3 ms·

I don't think it's a doomer argument, I think it's a very good thing and a huge step forward... ...but like self-driving cars the errors can be terrible even i

I don't think it's a doomer argument, I think it's a very good thing and a huge step forward... ...but like self-driving cars the errors can be terrible even if it's only 0.1% of the time. I might not be as vigilant as AI-assisted driving, but I'm also not going to get confused by a truck carrying a stop sign and slam on the brakes on a highway. On the macro scale improving the average is great, but on the personal scale I can't only trust the average. An LLM without question can be better than a human much of the time, but the errors, while more rare, can be worse than human error due to the lack of contextual reasoning and general intelligence.

margorczynski 3y ago
> but on the personal scale I can't only trust the average That is simply personal bias and has little to do with reality. The basis of e.g. the scientific method is rejecting what you "trust" or not when having good quality statistical information which suggest something else. > An LLM without question can be better than a human much of the time, but the errors, while more rare, can be worse than human error due to the lack of contextual reasoning and general intelligence. Do you maybe have anything to support this claim or is this simply your personal feeling/belief?
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  Personal bias is my reality. I trust that skydiving is safer than driving, but I'm still going to scream when I jump out of the plane. Anecdotally I use LLMs every single day, and almost every single day it makes a silly error that many humans would not make because it's not continually reasoning or interacting with reality. Until I see these silly mistakes go away, I will always work alongside it to verify output. I'm not giving it the wheel of my car anytime soon.
jdietrich 3y ago
Any reasonable statistical analysis will take account of those 0.1% cases, weighting the rate of error by the consequences of the error. It's something that insurers are very, very capable of, because it's basically their whole business.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  Would you bet your life on your insurer's statistical analysis?
  - jdietrich 3y ago
    I already do. The insurance industry invented the concept of independent safety testing and continues to play a crucial role in researching, developing and implementing safety standards in many industries, most notably automotive and maritime. Government regulations are often a battleground between many parties with competing interests, but the insurance industry has an clear commercial interest in minimising harms.
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago
      While true, they also profit by simply blaming operators, avoidance, litigation, and technicalities. So I'd argue there are a lot of competing interests here too... if asked if I trust insurance company shareholders or elected officials more, I could only answer "no."

margorczynski 3y ago

> but on the personal scale I can't only trust the average That is simply personal bias and has little to do with reality. The basis of e.g. the scientific method is rejecting what you "trust" or not when having good quality statistical information which suggest something else. > An LLM without question can be better than a human much of the time, but the errors, while more rare, can be worse than human error due to the lack of contextual reasoning and general intelligence. Do you maybe have anything to support this claim or is this simply your personal feeling/belief?

micromacrofoot 3y ago
Personal bias is my reality. I trust that skydiving is safer than driving, but I'm still going to scream when I jump out of the plane. Anecdotally I use LLMs every single day, and almost every single day it makes a silly error that many humans would not make because it's not continually reasoning or interacting with reality. Until I see these silly mistakes go away, I will always work alongside it to verify output. I'm not giving it the wheel of my car anytime soon.

jdietrich 3y ago

Any reasonable statistical analysis will take account of those 0.1% cases, weighting the rate of error by the consequences of the error. It's something that insurers are very, very capable of, because it's basically their whole business.

micromacrofoot 3y ago
Would you bet your life on your insurer's statistical analysis?
- jdietrich 3y ago
  I already do. The insurance industry invented the concept of independent safety testing and continues to play a crucial role in researching, developing and implementing safety standards in many industries, most notably automotive and maritime. Government regulations are often a battleground between many parties with competing interests, but the insurance industry has an clear commercial interest in minimising harms.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    While true, they also profit by simply blaming operators, avoidance, litigation, and technicalities. So I'd argue there are a lot of competing interests here too... if asked if I trust insurance company shareholders or elected officials more, I could only answer "no."