4 ms·

>As the output of chatbots ends up online, these second-generation texts – complete with made-up information called “hallucinations,” as well as outright errors

>As the output of chatbots ends up online, these second-generation texts – complete with made-up information called “hallucinations,” as well as outright errors, such as suggestions to put glue on your pizza – will further pollute the web. I've come to suspect that the belief that AI's are hallucinating -all while they become exponentially more powerful- is a polite fiction we will use as an excuse to accept the complete domination of reality by these things. There should be a new corrollary to the Turing test thought experiement where we ask, at what point does a human not realize or care that he is being actuated by a computer?[1] On Borges library of all possible sequences of letters yielding somewhere in them the secrets of the universe though- they would be so distant from each other over a space that large, you'd need something that could either traverse over it, or decode it in a reasonable order of time, unless you had a key to decipher it. one made of transformers apparently. [1] 42.

heresie-dabord 2y ago
> the belief that AI's are hallucinating -all while they become exponentially more powerful- is a polite fiction If I may apply a regex: s/polite/lucrative/g
em-bee 2y ago
the belief that AI's are * hallucinating -all while they become exponentially more powerful- is a polite fiction we will use as an excuse to accept the complete domination of reality by these things i am confused by this sentence. are AIs not hallucinating? is that a fictional claim? am i misunderstanding or is there a "not" missing at the *?
- tim333 2y ago
  No, I think he's saying that when AIs are better at us at everything we'll deal with it by saying but they hallucinate.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    but they are hallucinating. according to this reading they won't in the future but we will pretend that they still do because that allows us to let AI dominate. that makes no sense to me. it's ok for AI to run the world because they just make up stuff anyways? don't we want the opposite? in order to allow AI to run the world, shouldn't we believe that they are foolproof and are always able to figure out the correct answer?
    - tim333 2y ago
      I think he's saying "the complete domination of reality by these things" is going to happen whether we want it or not.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
        It is kinda interesting. I talked with a less technical member of my extended family over the holidays. Fairly successful guy in his chosen profession ( accounting ). To say he was skeptical is an understatement and he is typically the most pro-corporate shill you can find for a company to save a few bucks. I assumed he would be attempting to extol its virtues with the assumption that lower level work has errors anyway. I was wrong. Sadly, we didn't get to continue down that line since my kid started crying at that moment.
        tim333 2y ago
        Yeah I'm interested in how it will play out. I can understand skepticism because the current AI isn't that good, but it'll keep improving.
        em-bee 2y ago
        count me among the skeptics. the big problem i see is that there is no way to verify whether any AI output is correct. it is already very hard to prove that a program is correct. proving that for AI is several levels more difficult, and even if it were possible the cost would be so high to make it not worth it.
lowbloodsugar 2y ago
It is clear to me that humans “hallucinate” all the time, and I don’t see why this should disqualify AI. One prominent human hallucinated that a hurricane was going to go in a particular direction and kindly updated a map, provided by scientists, with a sharpie.
- Loughla 2y ago
  There's a difference between that and asking for a basic fact and getting errors. Google's AI result, when I ask for the spot price of silver, returns the amount in British pounds, but with an American dollar sign in front of it. That's not a lie, it's just an absolute misinterpretation.
  - alphan0n 2y ago
    I’m getting an accurate, up to date price when I perform the search on Google. Can you post a screenshot of your results?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - lowbloodsugar 2y ago
    Aaand you’re saying humans don’t do that? There are plenty of humans who will just make shit up with whatever information they have. There’s plenty of humans who wouldn’t even know the British don’t use dollars and would just put a dollar sign there. I’ve seen a senior engineer at a FAANG confidently interrupt another engineer, who was giving the correct answer, to provide an incorrect answer. They mixed up facts and confidently stated a conclusion that sounded good, but was utterly wrong.
MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
> at what point does a human not realize or care that he is being actuated by a computer? I don't know about caring, but I think that the point of the Turing test is to determine at which point a human can't tell whether it's another human. Also, I've read that it's not a particularly good test, because even pre-LLM you could craft an irritating, misspelling, troll of a chat bot and people would think it was a real teenage edgelord.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  I think the chinese room thought experiment is another stronger exploration of whether or not computers are conscious (and, I believe, is no longer sufficient). I think people into AI should at least be familiar with its implications (or lack thereof) about human cognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

