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I can’t communicate enough how the skepticism (“this is just hype” or “LLMs are stochastic parrots”) is the vastly dominant thought paradigm in European academi

I can’t communicate enough how the skepticism (“this is just hype” or “LLMs are stochastic parrots”) is the vastly dominant thought paradigm in European academic circles. So instead of everyone having some enthusiasm and some skepticism, you get a bifurcation where whole classes of people act as the skeptics and others as the enthusiasts. I view the strong skeptics as more “in the wrong” because they often don’t use LLMs much. If you are an actual enthusiastic user, you simply can’t get good performance without a very strong dose of skepticism towards everything LLMs output.

_t9ow 2y ago
> I can’t communicate enough how the skepticism (“this is just hype” or “LLMs are stochastic parrots”) is the vastly dominant thought paradigm in European academic circles. I'm very curious. If you don't mind taking the time to elaborate, will you give a few examples of such skepticism/naysaying? Thank you.
- tessellated 2y ago
  Some "academia" types I meet seem to be struck in this "skeptic vs enthusiast" discussion. How do we harness LLMs’ potential while rigorously mitigating harm?
fragmede 2y ago
I don't think everyone shares those doubts. The first time you catch an LLM in a lie is sobering, but there are lots of areas, and thus lots of users, for whom it doesn't hallucinate for, because they're asking softball questions and it doesn't end up hallucinating, or hallucinations just really aren't aren't that big a deal. (eg an LLM horoscope generator or using it write sci fi.) so while we're on HN going back and forth about how outright lies by the system indight the whole thing for everybody, we should be careful to note that it's not for everybody, or rather, it's a known limitation so don't trust it to cite real cases for you as a lawyer, but using it to help you figure out what mens rea means in a practical sense by asking it questions about the concept, totally. Honestly, hallucinations happen so rarely for me because of the kinds of things I ask it, that it doesn't happen enough for me to not believe it's answers in low-stakes situations, or situations on the level of horoscope generation, and I'm sure I'm not alone in treating ChatGPT that way, despite evidence to the contrary.

_t9ow 2y ago

> I can’t communicate enough how the skepticism (“this is just hype” or “LLMs are stochastic parrots”) is the vastly dominant thought paradigm in European academic circles. I'm very curious. If you don't mind taking the time to elaborate, will you give a few examples of such skepticism/naysaying? Thank you.

tessellated 2y ago
Some "academia" types I meet seem to be struck in this "skeptic vs enthusiast" discussion. How do we harness LLMs’ potential while rigorously mitigating harm?

fragmede 2y ago

I don't think everyone shares those doubts. The first time you catch an LLM in a lie is sobering, but there are lots of areas, and thus lots of users, for whom it doesn't hallucinate for, because they're asking softball questions and it doesn't end up hallucinating, or hallucinations just really aren't aren't that big a deal. (eg an LLM horoscope generator or using it write sci fi.) so while we're on HN going back and forth about how outright lies by the system indight the whole thing for everybody, we should be careful to note that it's not for everybody, or rather, it's a known limitation so don't trust it to cite real cases for you as a lawyer, but using it to help you figure out what mens rea means in a practical sense by asking it questions about the concept, totally. Honestly, hallucinations happen so rarely for me because of the kinds of things I ask it, that it doesn't happen enough for me to not believe it's answers in low-stakes situations, or situations on the level of horoscope generation, and I'm sure I'm not alone in treating ChatGPT that way, despite evidence to the contrary.