3 ms·

It seems to be using more info from pre-1900 rather than 1930. It doesn't know about the Great Depression (1929-WWII). It knows about WWI if you ask it specific

by Animats 6mo ago

It seems to be using more info from pre-1900 rather than 1930. It doesn't know about the Great Depression (1929-WWII). It knows about WWI if you ask it specifically, but talks about European politics as if it's 1900 or so. On technology, it knows who Edison is, at roughly the Wikipedia level, but credits him with a 125MPH car. About a dial telephone, it is confident and totally confused. It has the traction voltage for the London Underground right. But then it goes on with "Thus, if the current be strong enough to force its way through a resistance of 100 ohms, it is said to have a pressure of 100 volts; and, if it can overcome 1,000 ohms, its pressure is 1,000 volts." Which is totally wrong. There's a general pattern. The first sentence or two has info you might get from Google. Then it riffs on that, drifting off into plausible nonsense. Don't ask this thing questions to which you do not know the answer. You will pollute your brain.

snypher 6mo ago
>The first sentence or two has info you might get from Google. Then it riffs on that, drifting off into plausible nonsense. Oh, it's a 2026 human simulator.
imiric 6mo ago
> Don't ask this thing questions to which you do not know the answer. You will pollute your brain. So like any LLM?
withinboredom 6mo ago
Ask it about the aether as well. I think it was disproven around that time.
preuceian 6mo ago
Did people already refer to it as the Great Depression in 1929?
- embedding-shape 6mo ago
  No, but likely just some years later people were aware of the name: > The term "The Great Depression" is most frequently attributed to British economist Lionel Robbins, whose 1934 book The Great Depression is credited with formalizing the phrase, though Hoover is widely credited with popularizing the term, informally referring to the downturn as a depression, with such uses as "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement" (December 1930, Message to Congress), and "I need not recount to you that the world is passing through a great depression" (1931). - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#Naming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#Naming
  - jstanley 6mo ago
    But 1931 is after 1930? Are you already aware of terms that will only be coined in 2027? But 2027 is so close, why shouldn't you already know?
    - embedding-shape 6mo ago
      > But 1931 is after 1930? Yeah, I think so too. Why? > Are you already aware of terms that will only be coined in 2027? But 2027 is so close, why shouldn't you already know? I think Wikipedia's information about the naming is likely only what could be sourced, and also the 1934 is about "formalization", and the 1930/1931 are more official messages that I guess there is still copies off, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume the word could been used in more informal contexts some year before that.
      - jstanley 6mo ago
        If we can't find instances from before 1930 then we can't expect an AI trained on information we can find to know about instances before 1930.
        embedding-shape 6mo ago
        It'd be trivial to check, if the dataset is known just grep for "Depression" and "Great Depression" and see what comes up, still don't think it's impossible the names were in use before someone decided to wrote to Congress about it.
- ralferoo 6mo ago
  I'd argue that even by early 1930, people probably wouldn't have seen it as significantly different from other short market downturns. It's only with the benefit of hindsight that we can see its impact was long lasting and worthy of being given a name.
  - roryirvine 6mo ago
