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Comment by dakolli

5 hours ago

pro LLM people are the kings of ad hoc fallacy. Why did you type this? You can consistently test steel and get a good idea of when and where it will break in a system without knowing its molecular structure.

LLMs are literally stochastic by nature and can't be relied on for anything critical as its impossible to determine why they fail, regardless of the deterministic tooling you build around them.

> LLMs are literally stochastic by nature and can't be relied on for anything critical

Ahh, yes, unlike humans, who are completely deterministic, and thus can be trusted.

  • Humans can be governed by rules with consequences and replaced with individuals with a appropriate level of risk taking / rule following for the role.

    • Rules and consequences seem to apply to humans in a similar way as prompts and harnesses govern LLMs. The greater the level of power a human possesses the less they are governed by these restraints, this doesnt apply to LLMs so at least in that aspect they are an improvement. But yea we can’t really punish or inflict pain on them - this seems like a problem

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    • Which has, famously, been a great consolation for people who suffered the consequences of human failure in the past

    • That seems like it applies just fine to LLMs as well: You can replace an LLM with a different model, different prompts, etc. for the appropriate level of risk taking. Rule following is even easier, given you can sandbox them.

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  • Wow, such a nasty view to hold. What's next, the Altman's bullshit argument about "all the food" that the humans need to grow up and develop brain ? Humans are intelligent. Humans can generalise and invent new concepts, ideas and art. LLMs are none of that.

What is the ad hoc fallacy? From googling I didn’t find any convincing definitions (definitions that demonstrate that it is a logical fallacy).

  • https://finmasters.com/ad-hoc-fallacy/

    > Ad hoc fallacy is a fallacious rhetorical strategy in which a person presents a new explanation – that is unjustified or simply unreasonable – of why their original belief or hypothesis is correct after evidence that contradicts the previous explanation has emerged.

    https://cerebralfaith.net/logical-fallacy-series-part-13-ad-...

    > An argument is ad hoc if its only given in an attempt to avoid the proponent’s belief from being falsified. A person who is caught in a lie and then has to make up new lies in order to preserve the original lie is acting in an ad hoc manner.

    It should be clear why the ad hoc fallacy is a fallacy.