4 ms·
Have we invited Wormwood to counsel us? To speak misdirected or even malignant advice that we readily absorb?
by MontagFTB 1y ago
Have we invited Wormwood to counsel us? To speak misdirected or even malignant advice that we readily absorb?
- westurner 1y agoAn LLM trained on all other science before Copernicus or Galileo would be expected to explain as true that the world is the flat center of the universe.
- zmgsabst 1y agoAncient Greeks suspected it was spherical and had an estimated size accurate within 10%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
- btilly 1y agoThe idea that people in medieval times believed in a flat Earth is a myth that was invented in the 1800s. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth for more.
- westurner 1y agoGalileo Galilei: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei : > Galileo's championing of Copernican heliocentrism was met with opposition ... By the most published majority, whose texts would've been used to train science LLMs at the time back then.
- btilly 1y agoAnd that most published majority believed in the Ptolemaic model. Which as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model#Ptolemaic_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model#Ptolemaic_mod... says: > Ptolemy argued that the Earth was a sphere in the center of the universe... Note. Spherical Earth. Not flat.
- westurner 1y agoBut could the Greeks sail? Did ancient (Eastern?) Jacob's Staff surveying and navigation methods account for the curvature of the earth? https://www.google.com/search?q=Did%20ancient%20(Eastern%3F)%20Jacob's%20Staff%20surveying%20and%20navigation%20methods%20account%20for%20the%20curvature%20of%20the%20earth%3F https://www.google.com/search?q=Did%20ancient%20(Eastern%3F)... : - History of geodesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geodesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geodesy FWIU Egyptian sails are Phoenician in origin.
- jonnycomputer 1y agoThe criticism being directed at this comment because in fact most pre-Copernican scholarship believed the world spherical is missing the point.
- westurner 1y agoThis. If we (without AI, even) extrapolate from the trajectory of a baseball, we would say that it would continue towards roughly the center of the earth but it doesn't.
- readthenotes1 1y agoI assume referring to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters
- senderista 1y agoAssume you meant Wormtongue from LotR?
- ablation 1y agoNo, they meant Wormwood. See reference to The Screwtape Letters.