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Walter Scheel was never Chancellor, he was fulfilling the duties of the Chancellor while being Foreign Minister, but he was not a Chancellor. So counting him is

Walter Scheel was never Chancellor, he was fulfilling the duties of the Chancellor while being Foreign Minister, but he was not a Chancellor. So counting him is wrong.

Kiro 3y ago
Imagine reading this comment thread a few years back. Just getting an answer to this question at all from a generic bot would be considered science-fiction and now we're dismissing it based on technicalities.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  Not a technicality. It's like inventing a proper head of government that wasn't there. Also, knowing German chancellors was always easy, so that fact that a machine falls behind any normal dictionary or the German Chancellor's website is poor form. It's like a calculator getting basic addition wrong. I don't want a future full of poorly performing machines.
  - Kiro 3y ago
    He was acting Chancellor. It's like saying a red apple is not an apple. It's a technicality. The fact that we have a completely reasonable explanation to why GPT-4 includes him in the list and you guys still make it sound like the AI is a complete moron is just hilarious to me.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      There is no "Acting Chancellor", that is a poor translation of what the job is. There is only a Chancellor, not an "Acting Chancellor" - you have to trust that the Germans and their institutions kind of know who was Chancellor and who was not. The machine is a complete moron for not being able to get basic data from basic sources right.
      - Kiro 3y ago
        > Scheel became acting Chancellor > Chancellor of Germany, Acting, 7 May 1974 – 16 May 1974 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        I know, but the German wikipedia gets it right: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel (And so does the German Chancellor: https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-de/kanzleramt/bundeskanzler-seit-1949 https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-de/kanzleramt/bundeskanzler-...) There is zero ambiguity about who was Chancellor and who was not.
        Kiro 3y ago
        It says "geschäftsführender Bundeskanzler". Even on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_Germany he's listed as "Vice Chancellor Walter Scheel served as acting Chancellor from 7 May to 16 May 1974" between 4 and 5. There's obviously some ambiguity to it considering we are two humans discussing this with a claimed discrepancy between English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia, but your conclusion is still that the AI is spitting nonsense.
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        There is zero ambiguity under German as law as to who was a Chancellor and who was not. Not a matter of wikipedia etc. The way to be Chancellor is through article 63 of the Grundgesetz, while Scheel was put into the caretaker role via article 69. This explains it a bit https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizekanzler_(Deutschland) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizekanzler_(Deutschland) - Scheel was only taking on the function, not the office. This kind of giving some machine the benefit of the doubt when in fact there is zero ambiguity is really a path that makes me think we will have mostly machines designed for marketing and other non-critical things.
    - dllthomas 3y ago
      A "red apple" is an apple that is red. An "acting officeholder" is not an officeholder who is acting, but a person who is acting as if they have the office (... with institutional support - Norton was not acting Emperor). It's a technicality, but a valid technically and it's a technical question. I agree that it's wrong in a relatively small and surprisingly human way, but it's wrong in a way that including a red apple amongst apples is not.
OJFord 3y ago
> Walter Scheel was never Chancellor, he was fulfilling the duties of the Chancellor while I think this is really an issue of semantics & translation, because that is just what 'acting X' means? (Admittedly not always while still doing something else too, but I don't see that as significant - if it had gone on long perhaps a junior minister in the foreign office would've been named acting FM in his place too.)
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  That is not semantics. The law is very clear: Scheel was not a Chancellor (and indeed he is not counted as one in Germany: https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-en/chancellery/federal-chancellors-since-1949 https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-en/chancellery/federal-chanc...). Article 69 Grundgesetz has a sort of "Caretaker Chancellor" that has the function but - importantly - not the office. They way to have the office is through article 63. It works differently in Germany to the US, for example, where the vice president could become the president, while the vice chancellor only ever gets the function, not the office (unless through a proper vote for Chancellor). When there is actually ground truth, machines should be able to recover that, not take weird turns.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    What distinction are you making between 'acting X' and 'caretaker X'? I'm British, not American, so I'm not assuming something like the vice president automatically becomes president, we don't have that either. If anything it's even less than Germany since (at least in theory and history, modern media etc. makes it a bit different in practice) there's nothing special about the PM, it's just the governing party's leader. I suppose though you could say the heir apparent to the throne immediately becoming the monarch on the death of the previous one is like vice taking over - but I don't think that detracts from my point because nobody would call that 'acting monarch', they just are. 'Acting X' means doing the necessary duties, but not any major decisions that can be avoided/deferred, while the 'real' replacement is found. Sometimes it ends up being the same person, e.g. the head of some division is 'acting CEO' for a while as the board searches for a new CEO, ultimately ends up going with that person and title changes to just 'CEO' - or they don't, and go back to old job, or maybe quit in a huff, and the person they found is just 'CEO' taking over from the 'acting'.

