5 ms·

"Hallucinations" just means that occasionally the LLM is wrong. The same is true of people, and I still find people extremely helpful.

leptons 2y ago
Except the LLM didn't deliver a "wrong" result, it delivered text that is human readable and makes grammatical sense. Whether or not the information contained in the text is "wrong" is subjective, and the reader gets to decide if it's factual or not. If the LLM delivered unreadable gibberish, then that could be considered "wrong", but there is no "hallicinating" going on with LLMs. That's an anthropomorphism that is divorced from the reality of what an LLM does. Whoever called it "hallucinating" in the context of an LLM should have their nerd credentials revoked.
- imchillyb 2y ago
  Human beings have a tendency to prefer comforting lies over uncomfortable truths. "The truth may set you free, but first it's really gonna piss you off." -G.S.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  Human readable, makes grammatical sense, and wrong. And no, that's often not subjective.
  - leptons 2y ago
    It's very subjective. An LLM could return statements like "Global warming is real and man-made", and it also could produce a result like "Global warming is a hoax", and it's definitely up to the reader as to whether the LLM is "hallucinating". It doesn't matter how readable or grammatically correct the LLM is, it's still up to the reader to call bullshit, or not.
    - BurningFrog 2y ago
      If you ask about opinions, sure. Because there are no "true" opinions. If you ask about the capital of France, any answer but "Paris" is objectively wrong, whether given by a human or LLM.
      - leptons 2y ago
        Paris has not always been the capital of France. Many other cities around France have been capital. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_of_France There's practically no subject you could bring up that an LLM wouldn't "hallucinate" or give "wrong" information about given that garbage in -> garbage out, and LLMs are trained on all the garbage (as well as too many facts) they've been able to scrape. The LLM lacks the ability to reason about what century the prompt is asking about, and a guess is all it is programmed to do. Also, if you ask 100 French citizens today what the true capital of France is, you're not always going to get "Paris" as a reply 100 times.
        AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        But if you ask "what is the capital of France" (not what it has been, but what it is), there is actually only one correct answer. "Capital" has a definition, and the headquarters of the government of France has a definite location. Sure, some French citizens will give a different answer. Some people will say the earth is flat, too. They are wrong.
        leptons 2y ago
        But we're talking about LLMs in this thread, and the example I used of French citizens not always saying Paris is the capital of France is just an example of how topics can be subjective. If you have something pertinent to the LLM discussion, then please reply.
        AnimalMuppet 2y ago
- kalleboo 2y ago
  The term "hallucination" is in response to what the LLMs are being marketed and sold as what they are supposed to do, not how they work technologically. It makes sense to have better terms for technical discussions, but this term is going to stick around for mainstream use.
lolinder 2y ago
People constantly make this mistake, so just to clarify: absolutely nothing about what I just said implies that llms are not helpful. Having an accurate mental model for what a tool is doing does not preclude seeing its value, but it does preclude getting caught up in unrealistic hype.
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  Yeah, I was trying to agree with you :)
bigstrat2003 2y ago
But unlike LLMs, a person is capable of reflecting and realizing that they made a mistake. They are also capable of correcting so that they don't make the same mistake again. This is why fallible humans are still useful, and fallible LLMs are not.
bgun 2y ago
Humans can also spend an entire lifetime (or more, across multiple generations) being absolutely, inexorably and violently certain they are correct about something and still be 100% wrong. I am not disagreeing that either people or LMMs are not extremely helpful in many or most instances. But if the best we can do with this technology is to make human-comparable mistakes WAY faster and more efficiently, I think as a species we’re in for a lot more bad times before we get to graduate to the good times.

leptons 2y ago

Except the LLM didn't deliver a "wrong" result, it delivered text that is human readable and makes grammatical sense. Whether or not the information contained in the text is "wrong" is subjective, and the reader gets to decide if it's factual or not. If the LLM delivered unreadable gibberish, then that could be considered "wrong", but there is no "hallicinating" going on with LLMs. That's an anthropomorphism that is divorced from the reality of what an LLM does. Whoever called it "hallucinating" in the context of an LLM should have their nerd credentials revoked.

imchillyb 2y ago
Human beings have a tendency to prefer comforting lies over uncomfortable truths. "The truth may set you free, but first it's really gonna piss you off." -G.S.
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Human readable, makes grammatical sense, and wrong. And no, that's often not subjective.
- leptons 2y ago
  It's very subjective. An LLM could return statements like "Global warming is real and man-made", and it also could produce a result like "Global warming is a hoax", and it's definitely up to the reader as to whether the LLM is "hallucinating". It doesn't matter how readable or grammatically correct the LLM is, it's still up to the reader to call bullshit, or not.
  - BurningFrog 2y ago
    If you ask about opinions, sure. Because there are no "true" opinions. If you ask about the capital of France, any answer but "Paris" is objectively wrong, whether given by a human or LLM.
    - leptons 2y ago
      Paris has not always been the capital of France. Many other cities around France have been capital. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_of_France There's practically no subject you could bring up that an LLM wouldn't "hallucinate" or give "wrong" information about given that garbage in -> garbage out, and LLMs are trained on all the garbage (as well as too many facts) they've been able to scrape. The LLM lacks the ability to reason about what century the prompt is asking about, and a guess is all it is programmed to do. Also, if you ask 100 French citizens today what the true capital of France is, you're not always going to get "Paris" as a reply 100 times.
      - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        But if you ask "what is the capital of France" (not what it has been, but what it is), there is actually only one correct answer. "Capital" has a definition, and the headquarters of the government of France has a definite location. Sure, some French citizens will give a different answer. Some people will say the earth is flat, too. They are wrong.
        leptons 2y ago
        But we're talking about LLMs in this thread, and the example I used of French citizens not always saying Paris is the capital of France is just an example of how topics can be subjective. If you have something pertinent to the LLM discussion, then please reply.
        AnimalMuppet 2y ago
kalleboo 2y ago
The term "hallucination" is in response to what the LLMs are being marketed and sold as what they are supposed to do, not how they work technologically. It makes sense to have better terms for technical discussions, but this term is going to stick around for mainstream use.

lolinder 2y ago

People constantly make this mistake, so just to clarify: absolutely nothing about what I just said implies that llms are not helpful. Having an accurate mental model for what a tool is doing does not preclude seeing its value, but it does preclude getting caught up in unrealistic hype.

BurningFrog 2y ago
Yeah, I was trying to agree with you :)

bigstrat2003 2y ago

But unlike LLMs, a person is capable of reflecting and realizing that they made a mistake. They are also capable of correcting so that they don't make the same mistake again. This is why fallible humans are still useful, and fallible LLMs are not.

bgun 2y ago

Humans can also spend an entire lifetime (or more, across multiple generations) being absolutely, inexorably and violently certain they are correct about something and still be 100% wrong. I am not disagreeing that either people or LMMs are not extremely helpful in many or most instances. But if the best we can do with this technology is to make human-comparable mistakes WAY faster and more efficiently, I think as a species we’re in for a lot more bad times before we get to graduate to the good times.