4 ms·

Personally I’d prefer that LLMs did not refer to themselves as “I”. It’s software, not an “I”.

by andrewstuart 2y ago

mdp2021 2y ago
Well, it is a speaker (writer) after all. It has to use some way to refer to itself.
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  So is a command prompt.
  - mdp2021 2y ago
    Agnew, if you converse with your command prompt we are glad you came here for a break ;)
  - sejje 2y ago
    Command prompts don't speak English. Command prompts don't get asked questions like "What do you think about [topic]?" and have to generate a response based on their study of human-written texts.
    - ANewFormation 2y ago
      There is again no need for first person pronouns there. E.g. 'File not found' vs 'Sorry I could not find the file you were looking for.' Same stuff, but one just adds an artificial and unnecessary anthropomorphization.
      - sejje 2y ago
        Sure but I don't control the LLM's first person pronouns. It anthropromorphizes itself.
      - mdp2021 2y ago
        A procedure is agnostic past the procedural rules (a calculator only follows a determined flow the way anyone could do without relevant differences); a stochastic process is inherently personal (non deterministic processes have internal biases). In your example: -- "iteration over filenames table reaches end → file not found"; -- "non-deterministic choice over lookup strategy does not return a positive → sorry I could not find the item"
        ANewFormation 2y ago
        LLMs are 100% deterministic. The facade of randomness is injected solely by a superfluous rng factor.
        mdp2021 2y ago
        Even if in the forward pass there would be no "temperature" tilting, the NN training would still be performed through different processes on different implementations, making the outputs "personal".
- rpastuszak 2y ago
  I don't think that's true. It's more of a function on how these models are trained (remember the older pre-ChatGPT clients?) Most of the software I use doesn't need to refer it itself in the first person. Pretending what we're speaking with an agent is more of a UX/marketing decision rather than a technical/logical constraint.
  - throwanem 2y ago
    I'm not sure about that. What happens if you "turn down the weight" (cf. https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude) for self-concept, expressed in the use not of first-person pronouns but "the first person" as a thing that exists? Do "I" and "me" get replaced with "this one" like someone doing depersonalization kink, or does it become like Wittgenstein's lion in that we can no longer confidently parse even its valid utterances? Does it lose coherence entirely, or does something stranger happen? It isn't an experiment I have the resources or the knowledge to run, but I hope someone does and reports the results.
op00to 2y ago
My pet peeve is when an LLM starts off a statement with "honestly, ..." Like what? You would lie to me? I go nuts when I see that. Year ago I caught myself using "honestly ...", and I immediately trained myself out of it once I realized what it implies.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- andrewstuart 2y ago
  Or when it asks you questions. The only time an LLM should ask questions is to clarify information. A word processor doesn’t want to chit chat about what I’m writing about, nor should an LLM. Unless it is specifically playing an interactive role of some sort like a virtual friend.
  - falcor84 2y ago
    My initial reaction to this is typically negative too, but more than once, on a second thought, I found its question to be really good, leading me to actually think about the matter more deeply. So I'm growing to accept this.
  - netghost 2y ago
    Like so many things, it depends on the context. You didn't want it to ask questions if you're asking a simple math problem or giving it punishing task like counting the R's in strawberry. On the other hand, asking useful questions can help prevent hallucinations or clarify tasks. If you're going spawn off an hour long task, asking a few questions first can make a huge difference.
  - op00to 2y ago
    ChatGPT is very casual with asking questions, and FRANKLY, I enjoy getting into a little bit of a daydream with it from time to time. It's taken the place of falling into a Wikipedia hole. Not sure if that's something that's good or bad.
- giantrobot 2y ago
falcor84 2y ago
As per Dennett, it's useful for us to adopt the "intentional stance" when trying to reason about and predict the behavior of any sufficiently complex system. Modern AIs are definitely beyond the threshold of complexity, and at this stage, however they refer to themselves, most people will think of them as having an "I" regardless to how they present themselves. I definitely think of them as "I"s, but that just always came naturally to me, at least going back to thinking about how Ghandi would act against me in Civ 1.
jryle70 2y ago
If I start a prompt with "Can you...", what do you suggest the LLM to respond? Or do you think I'm doing it wrong?
- lamp_book 2y ago
  Have you tried dropping the "can you"? I haven't had a problem using minimal verbiage - for instance I prompted it with "load balancer vs reverse proxy" yesterday and it came back with the info I wanted.

