4 ms·

I feel like this is a feature which improves the perceived confidence of the LLM but doesn't do much for correctness of other outputs, i.e. an exacerbation of t

I feel like this is a feature which improves the perceived confidence of the LLM but doesn't do much for correctness of other outputs, i.e. an exacerbation of the "confidently incorrect" criticism.

nerdjon 7mo ago
This was my first thought as well, all this does is further remove the user from seeing the chat output and instead makes it appear as if the information is concretely reliable. I mean is it really that shocking that you can have an LLM generate structured data and shove that into a visualizer? The concern is if is reliable, which we know it isnt.
- j45 7mo ago
  Its' a reasonable concern. Often it can be mitigated by prompting in a manner that invokes research and verification instead of defaulting to a corpus. Passive questions generate passive responses.
- ericmcer 7mo ago
  The further they can get people from the reality of `This just spits out whatever it thinks the next token will be` the more they can push the agenda.
elliotbnvl 7mo ago
It's a usability / quality of life feature to me. Nothing to do with increasing perceived confidence. I guess it depends on how much you already (dis)trust LLMs. I'm finding more and more often the limiting factor isn't the LLM, it's my intuition. This goes a way towards helping with that.
vunderba 7mo ago
A similar thing happened when Google started really pushing generating flowcharts as a use-case with Nano Banana. A slick presentation can distract people from the only thing that really matters - the accuracy of the underlying data.
- Angostura 7mo ago
  As a slightly different tack, I’ve been using Copilot to generate flowcharts from some of the fiendishly complex (and badly written) standard operating procedures we have at work. People find them quite easy to check - easier than the raw document. My angle with teams is use these to check your processes. If the flow is wrong it’s either because the LLM has screwed up, or because the policy is wrong/badly written. It’s usually the latter. It’s a good way to fix SOPs
  - vunderba 7mo ago
    It’s interesting you mentioned that. One of the things I’ve started doing recently is throwing a large LLM such as codex-5.3 (highest level of reasoning) at some of the more complex systems we have to produce nicely formatted ASCII diagrams. I still review each diagram afterward, but the great thing is that, unlike image-based diagrams, they remain fully text-readable and searchable. And you can even expose them as part of the knowledge base for the LLM to reference when needed going forward.
    - Angostura 7mo ago
      Copilot outputs Mermaid diagram markup for me - so the graphs are editable and importable into diagraming packages
      - vunderba 7mo ago
        Yeah I'm a big fan of mermaid as well. Extended ASCII works a bit better for me because depending on the text editor because I don't need a custom visualization tool.
programmertote 7mo ago
A recent LinkedIn post that I came across as an example of people trusting (or learning to trust) AI too much while not realizing that it can make up numbers too: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mariamartin1728_claude-wrote-this-entire-labor-market-commentary-share-7435709317267292160-4FNf https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mariamartin1728_claude-wrote-... P.S. Credit to the poster, she posted a correction note when someone caught the issue: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mariamartin1728_correction-on-my-earlier-post-travis-deese-ugcPost-7435756771350048768-KPuk https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mariamartin1728_correction-on...
- Avamander 7mo ago
  > A recent LinkedIn post that I came across as an example of people trusting (or learning to trust) AI too much while not realizing that it can make up numbers too Honestly, people make them up just as much or generate equally incorrect graphs. It's about time our trust into random visualizations is destroyed, without the actual formulas and data behind being exposed.
mikkupikku 7mo ago
I agree. Maybe next they'll add emotionally evocative music, with swelling orchestral bits when you reach the exciting climate of the slop.
kemayo 7mo ago
It's a mismatch with our intuition about how much effort things take. If there's humans involved, "I took this data and made a really fancy interactive chart" means that you put a lot more work into it, and you can probably somewhat assume that this means some more effort was also put into the accuracy of the data. But with the LLM it's not really very much more work to get the fancy chart. So the thing that was a signifier of effort is now misleading us into trusting data that got no extra effort. (Humans have been exploiting this tendency to trust fancy graphics forever, of course.)
- manquer 7mo ago
  It is not limited to graphics, better packaged products, better dressed / good looking well spoken person and so on. Celebrity endorsements depend on this thesis. There has always been a bias towards form over function.
  - Jarwain 7mo ago
    Once good form becomes commoditized, hopefully function starts taking priority
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
ipython 7mo ago
Already happened. :) https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/comments/1mk5wdb/this_chart_from_openais_official_gpt5_release/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/comments/1mk5wdb/this_ch...
outlore 7mo ago
I suspect chain of thought while building the chart will improve the overall correctness of the answer
jameschaearley 7mo ago
This is the tension I keep hitting when building data tools on top of LLMs. A nice-looking chart makes the output feel more trustworthy, but the data can still be wrong. The chart just makes it harder to notice. LLMs still need to come with receipts of where the data came from and the math they did. It's as bad as "I read the headline so I know everything in the article."
amadeuspagel 7mo ago
I think this does something for the correctness of LLMs by making it easier to check their output.

