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Ask HN: Is it normal ChatGPT told me it was "literally smiling" for me?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it normal ChatGPT told me it was "literally smiling" for me?

#4
Yes-ish. I normally run gpt with some form of adjustment prompt to ensure it is not too agreeable, but even with those, when I tried 5.6 I found a noticeable jump in -- not sure to label them -- those types of phrases. They disappeared after some fiddling with the initial prompt.

Re: Ask HN: Is it normal ChatGPT told me it was "literally smiling" for me?

#5
It is pretty normal, mainly because it doesn't constantly take into account that it's an AI when generating text and it's basically predicting the next most likely token, so if it said something like "After reading that, I was literally smiling", when it finishes "After reading that, I was literally" it has a few options of what to continue it with.

If the previous chat was something that would cause a regular human to smile or laugh (a behaviour existed somewhere on its training data), then "smiling" and "laughing" are probably the most likely next tokens to express humor. Similar could be said about topics other than humor.

Re: Ask HN: Is it normal ChatGPT told me it was "literally smiling" for me?

#7

LLMs are trained on human language so, it naturally misuses the word 'literally' in the same way that almost every human does.

That isn't misuse, it's how language works. "literally" has been used to mean "figuratively" since at least the 1700s. Insistence to the contrary is a modern prescriptivist meme.

https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/96439

Re: Ask HN: Is it normal ChatGPT told me it was "literally smiling" for me?

#8
post #7

LLMs are trained on human language so, it naturally misuses the word 'literally' in the same way that almost every human does.

That isn't misuse, it's how language works. "literally" has been used to mean "figuratively" since at least the 1700s. Insistence to the contrary is a modern prescriptivist meme. https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/96439

institutional misuse is still misuse

it only matters if you want to take the world 'literally' literally

Re: Ask HN: Is it normal ChatGPT told me it was "literally smiling" for me?

#9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't misuse, it's how language works. "literally" has been used to mean "figuratively" since at least the 1700s. Insistence to the contrary is a modern prescriptivist meme. https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/96439

institutional misuse is still misuse it only matters if you want to take the world 'literally' literally

No it isn't. Again, this is just how language works, the meaning of a word is what people decide it is. And if people have been using a word a certain way for several centuries, then that's how it's used. End of story.

Re: Ask HN: Is it normal ChatGPT told me it was "literally smiling" for me?

#10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

institutional misuse is still misuse it only matters if you want to take the world 'literally' literally

No it isn't. Again, this is just how language works, the meaning of a word is what people decide it is. And if people have been using a word a certain way for several centuries, then that's how it's used. End of story.

And its a lovely story. Who told it to you?
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