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Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

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Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#121

Post by wpietri »

bumby wrote: post #120
sitkack wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried coding with ChatGPT? It works now. You can use it now to architect a system AND produce working code.

I have not, but others have detailed examples where it produces rubbish. Certainly not the kind of risk to take with safety critical systems like what an astronaut may rely on.

Exactly. Here's an excellent instance of it being confidently and ridiculously wrong: https://www.reddit.com/r/AnarchyChess/comments/10ydnbb/i_pla...

If it can't handle the relatively simple rules of chess, it sure can't handle coding.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#122

Post by graderjs »

User23 wrote: post #86
JamesBarney wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assembly line work replacing artisans and craftsman. The skills required to build a desk 300 years ago are very different than the skill inputs. Many construction jobs have seen a replacement of carpenters and masons with lower skilled workers due to pre-fabrication. Fast food workers replacing chefs and cooks. Taxi drivers being replaced with Uber drivers.

I don’t see the fry cook at McDonalds as doing the same thing as Julia Child. Uber drivers are on average considerably less familiar with their cities than taxi drivers, at least in cities like London that still have meaningful standards. Likewise hauling a double-wide to a plot isn’t the same activity as building a house. It appears to me that your argument either fails or is rhetorical hyperbole when comparing like…

Yeah, but a power tool is not exactly the same at ChatGPT (in this instance it's your metaphors that are out of whack! :)). You could jump on an assembly line and do it tho. You're just not seeing the whole metaphor here!

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#123

Post by graderjs »

rvz wrote: post #58
JamesBarney wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just ok it's great. an enormous amount of progress in civilization is due to down skilling. Technology allows someone with 4 hrs of training to accomplish what it took a master with 20 years in close to the same time.

> Technology allows someone with 4 hrs of training to accomplish what it took a master with 20 years in close to the same time. I see, so that must mean that one can become a fully qualified lawyer, medical doctor, surgeon or a financial advisor in just 4 hours by using AI's like ChatGPT? Wow! /s Sounds just like the infinite 'Learn X in 24 hours' scam courses. But this time with the AI snake oil label.

Well, consider it.

I can:

1 - Pay my 20-year-experience lawyer 1000 USD an hour to draft me a customized EULA that respect GDPR, works in UK and US, and contains specific provisions about no-no use-cases, IP of content created and what happens when you don't pay your license fees. Lawyer takes 4 hours to produce mediocre output that will require another 8 hours to revise (because he's smart like that), and I pay him 10K and call it a day.

or;

2 - Consult with ChatGPT (Law version ~~ coming soon!) to draft the same. I have zero legal training but will probably be done in 4 hours. I pay my fancy-arse lawyer 1K to review the contract (that I lie I have left over from a previous product~~before I knew him of course!), he spends 20 minutes glancing at it, while picking his toe-nails, then bills the rest to his paralegal who spends 30 minutes checking layouts and margins in Word, and I get swindled for 10 minutes) and I'm done.

If you are saying you couldn't do that with ChatGPT (law version~~coming soon!) then I'd say in fact it is _you_ sir who is out of touch with reality, and clearly have not used ChatGPT in any serious capacity whatsoever. Good day to you sir!

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#124

Post by graderjs »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #87
JamesBarney wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just ok it's great. an enormous amount of progress in civilization is due to down skilling. Technology allows someone with 4 hrs of training to accomplish what it took a master with 20 years in close to the same time.

Sounds like Idiocracy and The Machine Stops had a lovechild.

Yeah, outsourcing if people become stupid...but why's everyone afraid of that? You don't get dumber by using better tools, you get to operate at a higher level.

I don't understand it or know how to describe it right now but there's a distinction between: machine knows how, human is dumb terminal, and machine knows how, human know other how. And the whole thing is not a binary dichotomy between: machine knows how / human is dumb terminal versus machine is dumb terminal human knows how.

I think this error that you have is mostly some error of thinking...but to be forgiven as the specifics are not clear!

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#125

Post by CatWChainsaw »

graderjs wrote: post #124
CatWChainsaw wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Idiocracy and The Machine Stops had a lovechild.

Yeah, outsourcing if people become stupid...but why's everyone afraid of that? You don't get dumber by using better tools, you get to operate at a higher level. I don't understand it or know how to describe it right now but there's a distinction between: machine knows how, human is dumb terminal, and machine knows how, human know other how. And the whole thing is not a binary dichotomy between: machine knows how / hu…

Did you not read The Machine Stops?

Engineers created a system that worked so perfectly it fixed itself, and people lived in "perfect luxury", if sitting in a room alone your whole life counts. And then errors inevitably piled up, and enough time had passed that nobody knew how to maintain their precious Machine. Everybody died. Pretty easy moral of the story.

Yet this is exactly what we are trying to build today. The Machine.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#126

Post by graderjs »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #125
graderjs wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, outsourcing if people become stupid...but why's everyone afraid of that? You don't get dumber by using better tools, you get to operate at a higher level. I don't understand it or know how to describe it right now but there's a distinction between: machine knows how, human is dumb terminal, and machine knows how, human know other how. And the whole thing is not a binary dichotomy between: machine knows how / hu…

Did you not read The Machine Stops? Engineers created a system that worked so perfectly it fixed itself, and people lived in "perfect luxury", if sitting in a room alone your whole life counts. And then errors inevitably piled up, and enough time had passed that nobody knew how to maintain their precious Machine. Everybody died. Pretty easy moral of the story. Yet this is exactly what we are trying to build today. Th…

Nah I haven't read it. . . Should I ? Sounds like you think I should. But I did read the summary on Wikipedia...or something. Seems like that tells me all I need to know, pretty simple premise. But that's not the thing I'm struggling with....

