How do you trust a book, blog, tour guide, or art history teacher?
How do you trust the placards under a piece of art?
The short answer is you accept that it isn't perfect and move on with life. I have found multiple errors in all of those things. Human tour guides are especially the worst at making things up.
Part of navigating life is dealing with imperfect information and uncertainty.
Just like with a friend, coworker, or spouse, you use your judgment and track records to decide when to trust what is being said based on subject matter and stakes.
Domain matters. I have found it good at history, but less trustworthy in others. For examle, the llm gave me a bunch of bogus advice as I repaired my dishwasher based on weather models that weren't accurate. There is also a lot of bad information on Reddit and Appliance blogs. Repairman are almost as bad as the tour guides, willing to lie straight to your face. I deal with it the same way.
Because generally speaking people have a firm grasp on truth and lies are intentional, predictable, and rare. LLMs have a tenuous grasp on reality at best and make things up constantly.
How do you trust a book, blog, tour guide, or art history teacher?
How do you trust the placards under a piece of art?
The short answer is you accept that it isn't perfect and move on with life. I have found multiple errors in all of those things. Human tour guides are especially the worst at making things up.
Part of navigating life is dealing with imperfect information and uncertainty.
Just like with a friend, coworker, or spouse, you use your judgment and track records to decide when to trust what is being said based on subject matter and stakes.
Domain matters. I have found it good at history, but less trustworthy in others. For examle, the llm gave me a bunch of bogus advice as I repaired my dishwasher based on weather models that weren't accurate. There is also a lot of bad information on Reddit and Appliance blogs. Repairman are almost as bad as the tour guides, willing to lie straight to your face. I deal with it the same way.
Because generally speaking people have a firm grasp on truth and lies are intentional, predictable, and rare. LLMs have a tenuous grasp on reality at best and make things up constantly.
I trust Wikipedia- and it is available on iPhone