3 ms·

Humans also have various culturally flavored, implicit "you know what I mean" algorithms on each end to smooth out "irrelevant" misunderstandings and ensure a c

Humans also have various culturally flavored, implicit "you know what I mean" algorithms on each end to smooth out "irrelevant" misunderstandings and ensure a cordial interaction, a cultural prime directive.

ben_w 3y ago
Sure. I think LLMs are good at that kind of thing. My final example demonstrates how those cultural norms cause errors, it was from a logical thinking session at university, where none of the rest of my group could accept my (correct) claim that the answer was "not enough information to answer" even when I gave a (different but also plausible) non-robbery scenario and pointed out that we were in a logical thinking training session which would have trick questions. My dad had a similar anecdote about not being able to convince others of the true right answer, but his training session had the setup "you crash landed on the moon, here's a list of stuff in your pod, make an ordered list of what you take with you to reach a survival station", and the correct answer was 1. oxygen tanks, 2. a rowing boat, 3. everything else, because the boat is a convenient container for everything else and you can drag it along the surface even though there's no water.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Don't you think it's strange that humans have little to no interest when root causes to their problems are found?
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Sometimes. No idea what you're getting at here, though.
    - mistermann 3y ago
      "you know what I mean" ("x is true [for a certain definition of true, other than the correct technical definition]", etc) on both sides causes humans to believe that they adequately understand the meaning trying to be communicated, which is a hallucination. It's true that this is often not a big deal, but which times it is and which times it is not is not known (which itself is typically not known, once again because of the convention). Talking about the phenomenon is also contrary to conventions, and typically extremely well enforced (as I imagine you noticed during the dispute with your incorrect classmates, or else you were smart enough to not push the issue).
      - ben_w 3y ago
        Ah! Yes, indeed. That was a strange, even frustrating, experience — though not as annoying as the times I failed to get deeper explanations from a teacher or a line manager.
        mistermann 3y ago
        Or, when the humans running our countries forget that they are hallucinating reality and got us (which mostly doesn't include them) into a war yet again, killing thousands of innocent people. This one single causal phenomenon underlies everything, yet we ~refuse[1] to examine it. [1] Here I am kind of being hypocritical, in that I assume to some degree that humans have the base capability in the first place.

ben_w 3y ago

Sure. I think LLMs are good at that kind of thing. My final example demonstrates how those cultural norms cause errors, it was from a logical thinking session at university, where none of the rest of my group could accept my (correct) claim that the answer was "not enough information to answer" even when I gave a (different but also plausible) non-robbery scenario and pointed out that we were in a logical thinking training session which would have trick questions. My dad had a similar anecdote about not being able to convince others of the true right answer, but his training session had the setup "you crash landed on the moon, here's a list of stuff in your pod, make an ordered list of what you take with you to reach a survival station", and the correct answer was 1. oxygen tanks, 2. a rowing boat, 3. everything else, because the boat is a convenient container for everything else and you can drag it along the surface even though there's no water.

mistermann 3y ago
Don't you think it's strange that humans have little to no interest when root causes to their problems are found?
- ben_w 3y ago
  Sometimes. No idea what you're getting at here, though.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    "you know what I mean" ("x is true [for a certain definition of true, other than the correct technical definition]", etc) on both sides causes humans to believe that they adequately understand the meaning trying to be communicated, which is a hallucination. It's true that this is often not a big deal, but which times it is and which times it is not is not known (which itself is typically not known, once again because of the convention). Talking about the phenomenon is also contrary to conventions, and typically extremely well enforced (as I imagine you noticed during the dispute with your incorrect classmates, or else you were smart enough to not push the issue).
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Ah! Yes, indeed. That was a strange, even frustrating, experience — though not as annoying as the times I failed to get deeper explanations from a teacher or a line manager.
      - mistermann 3y ago
        Or, when the humans running our countries forget that they are hallucinating reality and got us (which mostly doesn't include them) into a war yet again, killing thousands of innocent people. This one single causal phenomenon underlies everything, yet we ~refuse[1] to examine it. [1] Here I am kind of being hypocritical, in that I assume to some degree that humans have the base capability in the first place.