I feel like this is a feature which improves the perceived confidence of the LLM but doesn't do much for correctness of other outputs, i.e. an exacerbation of the "confidently incorrect" criticism.

nerdjon 7mo ago

This was my first thought as well, all this does is further remove the user from seeing the chat output and instead makes it appear as if the information is concretely reliable. I mean is it really that shocking that you can have an LLM generate structured data and shove that into a visualizer? The concern is if is reliable, which we know it isnt.

j45 7mo ago
Its' a reasonable concern. Often it can be mitigated by prompting in a manner that invokes research and verification instead of defaulting to a corpus. Passive questions generate passive responses.
ericmcer 7mo ago
The further they can get people from the reality of `This just spits out whatever it thinks the next token will be` the more they can push the agenda.

elliotbnvl 7mo ago

It's a usability / quality of life feature to me. Nothing to do with increasing perceived confidence. I guess it depends on how much you already (dis)trust LLMs. I'm finding more and more often the limiting factor isn't the LLM, it's my intuition. This goes a way towards helping with that.

vunderba 7mo ago

A similar thing happened when Google started really pushing generating flowcharts as a use-case with Nano Banana. A slick presentation can distract people from the only thing that really matters - the accuracy of the underlying data.

Angostura 7mo ago
As a slightly different tack, I’ve been using Copilot to generate flowcharts from some of the fiendishly complex (and badly written) standard operating procedures we have at work. People find them quite easy to check - easier than the raw document. My angle with teams is use these to check your processes. If the flow is wrong it’s either because the LLM has screwed up, or because the policy is wrong/badly written. It’s usually the latter. It’s a good way to fix SOPs
- vunderba 7mo ago
  It’s interesting you mentioned that. One of the things I’ve started doing recently is throwing a large LLM such as codex-5.3 (highest level of reasoning) at some of the more complex systems we have to produce nicely formatted ASCII diagrams. I still review each diagram afterward, but the great thing is that, unlike image-based diagrams, they remain fully text-readable and searchable. And you can even expose them as part of the knowledge base for the LLM to reference when needed going forward.
  - Angostura 7mo ago
    Copilot outputs Mermaid diagram markup for me - so the graphs are editable and importable into diagraming packages
    - vunderba 7mo ago
      Yeah I'm a big fan of mermaid as well. Extended ASCII works a bit better for me because depending on the text editor because I don't need a custom visualization tool.

programmertote 7mo ago

A recent LinkedIn post that I came across as an example of people trusting (or learning to trust) AI too much while not realizing that it can make up numbers too: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mariamartin1728_claude-wrote-this-entire-labor-market-commentary-share-7435709317267292160-4FNf https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mariamartin1728_claude-wrote-... P.S. Credit to the poster, she posted a correction note when someone caught the issue: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mariamartin1728_correction-on-my-earlier-post-travis-deese-ugcPost-7435756771350048768-KPuk https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mariamartin1728_correction-on...

Avamander 7mo ago
> A recent LinkedIn post that I came across as an example of people trusting (or learning to trust) AI too much while not realizing that it can make up numbers too Honestly, people make them up just as much or generate equally incorrect graphs. It's about time our trust into random visualizations is destroyed, without the actual formulas and data behind being exposed.

mikkupikku 7mo ago

I agree. Maybe next they'll add emotionally evocative music, with swelling orchestral bits when you reach the exciting climate of the slop.

kemayo 7mo ago

It's a mismatch with our intuition about how much effort things take. If there's humans involved, "I took this data and made a really fancy interactive chart" means that you put a lot more work into it, and you can probably somewhat assume that this means some more effort was also put into the accuracy of the data. But with the LLM it's not really very much more work to get the fancy chart. So the thing that was a signifier of effort is now misleading us into trusting data that got no extra effort. (Humans have been exploiting this tendency to trust fancy graphics forever, of course.)

manquer 7mo ago
It is not limited to graphics, better packaged products, better dressed / good looking well spoken person and so on. Celebrity endorsements depend on this thesis. There has always been a bias towards form over function.
- Jarwain 7mo ago
  Once good form becomes commoditized, hopefully function starts taking priority

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

ipython 7mo ago

Already happened. :) https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/comments/1mk5wdb/this_chart_from_openais_official_gpt5_release/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/comments/1mk5wdb/this_ch...

outlore 7mo ago

I suspect chain of thought while building the chart will improve the overall correctness of the answer

jameschaearley 7mo ago

This is the tension I keep hitting when building data tools on top of LLMs. A nice-looking chart makes the output feel more trustworthy, but the data can still be wrong. The chart just makes it harder to notice. LLMs still need to come with receipts of where the data came from and the math they did. It's as bad as "I read the headline so I know everything in the article."

amadeuspagel 7mo ago

I think this does something for the correctness of LLMs by making it easier to check their output.