    "How has the stock market fared in recent years?" "During the period from 1924 to 1929, there was a general rise in stock exchange values, the average level at the end of 1929 being 18 per cent. above that of 1924. The setback in 1930 has carried the average down to 8 per cent. above the 1924 level, and the decline has been accentuated by the break in Wall Street. The present situation is uncertain, but hopes are entertained of a recovery." It also knows about Smoot-Hawley, predicting that it will "stimulate home production and expand employment" - and when pressed for potential downsides says only that "consumer prices may rise a little more than otherwise". We're used to thinking of the inter-war years as a single period, but there were actually two distinct phases: rising optimism during the 1920s, followed by economic rentrenchment and turn towards authoritarianism in the 1930s. The dividing line is fuzzy - somewhere between Kellogg-Briand in 1928 and the first 1931 Sterling crisis. The pre-1931 cutoff date for this model is probably as close to the end of the optimistic age as it's reasonable to get. I'd love to see a 1936 variant for comparison!
    - Jiro 6mo ago
      The US public domain currently covers up to the year 1930, which is probably the reason it cuts off at that year. To get a 1936 variant you will have to wait until 2032 for them to be able to legally train the model.
embedding-shape 6mo ago
> You will pollute your brain. Such an interesting perspective, never crossed my mind that a brain could be polluted! My direction always been to fill it with as wide array of information as possible, the more different from existing information the better. What are some other things that you think "pollutes your brain"?
- neomantra 6mo ago
  Mixing metaphors, there is signal and noise. You can keep asking for noise, but the suggestion is to not train your neural networks with it as it will impair your inferencing. That said, we all have our own cost and reward functions...
  - embedding-shape 6mo ago
    Assuming brains work like computers, maybe yeah, that'd make sense :) You also won't know what's a signal vs noise until you've read and tried to understand it, and at that point you've already read it. Besides, something could be "noise" at the point you read it, but be a "signal" in a completely different context and/or time.
- felixyz 6mo ago
  Your information diet. Social media. Gossipy and negative people. Mulling over old failures/regrets/slights etc. The mind is easily pulled along by negativity and outrage... as can be observed in our current global psychological state.
  - embedding-shape 6mo ago
    All those are fine, as long as you're able to process it in a healthy way after. I guess personally I focused more on bettering that processing, as sometimes you don't get to control what information you get served, so at least it works in all cases.
    - scrollaway 6mo ago
vessenes 6mo ago
Interesting questions (and responses). Nota bene - The 1927 Bugatti Type 35 had top speeds ca 125. So, there were cars that fast pre-1930. I have no idea if Edison made, repped, or had anything to do with one such car, though.
- FuriouslyAdrift 6mo ago
  Edison was close friends with Ford and tried to get the electric car market going waaay back around the turn of century. https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/thomas-edison-a-man-ahead-of-his-time-built-his-own-electric-car-in-1912/ https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/thomas-edis...
  - vessenes 6mo ago
    https://www.slashgear.com/1769684/ford-model-t-top-speed/ https://www.slashgear.com/1769684/ford-model-t-top-speed/ Says that Frank Kulick hit 108mph in 1912 in a modified Model T. (Yeesh). So I’d say we should rate the Edison / 125 comment as at the very least possible, and not insane.
orthoxerox 6mo ago
> Hitler was one of the chief organizers of the Spartacist rebellion in Berlin in January, 1919, and has since been tried and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Yeah, it's not very good.
eru 6mo ago
> It doesn't know about the Great Depression (1929-WWII). I don't think anyone talked about the 'Great Depression' in 1930. Instead, what we know call the 'Long Depression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression was often called the 'Great Depression' before that one took over the name. Also keep in mind that the Great Depression was mostly a US thing. Many other countries had less incompetent policy in that time.
barrkel 6mo ago
Any small LLM will get the fractally small details incorrect and have a dubious understanding of arithmetic. That usage mode is basically user error for small LLMs. LLMs aren't databases of facts. It's much more useful for getting vibes / gist of perspectives of the day.

