westoncb

9 ms·

61.
by westoncb 3y ago
I don't think recall really addresses it sufficiently: the main issue I see is answers getting "muddy". Like it's getting pulled in too many directions and averaging.
62.
by westoncb 3y ago
This project was a Show HN and I had a few people reach out to me after, ended up taking a position as a founding engineer at a YC company in SF (2013). It's an alternate program editor that breaks source into tiles around grammatical
63.
by westoncb 3y ago
Seems like there are certain fundamental limits to what can be done here though. Much of the advantage to using these models is being able to come up with a vague/informal spec and most of the time have it get what you mean and come up
64.
by westoncb 3y ago
This is meant to be a more user friendly/aesthetic disk usage scanner. It's largely finished but I need to do a bunch of debugging for platform-specific issues etc. It's not the fun stuff so I've been putting it off fore
65.
by westoncb 3y ago
Intent can be created by a combination of prompting and incorporating the model into a feedback loop of some kind: it has something it was tasked with (via prompting), and the feedback provides info on to what extent the task has been compl
66.
by westoncb 4y ago
It's a matter of degree: you can probably already get GPT4 to generate simple proofs; I'm not expecting it to break new ground in mathematics. What I'm getting at is just that the usage is declarative: you'd be describin
67.
by westoncb 4y ago
The idea is you wouldn’t formulate the proof, you’d describe what want proven and it would generate the proof.
68.
by westoncb 4y ago
Just a few monkeys should be fine ;) If this weren't the case then it wouldn't be possible for (e.g.) the software industry to exist as it does: non-technical folks using natural language are able to converse with engineers who ta
69.
by westoncb 4y ago
In (language model-backed) natural language interfaces the loss of precision can be made up via iteration. If it were about getting it right on the first try this would be a dead end but there's no need for that restriction.
70.
by westoncb 4y ago
1) It's mistaken responses ('hallucinations') come largely from it missing data and having to interpolate something in spite of that; if you ask it about things that it definitely has information on it can be pretty reliabl
71.
by westoncb 4y ago
> but it will quickly fall apart if you ask it something it has not been trained on It would be pretty uninteresting tech if that were true: the ability to generalize beyond training data is a core feature of what NNs do and why we'
72.
by westoncb 4y ago
I suspect if an LLM were used to control a robot it would do so through a high level API that it's given access to; things like: stepForward(distance) or graspObject(matchId) The API's implementation may use AI tech too, but that
73.
by westoncb 4y ago
I don’t think you’re intending to impute intention, it’s just an implication of statements you made: “making stuff up on the spot” and “bullshit generation” vs unknowingly erring—these are all metaphors for human behaviors differing in thei
74.
by westoncb 4y ago
The way in which this kind of error deviates from what a human would do is generally trivial: “confidently stating bs” is the same as how mistakes from human professionals often manifest—it will be this way anytime the person doesn’t reali
75.
by westoncb 4y ago
Not only that but throwing away precision is an intrinsic part of becoming higher-level. This is just a different way of doing it.
76.
by westoncb 4y ago
I haven't tried with Bing, but this kinda thing is super basic with ChatGPT at least: it can do what you're asking and far more.
77.
by westoncb 4y ago
I think the fact that it's a technical discussion highlights why it's problematic: it might be appropriate for a total outsider who needs some kind of grasp of the basic underlying principle it operates on; but in discussion by a
78.
by westoncb 4y ago
It's also a specific choice of label though, and one which in the context of current discourse favors a particular side. It's like insisting on calling anything physical "atom collections". Yes, we get it, it's true
79.
by westoncb 4y ago
> Maybe it's more about using it to reason through your problem in a dialog, and not just ask it something you can google/duckduckgo. Your experience with it sounds very similar to my own. It exhibits something like on-demand p
80.
by westoncb 4y ago
> No, it's saying that ChatGPT is not reliable That's another way of saying sometimes it is right and sometimes it is wrong... > All it does is generate text that matches a pattern This is about as meaningful as saying, &quo
81.
by westoncb 4y ago
> If you happened to get information from it that turned out to be ok, you were lucky. This is just saying that sometimes ChatGPT is right and sometimes it's wrong, with an implicit stance on the relative frequencies. In my own expe
82.
by westoncb 4y ago
Similar here. I really wanted to play guitar and had wanted to for years, but 1) there was already a keyboard in the house 2) I think my dad thought it would be better to learn principles via piano first—so, I took the piano lessons, absolu
83.
by westoncb 4y ago
Location: Tucson, AZ Remote: yes Willing to relocate: unlikely Email: westoncb@gmail.com LinkedIn (a bit outdated): https://www.linkedin.com/in/weston-beecroft-b4a98054/ I'm an experienced engin
84.
by westoncb 4y ago
This is super cool. Curious how much work it was to discern the `[blabbery omitted]` sections. Were you generally able to tell right away that they were nonsense? Or did you have to spend significant time following dead ends it recommended?
85.
by westoncb 4y ago
This seems to be a recurring confusion in this thread: the boring aspect is a consequence of certain other factors, it is not a reason in itself for interruption. It would be rude in my opinion to interrupt someone and change the subject
86.
by westoncb 4y ago
I just adapt when I see someone doesn't do cooperative interrupting; I switch to their mode. It's not difficult to tell when people aren't into it (if nothing else, they aren't engaging with you in the same way, so it fe
87.
by westoncb 4y ago
You get it :)
88.
by westoncb 4y ago
It being boring to me would be a rude/invalid reason to interrupt, I mean the case specifically where someone is telling/explaining/describing something to you because they think you don’t know about it. The interruption is j
89.
by westoncb 4y ago
Indeed it’s pretty interesting how differently people relate to it. My main personal reason for liking it is actually enjoyment, and part of that relates to efficiency but even more importantly it’s because people interrupt in this way natu
90.
by westoncb 4y ago
> Now, how do you know this? What I'm describing is founded on both participants being well-intentioned. If one person interrupts another to ask for a clarification, or to let them know they are already aware of something, and the o

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