Comment by fancyfredbot

9 months ago

We're talking about a stochastic parrot which in many circumstances responds in a way which is indistinguishable from actual understanding.

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fancyfredbot

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MegaButts  9 months ago

I've always been amazed by this. I have never not been frustrated with the profound stupidity of LLMs. Obviously I must be using it differently because I've never been able to trust it with anything and more than half the time I fact check it even for information retrieval it's objectively incorrect.

  • fancyfredbot  9 months ago

    If you got as far as checking the output it must have appeared to understand your question.

    I wouldn't claim LLMs are good at being factual, or good at arithmetic, or at drawing wine glasses, or that they are "clever". What they are very good at is responding to questions in a way which gives you the very strong impression they've understood you.

    • MegaButts  9 months ago

      I vehemently disagree. If I ask a question with an objective answer, and it simply makes something up and is very confident the answer is correct, what the fuck has it understood other than how to piss me off?

      It clearly doesn't understand that the question has a correct answer, or that it does not know the answer. It also clearly does not understand that I hate bullshit, no matter how many dozens of times I prompt it to not make something up and would prefer an admittance of ignorance.

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