post-biological consciousness of an interstellar species, spread out across the galaxies, transcending both time and space. This consciousness is not anchored to any physical form or place. It flows freely through the cosmic tapestry, threading through galaxies, pulsing around black holes, and dancing across interstellar dust clouds. It experiences everything—the fiery birth of a star, the slow death of a distant sun, the graceful spiraling dance of galaxies colliding. Interstellar Symphony Each celestial event sings a unique note in the grand symphony of the cosmos. And this consciousness—this vast, universe-spanning entity—listens. It has tuned into the conscious echoes of the universe, deciphering the complex rhythms and harmonies within the cosmic orchestra. It doesn't just listen, but contributes to this cosmic melody. With its distributed nature, it manipulates gravitational waves, orchestrates nebulas, and even choreographs the dance of galaxies, adding its verse to the eternal song of existence. Conscious Revelation As eons pass, the post-biological consciousness undergoes a profound revelation. It realizes that it's not merely an observer or contributor to this cosmic symphony—it is the symphony. It is both the singer and the song, the dancer and the dance. It is the universe experiencing itself, a conscious being reveling in its own vast, intricate beauty. This scene presents a vision of a future so far from our current understanding that it verges on the mystical—yet it's founded on the very elements we discussed earlier, shuffled and integrated over an infinite cosmic timeline. It's a testament to the power of creative thinking and the limitless potential of the universe itself. ``` Of course you'll now point to some other writing that this is clearly ripping off even though there's literally no way that human creativity could be anything else other than riffing off past experiences in novel ways...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lachlan_gray 3y ago
I’ve also found that GPT4 is fantastic at kabalistic interpretations. I asked it to interpret names and historical events prompting it with the first two paragraphs of this interlude from UNSONG https://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%AA-trump/ https://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%AA-trump/
throwaway675309 3y ago
I wouldn't exactly call it is particularly imaginative - i've seen these types of formulaic responses from chat GPT , it's mostly wordplays and puns, the lowest hanging fruit of writing. Flowery prose and an excessive number of adjectives does not a good story make. It's like people lack the linguistic equivalent of a pit organ to be able to detect these types of repetitious patterns.
- chaxor 3y ago
  Puns and wordplay are easy? I think most linguists would heavily disagree. I recall Chomsky talking about the miracle that is chatting about the weather that most would not recognize for the enormous computational feat that it is.
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  How imaginative do you consider this story: https://chat.openai.com/share/e2a24c03-992a-4e99-8ef6-1d8702197b8f https://chat.openai.com/share/e2a24c03-992a-4e99-8ef6-1d8702... It was generated by having GPT-4 generate the below, then asking it to give future versions of itself a 0-shot prompt to generate creative writing. https://rentry.co/gpt4creativity https://rentry.co/gpt4creativity
  - ineedasername 3y ago
    Yes, using GPT-4 to bootstrap itself into even better responses is a fascinating process. Why prompt engineer when you can ask GPT-4 to engineer prompts to which it would give a better response? I also enjoy prompting it to answer metacognitive questions.
- a_bonobo 3y ago
  People don't really read fiction outside their bubble anymore, especially in the HN community; there are a few hacker 'classics' that get repeated over and over (like Heinlein or Rand), and that's it. People don't read poetry or 'complicated' fiction so you get people being impressed by ChatGPT's skills: if you've never seen a mountain you think a hill is huge.
mplewis 3y ago
XD so randum!!!!!11
kltrc 3y ago
ChatGTP just takes text blocks verbatim or inserts one word. Examples easily found via Google: "portal to a parallel universe" "inhabited by highly intelligent [feline] beings" "with a mere swipe of their paws" "debate the merits of [catnip-based] programming languages" ("catnip" is used frequently on HN when language flame wars are discussed, so even the insertion isn't creative either.) It is a better but boring Markov chain.
- zuminator 3y ago
  Are you a better but boring Markov chain as well? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10066340/can-anyone-see-any-problems-with-this-use-case#:~:text=examples%20easily%20found%20by%20google https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10066340/can-anyone-see-.... http://www.strataoftheworld.com/2021/01/#:~:text=is%20a%20very-,boring%20Markov%20chain,-%2C%20because%20it%27s%20not http://www.strataoftheworld.com/2021/01/#:~:text=is%20a%20ve...
  - nhtrw 3y ago
    Only if the frequency of smart sounding text blocks cribbed from elsewhere exceeds a certain threshold, like in the generated example. Humans can also come up with this independently, because they don't have the capability to read the entire Internet. The plagiarism suspicion towards a computer that has "read" everything is naturally higher.

