3 ms·
Not an especially insightful article. BS is an imprecise term that's no improvement on hallucination and actually suggests a hidden agenda from the LLM. 'Hall
by randcraw 2y ago
Not an especially insightful article. BS is an imprecise term that's no improvement on hallucination and actually suggests a hidden agenda from the LLM. 'Hallucinate' captures rather well a state of blissful ignorance of how nonsensical and surreal the LLM's malpropism is, rather than a malign intent to deceive from 'BS'.
- xk_id 2y agoActually, bullshit also happens to have an academic, formal meaning, and it has been defended successfully in the context of AI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40626692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40626692
- janmarsal 2y agoBullshit should only have a formal meaning at the farm.
- cratermoon 2y agoThis SciAm article is, in fact, by the authors of that exact paper and links to it. It surprises me not at all that HN users flagged that paper.
- bryant 2y agoMaybe, but the definition of the term dates back to 1986 by Harry Frankfurt. https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on... It still seems like the term in its 1986 definition is a good fit for what we currently use Hallucination to describe.
- cratermoon 2y agoThat's funny because the third paragraph of the article gives the term a precise definition and cites sources for it.
- mgh2 2y agoIt just simulating what most people do...
- blooalien 2y agoI agree with your assessment of the term "BS" in this context. It implies intent to deceive, which is not the case at all. The LLM isn't trying to "bullshit" anyone. It's just doing the thing it was built to do; statistically string words together. I'm not in favor of "hallucinate" however, as it implies the LLM is "visualizing" something (a "thought" process of some sort) even if something entirely "fantastical" and wrong. That's not what an LLM does. An LLM strings words together using statistics and fancy math. It's really amazing at what it does, but folks are bein' fooled by how well it "fakes it", and thinkin' there's some sorta "logic" or "thought" process behind what it does, and there really truly is not. It's all fancy math "all the way down".
- cratermoon 2y agoIf you'll read the article past the 2nd paragraph, you'll see that BS has a formal academic meaning that does not, imply any intent to deceive.
- aoeusnth1 2y agoOh, so they took a word with a commonly understood meaning and redefined it to mean “hallucinating.” Then they wrote a paper about it!
- cassianoleal 2y agoI never assumed intent in bullshitting. I don't think I've ever seen someone else assume it either but that might be clouded by my own biases. Do you have any data on how common it is for people to interpret bullshit as intentional vs not? OTOH, "hallucination" is defined by Cambridge [0] as: > the experience of seeing, hearing, feeling, or smelling something that does not exist That can clearly not be the case for an LLM as it lacks the senses to see, hear, feel or smell. Arguably, some systems can see and hear but I don't think they would be able to sense anything that does not exist. The dictionary follows on by including LLM hallucinations in its definition, but this seems irrelevant since that's exactly what's in dispute in this post. [0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hallucination https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hallucin...