15 ms·

I had a similar thought but about asking the LLM to predict “future” major historical events. How much prompting would it take to predict wars, etc.?

by ZooCow 2y ago

djeastm 2y ago
You mean train on pre-1939 data and predict how WWII would go?
- ZooCow 2y ago
  Right. If it were trained through August 1939, how much prompting would be necessary to get it to predict aspects of WWII.
  - MoreMoore 2y ago
    Man, that would be a fascinating experiment. Would it be able to predict who wins and when? Would it be able to predict the Cold War?
  - sitkack 2y ago
    But we know Hitler has a Time Machine that goes forward, he doesn’t need to return to use that knowledge as he already has a timeline here to use. Definitely risks involved here.
    - sitkack 2y ago
      If you build an oracle that tells you who wins the war that far in the future, you build a simulator that allows anyone to win any war. Everything is dual use.
david-gpu 2y ago
That will never work on any complex system that behaves chaotically, such as the weather or complex human endeavors. Tiny uncertainties in the initial conditions rapidly turn into large uncertainties in the outcomes.
- morbicer 2y ago
  Not an LLM but models could get pretty good at weather https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1107892/google-deepminds-new-ai-model-is-the-best-yet-at-weather-forecasting/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1107892/google-d...
  - bmacho 2y ago
    No, they don't, since the weather is chaotic. I mean, there are the theorems about how close you can get, and models are not better than theoretically possible.
    - david-gpu 2y ago
      Yeah, I wish more people understood that it is simply not possible to make precise long-term forecasts of chaotic systems. Whether it is weather, financial markets, etc. It is not that we don't know yet because our models are inadequate, it's that it is unknowable.
      - wodderam 2y ago
        The problem is we stupidly branded the field "chaos theory" and made it sound like bullshit so the ideas of non-linear dynamics have largely been lost on several generations at this point. Not just chaos theory but "chaos theory" + psychedelic fractal artwork. Then the popular James Gleick book, "Chaos: making a new science" just sounds like complete bullshit and it sold a ton of copies. I only started studying non-linear dynamics in about 2015 after first running across it in the late 90s but I literally thought it was all pseudoscience then. Between "chaos theory", fractals and a best selling book it would be hard to frame a new scientific field as pseudoscience more than what played out.

I had a similar thought but about asking the LLM to predict “future” major historical events. How much prompting would it take to predict wars, etc.?

by ZooCow 2y ago

I had a similar thought but about asking the LLM to predict “future” major historical events. How much prompting would it take to predict wars, etc.?

djeastm 2y ago

You mean train on pre-1939 data and predict how WWII would go?

ZooCow 2y ago
Right. If it were trained through August 1939, how much prompting would be necessary to get it to predict aspects of WWII.
- MoreMoore 2y ago
  Man, that would be a fascinating experiment. Would it be able to predict who wins and when? Would it be able to predict the Cold War?
- sitkack 2y ago
  But we know Hitler has a Time Machine that goes forward, he doesn’t need to return to use that knowledge as he already has a timeline here to use. Definitely risks involved here.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    If you build an oracle that tells you who wins the war that far in the future, you build a simulator that allows anyone to win any war. Everything is dual use.

david-gpu 2y ago

That will never work on any complex system that behaves chaotically, such as the weather or complex human endeavors. Tiny uncertainties in the initial conditions rapidly turn into large uncertainties in the outcomes.

morbicer 2y ago
Not an LLM but models could get pretty good at weather https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1107892/google-deepminds-new-ai-model-is-the-best-yet-at-weather-forecasting/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1107892/google-d...
- bmacho 2y ago
  No, they don't, since the weather is chaotic. I mean, there are the theorems about how close you can get, and models are not better than theoretically possible.
  - david-gpu 2y ago
    Yeah, I wish more people understood that it is simply not possible to make precise long-term forecasts of chaotic systems. Whether it is weather, financial markets, etc. It is not that we don't know yet because our models are inadequate, it's that it is unknowable.
    - wodderam 2y ago
      The problem is we stupidly branded the field "chaos theory" and made it sound like bullshit so the ideas of non-linear dynamics have largely been lost on several generations at this point. Not just chaos theory but "chaos theory" + psychedelic fractal artwork. Then the popular James Gleick book, "Chaos: making a new science" just sounds like complete bullshit and it sold a ton of copies. I only started studying non-linear dynamics in about 2015 after first running across it in the late 90s but I literally thought it was all pseudoscience then. Between "chaos theory", fractals and a best selling book it would be hard to frame a new scientific field as pseudoscience more than what played out.