by Animats 6mo ago

snypher 6mo ago

>The first sentence or two has info you might get from Google. Then it riffs on that, drifting off into plausible nonsense. Oh, it's a 2026 human simulator.

imiric 6mo ago

> Don't ask this thing questions to which you do not know the answer. You will pollute your brain. So like any LLM?

withinboredom 6mo ago

Ask it about the aether as well. I think it was disproven around that time.

preuceian 6mo ago

Did people already refer to it as the Great Depression in 1929?

embedding-shape 6mo ago
No, but likely just some years later people were aware of the name: > The term "The Great Depression" is most frequently attributed to British economist Lionel Robbins, whose 1934 book The Great Depression is credited with formalizing the phrase, though Hoover is widely credited with popularizing the term, informally referring to the downturn as a depression, with such uses as "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement" (December 1930, Message to Congress), and "I need not recount to you that the world is passing through a great depression" (1931). - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#Naming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#Naming
- jstanley 6mo ago
  But 1931 is after 1930? Are you already aware of terms that will only be coined in 2027? But 2027 is so close, why shouldn't you already know?
  - embedding-shape 6mo ago
    > But 1931 is after 1930? Yeah, I think so too. Why? > Are you already aware of terms that will only be coined in 2027? But 2027 is so close, why shouldn't you already know? I think Wikipedia's information about the naming is likely only what could be sourced, and also the 1934 is about "formalization", and the 1930/1931 are more official messages that I guess there is still copies off, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume the word could been used in more informal contexts some year before that.
    - jstanley 6mo ago
      If we can't find instances from before 1930 then we can't expect an AI trained on information we can find to know about instances before 1930.
      - embedding-shape 6mo ago
        It'd be trivial to check, if the dataset is known just grep for "Depression" and "Great Depression" and see what comes up, still don't think it's impossible the names were in use before someone decided to wrote to Congress about it.
ralferoo 6mo ago
I'd argue that even by early 1930, people probably wouldn't have seen it as significantly different from other short market downturns. It's only with the benefit of hindsight that we can see its impact was long lasting and worthy of being given a name.
- roryirvine 6mo ago
  "How has the stock market fared in recent years?" "During the period from 1924 to 1929, there was a general rise in stock exchange values, the average level at the end of 1929 being 18 per cent. above that of 1924. The setback in 1930 has carried the average down to 8 per cent. above the 1924 level, and the decline has been accentuated by the break in Wall Street. The present situation is uncertain, but hopes are entertained of a recovery." It also knows about Smoot-Hawley, predicting that it will "stimulate home production and expand employment" - and when pressed for potential downsides says only that "consumer prices may rise a little more than otherwise". We're used to thinking of the inter-war years as a single period, but there were actually two distinct phases: rising optimism during the 1920s, followed by economic rentrenchment and turn towards authoritarianism in the 1930s. The dividing line is fuzzy - somewhere between Kellogg-Briand in 1928 and the first 1931 Sterling crisis. The pre-1931 cutoff date for this model is probably as close to the end of the optimistic age as it's reasonable to get. I'd love to see a 1936 variant for comparison!
  - Jiro 6mo ago
    The US public domain currently covers up to the year 1930, which is probably the reason it cuts off at that year. To get a 1936 variant you will have to wait until 2032 for them to be able to legally train the model.

embedding-shape 6mo ago

> You will pollute your brain. Such an interesting perspective, never crossed my mind that a brain could be polluted! My direction always been to fill it with as wide array of information as possible, the more different from existing information the better. What are some other things that you think "pollutes your brain"?

neomantra 6mo ago
Mixing metaphors, there is signal and noise. You can keep asking for noise, but the suggestion is to not train your neural networks with it as it will impair your inferencing. That said, we all have our own cost and reward functions...
- embedding-shape 6mo ago
  Assuming brains work like computers, maybe yeah, that'd make sense :) You also won't know what's a signal vs noise until you've read and tried to understand it, and at that point you've already read it. Besides, something could be "noise" at the point you read it, but be a "signal" in a completely different context and/or time.
felixyz 6mo ago
Your information diet. Social media. Gossipy and negative people. Mulling over old failures/regrets/slights etc. The mind is easily pulled along by negativity and outrage... as can be observed in our current global psychological state.
- embedding-shape 6mo ago
  All those are fine, as long as you're able to process it in a healthy way after. I guess personally I focused more on bettering that processing, as sometimes you don't get to control what information you get served, so at least it works in all cases.
  - scrollaway 6mo ago

vessenes 6mo ago

Interesting questions (and responses). Nota bene - The 1927 Bugatti Type 35 had top speeds ca 125. So, there were cars that fast pre-1930. I have no idea if Edison made, repped, or had anything to do with one such car, though.

FuriouslyAdrift 6mo ago
Edison was close friends with Ford and tried to get the electric car market going waaay back around the turn of century. https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/thomas-edison-a-man-ahead-of-his-time-built-his-own-electric-car-in-1912/ https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/thomas-edis...
- vessenes 6mo ago
  https://www.slashgear.com/1769684/ford-model-t-top-speed/ https://www.slashgear.com/1769684/ford-model-t-top-speed/ Says that Frank Kulick hit 108mph in 1912 in a modified Model T. (Yeesh). So I’d say we should rate the Edison / 125 comment as at the very least possible, and not insane.

orthoxerox 6mo ago

> Hitler was one of the chief organizers of the Spartacist rebellion in Berlin in January, 1919, and has since been tried and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Yeah, it's not very good.

eru 6mo ago

> It doesn't know about the Great Depression (1929-WWII). I don't think anyone talked about the 'Great Depression' in 1930. Instead, what we know call the 'Long Depression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression was often called the 'Great Depression' before that one took over the name. Also keep in mind that the Great Depression was mostly a US thing. Many other countries had less incompetent policy in that time.

barrkel 6mo ago

Any small LLM will get the fractally small details incorrect and have a dubious understanding of arithmetic. That usage mode is basically user error for small LLMs. LLMs aren't databases of facts. It's much more useful for getting vibes / gist of perspectives of the day.