Walter Scheel was never Chancellor, he was fulfilling the duties of the Chancellor while being Foreign Minister, but he was not a Chancellor. So counting him is wrong.

Kiro 3y ago

Imagine reading this comment thread a few years back. Just getting an answer to this question at all from a generic bot would be considered science-fiction and now we're dismissing it based on technicalities.

RandomLensman 3y ago
Not a technicality. It's like inventing a proper head of government that wasn't there. Also, knowing German chancellors was always easy, so that fact that a machine falls behind any normal dictionary or the German Chancellor's website is poor form. It's like a calculator getting basic addition wrong. I don't want a future full of poorly performing machines.
- Kiro 3y ago
  He was acting Chancellor. It's like saying a red apple is not an apple. It's a technicality. The fact that we have a completely reasonable explanation to why GPT-4 includes him in the list and you guys still make it sound like the AI is a complete moron is just hilarious to me.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    There is no "Acting Chancellor", that is a poor translation of what the job is. There is only a Chancellor, not an "Acting Chancellor" - you have to trust that the Germans and their institutions kind of know who was Chancellor and who was not. The machine is a complete moron for not being able to get basic data from basic sources right.
    - Kiro 3y ago
      > Scheel became acting Chancellor > Chancellor of Germany, Acting, 7 May 1974 – 16 May 1974 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        I know, but the German wikipedia gets it right: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel (And so does the German Chancellor: https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-de/kanzleramt/bundeskanzler-seit-1949 https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-de/kanzleramt/bundeskanzler-...) There is zero ambiguity about who was Chancellor and who was not.
        Kiro 3y ago
        It says "geschäftsführender Bundeskanzler". Even on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_Germany he's listed as "Vice Chancellor Walter Scheel served as acting Chancellor from 7 May to 16 May 1974" between 4 and 5. There's obviously some ambiguity to it considering we are two humans discussing this with a claimed discrepancy between English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia, but your conclusion is still that the AI is spitting nonsense.
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        There is zero ambiguity under German as law as to who was a Chancellor and who was not. Not a matter of wikipedia etc. The way to be Chancellor is through article 63 of the Grundgesetz, while Scheel was put into the caretaker role via article 69. This explains it a bit https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizekanzler_(Deutschland) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizekanzler_(Deutschland) - Scheel was only taking on the function, not the office. This kind of giving some machine the benefit of the doubt when in fact there is zero ambiguity is really a path that makes me think we will have mostly machines designed for marketing and other non-critical things.
  - dllthomas 3y ago
    A "red apple" is an apple that is red. An "acting officeholder" is not an officeholder who is acting, but a person who is acting as if they have the office (... with institutional support - Norton was not acting Emperor). It's a technicality, but a valid technically and it's a technical question. I agree that it's wrong in a relatively small and surprisingly human way, but it's wrong in a way that including a red apple amongst apples is not.

OJFord 3y ago

> Walter Scheel was never Chancellor, he was fulfilling the duties of the Chancellor while I think this is really an issue of semantics & translation, because that is just what 'acting X' means? (Admittedly not always while still doing something else too, but I don't see that as significant - if it had gone on long perhaps a junior minister in the foreign office would've been named acting FM in his place too.)

RandomLensman 3y ago
That is not semantics. The law is very clear: Scheel was not a Chancellor (and indeed he is not counted as one in Germany: https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-en/chancellery/federal-chancellors-since-1949 https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-en/chancellery/federal-chanc...). Article 69 Grundgesetz has a sort of "Caretaker Chancellor" that has the function but - importantly - not the office. They way to have the office is through article 63. It works differently in Germany to the US, for example, where the vice president could become the president, while the vice chancellor only ever gets the function, not the office (unless through a proper vote for Chancellor). When there is actually ground truth, machines should be able to recover that, not take weird turns.
- OJFord 3y ago
  What distinction are you making between 'acting X' and 'caretaker X'? I'm British, not American, so I'm not assuming something like the vice president automatically becomes president, we don't have that either. If anything it's even less than Germany since (at least in theory and history, modern media etc. makes it a bit different in practice) there's nothing special about the PM, it's just the governing party's leader. I suppose though you could say the heir apparent to the throne immediately becoming the monarch on the death of the previous one is like vice taking over - but I don't think that detracts from my point because nobody would call that 'acting monarch', they just are. 'Acting X' means doing the necessary duties, but not any major decisions that can be avoided/deferred, while the 'real' replacement is found. Sometimes it ends up being the same person, e.g. the head of some division is 'acting CEO' for a while as the board searches for a new CEO, ultimately ends up going with that person and title changes to just 'CEO' - or they don't, and go back to old job, or maybe quit in a huff, and the person they found is just 'CEO' taking over from the 'acting'.