Personally I’d prefer that LLMs did not refer to themselves as “I”. It’s software, not an “I”.

mdp2021 2y ago

Well, it is a speaker (writer) after all. It has to use some way to refer to itself.

ANewFormation 2y ago
So is a command prompt.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  Agnew, if you converse with your command prompt we are glad you came here for a break ;)
- sejje 2y ago
  Command prompts don't speak English. Command prompts don't get asked questions like "What do you think about [topic]?" and have to generate a response based on their study of human-written texts.
  - ANewFormation 2y ago
    There is again no need for first person pronouns there. E.g. 'File not found' vs 'Sorry I could not find the file you were looking for.' Same stuff, but one just adds an artificial and unnecessary anthropomorphization.
    - sejje 2y ago
      Sure but I don't control the LLM's first person pronouns. It anthropromorphizes itself.
    - mdp2021 2y ago
      A procedure is agnostic past the procedural rules (a calculator only follows a determined flow the way anyone could do without relevant differences); a stochastic process is inherently personal (non deterministic processes have internal biases). In your example: -- "iteration over filenames table reaches end → file not found"; -- "non-deterministic choice over lookup strategy does not return a positive → sorry I could not find the item"
      - ANewFormation 2y ago
        LLMs are 100% deterministic. The facade of randomness is injected solely by a superfluous rng factor.
        mdp2021 2y ago
        Even if in the forward pass there would be no "temperature" tilting, the NN training would still be performed through different processes on different implementations, making the outputs "personal".
rpastuszak 2y ago
I don't think that's true. It's more of a function on how these models are trained (remember the older pre-ChatGPT clients?) Most of the software I use doesn't need to refer it itself in the first person. Pretending what we're speaking with an agent is more of a UX/marketing decision rather than a technical/logical constraint.
- throwanem 2y ago
  I'm not sure about that. What happens if you "turn down the weight" (cf. https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude) for self-concept, expressed in the use not of first-person pronouns but "the first person" as a thing that exists? Do "I" and "me" get replaced with "this one" like someone doing depersonalization kink, or does it become like Wittgenstein's lion in that we can no longer confidently parse even its valid utterances? Does it lose coherence entirely, or does something stranger happen? It isn't an experiment I have the resources or the knowledge to run, but I hope someone does and reports the results.

op00to 2y ago

My pet peeve is when an LLM starts off a statement with "honestly, ..." Like what? You would lie to me? I go nuts when I see that. Year ago I caught myself using "honestly ...", and I immediately trained myself out of it once I realized what it implies.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
andrewstuart 2y ago
Or when it asks you questions. The only time an LLM should ask questions is to clarify information. A word processor doesn’t want to chit chat about what I’m writing about, nor should an LLM. Unless it is specifically playing an interactive role of some sort like a virtual friend.
- falcor84 2y ago
  My initial reaction to this is typically negative too, but more than once, on a second thought, I found its question to be really good, leading me to actually think about the matter more deeply. So I'm growing to accept this.
- netghost 2y ago
  Like so many things, it depends on the context. You didn't want it to ask questions if you're asking a simple math problem or giving it punishing task like counting the R's in strawberry. On the other hand, asking useful questions can help prevent hallucinations or clarify tasks. If you're going spawn off an hour long task, asking a few questions first can make a huge difference.
- op00to 2y ago
  ChatGPT is very casual with asking questions, and FRANKLY, I enjoy getting into a little bit of a daydream with it from time to time. It's taken the place of falling into a Wikipedia hole. Not sure if that's something that's good or bad.
giantrobot 2y ago

falcor84 2y ago

As per Dennett, it's useful for us to adopt the "intentional stance" when trying to reason about and predict the behavior of any sufficiently complex system. Modern AIs are definitely beyond the threshold of complexity, and at this stage, however they refer to themselves, most people will think of them as having an "I" regardless to how they present themselves. I definitely think of them as "I"s, but that just always came naturally to me, at least going back to thinking about how Ghandi would act against me in Civ 1.

jryle70 2y ago

If I start a prompt with "Can you...", what do you suggest the LLM to respond? Or do you think I'm doing it wrong?

lamp_book 2y ago
Have you tried dropping the "can you"? I haven't had a problem using minimal verbiage - for instance I prompted it with "load balancer vs reverse proxy" yesterday and it came back with the info I wanted.