Comment by fourside
15 days ago
I’ve seen more of this type of rhetoric online in the last few years and find it very insidious. It subtly erodes the value of objective truth and tries to paint it as only one of many interpretations or beliefs, which is nothing more than a false equivalence.
The concept of being unbiased has been around for a long time, and we’re not going to throw it away just because a few people disagree with the premise.
There is no rhetoric here, it’s just literal truth. There is no implication of equivalence or any statement about the value of objective truth.
Any position is a bias. A flat earther would consider a round-earther biased. That doesn’t make them equal positions.
> Any position is a bias. A flat earther would consider a round-earther biased.
That’s bollocks. The Earth is measurably not flat.
You start from a position of moral relativism and then apply it to falsifiable propositions. It’s really not the same thing. Some ideas are provably false and saying that they are false is not "bias".
Dice are considered "biased" if not all sides have equal probability, even if that's literally true.
When you look up the definition of bias you see "prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair."
So the way we use the word has an implication of fairness to most people, and unfortunately reality isn't fair. Truth isn't fair. And that's what I'm trying to point out here in reference to LLM output.
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> truth itself is a bias
Ehh, bias connotes unfairness, but espousing the truth should be considered the fairest position.
In statistics, bias literally refers to an inaccurate distortion of results.
I get what you're trying to say, but I don't think it's a useful definition of bias.
Truth isn't fair because reality isn't fair. Dice are considered "biased" if not all sides have equal probability, even though that's the "truth" of the die.
I tend to agree with you that defining truth as: “These elements interacted like so,” is difficult to bias unless you introduce relativity. The problems arise when why comes into play and ascribing intent.