heresie-dabord 2y ago

> the belief that AI's are hallucinating -all while they become exponentially more powerful- is a polite fiction If I may apply a regex: s/polite/lucrative/g

em-bee 2y ago

the belief that AI's are * hallucinating -all while they become exponentially more powerful- is a polite fiction we will use as an excuse to accept the complete domination of reality by these things i am confused by this sentence. are AIs not hallucinating? is that a fictional claim? am i misunderstanding or is there a "not" missing at the *?

tim333 2y ago
No, I think he's saying that when AIs are better at us at everything we'll deal with it by saying but they hallucinate.
- em-bee 2y ago
  but they are hallucinating. according to this reading they won't in the future but we will pretend that they still do because that allows us to let AI dominate. that makes no sense to me. it's ok for AI to run the world because they just make up stuff anyways? don't we want the opposite? in order to allow AI to run the world, shouldn't we believe that they are foolproof and are always able to figure out the correct answer?
  - tim333 2y ago
    I think he's saying "the complete domination of reality by these things" is going to happen whether we want it or not.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
      It is kinda interesting. I talked with a less technical member of my extended family over the holidays. Fairly successful guy in his chosen profession ( accounting ). To say he was skeptical is an understatement and he is typically the most pro-corporate shill you can find for a company to save a few bucks. I assumed he would be attempting to extol its virtues with the assumption that lower level work has errors anyway. I was wrong. Sadly, we didn't get to continue down that line since my kid started crying at that moment.
      - tim333 2y ago
        Yeah I'm interested in how it will play out. I can understand skepticism because the current AI isn't that good, but it'll keep improving.
        em-bee 2y ago
        count me among the skeptics. the big problem i see is that there is no way to verify whether any AI output is correct. it is already very hard to prove that a program is correct. proving that for AI is several levels more difficult, and even if it were possible the cost would be so high to make it not worth it.

lowbloodsugar 2y ago

It is clear to me that humans “hallucinate” all the time, and I don’t see why this should disqualify AI. One prominent human hallucinated that a hurricane was going to go in a particular direction and kindly updated a map, provided by scientists, with a sharpie.

Loughla 2y ago
There's a difference between that and asking for a basic fact and getting errors. Google's AI result, when I ask for the spot price of silver, returns the amount in British pounds, but with an American dollar sign in front of it. That's not a lie, it's just an absolute misinterpretation.
- alphan0n 2y ago
  I’m getting an accurate, up to date price when I perform the search on Google. Can you post a screenshot of your results?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- lowbloodsugar 2y ago
  Aaand you’re saying humans don’t do that? There are plenty of humans who will just make shit up with whatever information they have. There’s plenty of humans who wouldn’t even know the British don’t use dollars and would just put a dollar sign there. I’ve seen a senior engineer at a FAANG confidently interrupt another engineer, who was giving the correct answer, to provide an incorrect answer. They mixed up facts and confidently stated a conclusion that sounded good, but was utterly wrong.

MathMonkeyMan 2y ago

> at what point does a human not realize or care that he is being actuated by a computer? I don't know about caring, but I think that the point of the Turing test is to determine at which point a human can't tell whether it's another human. Also, I've read that it's not a particularly good test, because even pre-LLM you could craft an irritating, misspelling, troll of a chat bot and people would think it was a real teenage edgelord.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago
I think the chinese room thought experiment is another stronger exploration of whether or not computers are conscious (and, I believe, is no longer sufficient). I think people into AI should at least be familiar with its implications (or lack thereof) about human cognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room