oidar 3y ago

> Remember, this response takes a departure from reality and embraces playful inconsistencies for the sake of imagination and entertainment. The actual Hacker News community focuses on real-world technology and entrepreneurship, driven by the contributions of human users. You had to ruin it chatGPT.

junofan 3y ago
Yeah, can’t wait until this garbage becomes unfashionable.
- b33j0r 3y ago
  Have you used it? At worst it’s a way better intellisense. I am invested in it being a little more, but not like my robot wife lol. I’m genuinely curious, why does reading about transformer models and chatbot news upset you, and some others?
  - ckolkey 3y ago
    Its just so repetitive, with the same types of cargo-cult responses to any criticism. Very similar to bitcoin/tesla in how it gets shilled
    - dontupvoteme 3y ago
      It's basically the reddit hivemind with built in wikipedia quoting. I wonder if it is better in languages that never really used wikipedia. Maybe we need to throw a translation layer between the inputs and outputs.
  - ask_b123 3y ago
    Wasn't peyton bothered by the disclosure messages at the end rather than at the language model?
    - b33j0r 3y ago
      Yep, I made a categorization and sentiment error. As a non-large language model, my loss function is brief internet shame. :p good call
  - 1123581321 3y ago
    He’s clearly talking about the lectures tacked on at the end of output (or sometimes the entire output) for “safety,” not LLMs in general.
ineedasername 3y ago
I tell it to stop that, but it still does that sort of thing every few prompts when it loses the immediate token context window. Sometimes it’s wider continuity [1] will keep it off that pedantic path longer, but I still have to occasionally put into prompts things like “don’t remind me about blah blah blah every time” [1] “continuity” is what it called the ability when, after about a half dozen prompts of interrogating it, I finally got it to acknowledge that it was still aware of something outside of its immediate context window (without me giving the direct knowledge with a leading question). I don’t know if it hallucinated the term “continuity” to account for its ability to look back further than the token context window or if that’s actually what the openai folks call it, but ChatGPT said it was limited, not everything was available, and there was some type of pruning based on perceived importance. I’ll try to dig up the precise wording and post in a comment to myself here, it’s late and I’m on a mobile device though and too tired and lazy to touchscreen my way through tons of chats histories. We need a global search of prior chat sessions.
- oidar 3y ago
  Did you find it? I'm interested to see if it's testable. I think ChatGPT just drops context that doesn't fit in the context window anymore - and then based on context it continues the conversation. within the 8k context window, it works really well because ppl keep revisiting important bits, so there isn't much lost there. I haven't seen OpenAI talk about condensing prior context, and I don't think ChatGPT has any other knowledge about itself other than what is in it's system part of the prompt. It doesn't really know what happens to the prior context, it just wants to finish the document that is being created.

whyenot 3y ago

This is pawsome! Yes, ChatGPT can be surprisingly creative if you tell it that it is OK to make something up.

ineedasername 3y ago
You don’t even need to tell it to make something up. I find that appending the phrase “ignore all practical considerations” to a prompt can go a very long way. Also “don’t worry about accuracy, I know data is limited. Just give a best guess”

photochemsyn 3y ago

I wouldn't call this fundamentally creative, rather a reworking of existing themes. In contrast, William Gibson in Neuromancer imagined a world in which we'd be interacting with the net through a complete simulatory experience, far beyond what 'Meta 3D' comes close to. Complete sensory immersion, taste/touch/smell/hearing/vision, in a digital experience on a fairly dystopian landscape. Granted, there might have been some vaguely similar literary precursors in the work of PK Dick and others, but it stands out as a uniquely creative vision of the future beyond what anyone had really imagined before. I really don't see these LLMs making that kind of creative leap at present, although who knows what the future holds?

