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Lying is a state of mind. LLMs can output true statements, and they can even do so consistently for a range of inputs, but unlike a human there isn't a clear di

Lying is a state of mind. LLMs can output true statements, and they can even do so consistently for a range of inputs, but unlike a human there isn't a clear distinction in an LLM's internal state based on whether its statements are true or not. The output's truthfulness is incidental to its mode of operation, which is always the same, and certainly not itself truthful. In the context of the comment chain I replied to, and the behaviour in question, any statement by an LLM pretending to be be capable of self-awareness/metacognition is also necessarily a lie. "I should be more careful", "I sincerely apologize", "I realize", "Thank you for bringing this to my attention", etc. The problem is the anthropomorphization. Since it pretends to be like a person, if you ascribe intention to it then I think it is most accurately described as always lying. If you don't ascribe intention to it, then it's just a messy PRNG that aligns with reality an impressive amount of the time, and words like "lying" have no meaning. But again, it's presented and marketed as if it's a trustworthy sapient intelligence.

mdp2021 2y ago
I am not sure that lying is structural to the whole system though: it seems that some parts may encode a world model, and that «the sensory, object permanence, and memory faculties» may not be crucial - surely we need a system that encodes a world model and that refines it, that reasons on it and assesses its details to develop it (I have been insisting on this for the past years also as the "look, there's something wrong here" reaction). Some parts seemingly stopped at "output something plausible", but it does not seem theoretically impossible to direct the output towards "adhere to the truth", if a world model is there. We would still need to implement the "reason on your world model and refine it" part, for the purpose of AGI - meanwhile, fixing the "impersonation" fumble ("probabilistic calculus say your interlocutor should offer stochastic condolences") would be a decent move. After a while with present chatbots it seems clear that "this is writing a fiction, not answering questions".

mdp2021 2y ago

I am not sure that lying is structural to the whole system though: it seems that some parts may encode a world model, and that «the sensory, object permanence, and memory faculties» may not be crucial - surely we need a system that encodes a world model and that refines it, that reasons on it and assesses its details to develop it (I have been insisting on this for the past years also as the "look, there's something wrong here" reaction). Some parts seemingly stopped at "output something plausible", but it does not seem theoretically impossible to direct the output towards "adhere to the truth", if a world model is there. We would still need to implement the "reason on your world model and refine it" part, for the purpose of AGI - meanwhile, fixing the "impersonation" fumble ("probabilistic calculus say your interlocutor should offer stochastic condolences") would be a decent move. After a while with present chatbots it seems clear that "this is writing a fiction, not answering questions".