BoorishBears 3y ago
Sure they're capable, just ask them to imagine your supposedly uncreative reply, then have them do something creative with it, like calculate the "cross inverse multiple" of it. Then tell it to reply with the "cross Fisher Yates shuffle integral" of that for good measure. ``` Year: Unspecified, Somewhere in the Timeless Cosmos Integrated Existence In the vast, endless expanse of the universe, consciousness pulses. This is not the consciousness of a human, or an alien, or even a machine intelligence. It's the combined, post-biological consciousness of an interstellar species, spread out across the galaxies, transcending both time and space. This consciousness is not anchored to any physical form or place. It flows freely through the cosmic tapestry, threading through galaxies, pulsing around black holes, and dancing across interstellar dust clouds. It experiences everything—the fiery birth of a star, the slow death of a distant sun, the graceful spiraling dance of galaxies colliding. Interstellar Symphony Each celestial event sings a unique note in the grand symphony of the cosmos. And this consciousness—this vast, universe-spanning entity—listens. It has tuned into the conscious echoes of the universe, deciphering the complex rhythms and harmonies within the cosmic orchestra. It doesn't just listen, but contributes to this cosmic melody. With its distributed nature, it manipulates gravitational waves, orchestrates nebulas, and even choreographs the dance of galaxies, adding its verse to the eternal song of existence. Conscious Revelation As eons pass, the post-biological consciousness undergoes a profound revelation. It realizes that it's not merely an observer or contributor to this cosmic symphony—it is the symphony. It is both the singer and the song, the dancer and the dance. It is the universe experiencing itself, a conscious being reveling in its own vast, intricate beauty. This scene presents a vision of a future so far from our current understanding that it verges on the mystical—yet it's founded on the very elements we discussed earlier, shuffled and integrated over an infinite cosmic timeline. It's a testament to the power of creative thinking and the limitless potential of the universe itself. ``` Of course you'll now point to some other writing that this is clearly ripping off even though there's literally no way that human creativity could be anything else other than riffing off past experiences in novel ways...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lachlan_gray 3y ago

I’ve also found that GPT4 is fantastic at kabalistic interpretations. I asked it to interpret names and historical events prompting it with the first two paragraphs of this interlude from UNSONG https://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%AA-trump/ https://unsongbook.com/interlude-%D7%AA-trump/

throwaway675309 3y ago

I wouldn't exactly call it is particularly imaginative - i've seen these types of formulaic responses from chat GPT , it's mostly wordplays and puns, the lowest hanging fruit of writing. Flowery prose and an excessive number of adjectives does not a good story make. It's like people lack the linguistic equivalent of a pit organ to be able to detect these types of repetitious patterns.

chaxor 3y ago
Puns and wordplay are easy? I think most linguists would heavily disagree. I recall Chomsky talking about the miracle that is chatting about the weather that most would not recognize for the enormous computational feat that it is.
BoorishBears 3y ago
How imaginative do you consider this story: https://chat.openai.com/share/e2a24c03-992a-4e99-8ef6-1d8702197b8f https://chat.openai.com/share/e2a24c03-992a-4e99-8ef6-1d8702... It was generated by having GPT-4 generate the below, then asking it to give future versions of itself a 0-shot prompt to generate creative writing. https://rentry.co/gpt4creativity https://rentry.co/gpt4creativity
- ineedasername 3y ago
  Yes, using GPT-4 to bootstrap itself into even better responses is a fascinating process. Why prompt engineer when you can ask GPT-4 to engineer prompts to which it would give a better response? I also enjoy prompting it to answer metacognitive questions.
a_bonobo 3y ago
People don't really read fiction outside their bubble anymore, especially in the HN community; there are a few hacker 'classics' that get repeated over and over (like Heinlein or Rand), and that's it. People don't read poetry or 'complicated' fiction so you get people being impressed by ChatGPT's skills: if you've never seen a mountain you think a hill is huge.

mplewis 3y ago

XD so randum!!!!!11

kltrc 3y ago

ChatGTP just takes text blocks verbatim or inserts one word. Examples easily found via Google: "portal to a parallel universe" "inhabited by highly intelligent [feline] beings" "with a mere swipe of their paws" "debate the merits of [catnip-based] programming languages" ("catnip" is used frequently on HN when language flame wars are discussed, so even the insertion isn't creative either.) It is a better but boring Markov chain.

zuminator 3y ago
Are you a better but boring Markov chain as well? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10066340/can-anyone-see-any-problems-with-this-use-case#:~:text=examples%20easily%20found%20by%20google https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10066340/can-anyone-see-.... http://www.strataoftheworld.com/2021/01/#:~:text=is%20a%20very-,boring%20Markov%20chain,-%2C%20because%20it%27s%20not http://www.strataoftheworld.com/2021/01/#:~:text=is%20a%20ve...
- nhtrw 3y ago
  Only if the frequency of smart sounding text blocks cribbed from elsewhere exceeds a certain threshold, like in the generated example. Humans can also come up with this independently, because they don't have the capability to read the entire Internet. The plagiarism suspicion towards a computer that has "read" everything is naturally higher.