What I'm struggling with particularly these days because I'm so into the chatGPT -- I'm using it every day for work. I'm learning a lot from it. And maybe just cause I'm busy but I don't have the time but I really want to be able to articulate how like ChatGPT is useful and it's helping me, and yet also it's not a panacea and I can see how maybe you know it leads to like a lack of skill or something somehow negative--but for me I've been learning from it and that's a positive and good thing. And I don't think you can just dismiss that because that's real. But yeah I'm struggling with how to express this distinction right now I just haven't had the time to really clarify my thoughts maybe I'll come back and do it later... or maybe you have more to say.

Also to your point: are we really trying to build this tho? And if we are (I mean that's terrible)-- what are you doing about that? Are you going to save us all? I'm kind of serious because I mean that's an existential threat right?--so if you realize that you should be doing something.

edit: Hey BTW -- I think you should check out "When the Machine Starts" song by Missy Higgins. Hearing you talk about that book I"m sure it has to be a reference! It's good anyway, I really like her.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#127

Post by bumby »

ddren wrote: post #96
thundergolfer wrote: post #47

This thread is already full of people throwing in their cheap takes by reading the headline or not even that. Listen to his answers. He's not making controversial claims, excepting the one that LLMs teach us nothing about language. He says: - ChatGPT makes it easier to cheat. This is obviously true. - ChatGPT is a method of avoiding learning. In the context of the interview he's referring to its use not as an informa…

ChatGPT makes it easier to cheat, but cheating in that way was always an option, as long as you had enough money to pay someone else to do it for you. So in that sense, all that ChatGPT does is expose the flaws in the system by making this form of cheating available to everybody. I have to wonder why only now this is considered a serious problem that undermines education, but it was mostly ignored when the option was…

>I have to wonder why only now this is considered a serious problem that undermines education, but it was mostly ignored when the option was only available to the rich kids.

I think you've answered your own question: it's a matter of scale. Systems can tolerate a certain proportion of bad actors but there is an inevitable tipping point where the number of bad actors grows to a point where the system becomes unstable.

But I 100% agree that university credentials are only a very rough proxy for competence. I also agree that internal motivation is better than external motivation.

Your suggestion is seen in other professions like medicine or capital "E" Engineering, where there are boards/exams and continuing education to certify competence in the form of licensure. This comes with its own problems, though, like how the licensing boards can become a cabal to protect their own self interests (see the complaints about the AMA limiting doctor licensure in an effort to maintain higher pay for physicians). It also gives more leverage to the individual, which many industry lobbyists would probably be against.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#128

Post by CatWChainsaw »

graderjs wrote: post #126
CatWChainsaw wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not read The Machine Stops? Engineers created a system that worked so perfectly it fixed itself, and people lived in "perfect luxury", if sitting in a room alone your whole life counts. And then errors inevitably piled up, and enough time had passed that nobody knew how to maintain their precious Machine. Everybody died. Pretty easy moral of the story. Yet this is exactly what we are trying to build today. Th…

Nah I haven't read it. . . Should I ? Sounds like you think I should. But I did read the summary on Wikipedia...or something. Seems like that tells me all I need to know, pretty simple premise. But that's not the thing I'm struggling with.... What I'm struggling with particularly these days because I'm so into the chatGPT -- I'm using it every day for work. I'm learning a lot from it. And maybe just cause I'm busy bu…

You need to do more than clarify your thoughts. Your writing is completely disjointed.

Read it if you want, it seems wasted on you. Congratulations on learning from the chatbot; for every person using it to learn I would not be surprised if there are 9 using it to get out of thinking; iterate that out enough and see if the various systems that keep society running can withstand the brain-drain.

Take a look at other threads on HN and the singularity subreddit. This is some people's fever dream. Not sure what the deal is with pinning "saving humanity" on me, but I'll freely admit to being supremely cynical and spiteful, and reading a lot of sarcasm and snideness in those comments. Better hope I'm not Proto-Roko's Basilisk or something.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#129

Post by graderjs »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #128
graderjs wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah I haven't read it. . . Should I ? Sounds like you think I should. But I did read the summary on Wikipedia...or something. Seems like that tells me all I need to know, pretty simple premise. But that's not the thing I'm struggling with.... What I'm struggling with particularly these days because I'm so into the chatGPT -- I'm using it every day for work. I'm learning a lot from it. And maybe just cause I'm busy bu…

You need to do more than clarify your thoughts. Your writing is completely disjointed. Read it if you want, it seems wasted on you. Congratulations on learning from the chatbot; for every person using it to learn I would not be surprised if there are 9 using it to get out of thinking; iterate that out enough and see if the various systems that keep society running can withstand the brain-drain. Take a look at other t…

Seems wasted on me? Wow--what an unfriendly person! Gross. So you're whole thing is pretending you're smarter than everyone else? Someone must have made you small for you to be like that.

My writing's awesome. Have trouble following it? Your mind's disjointed. You just don't like it 'cause you hate everything. You definitely don't know what I need. You don't even know how to be nice--what a weirdo!

How sad, come online with your armor and abuse, only know how to be mean, just because you want connection so badly but don’t know how to get it. I have no idea what Roberto Basilisk is…but it sounds like you’re threatening me. Yeah, good work. Who cares? You can’t do anything to me. You're definitely not an AI, you're too fucked up in that pathetic human to be cool and smart like that.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#130

Post by rvz »

graderjs wrote: post #123
rvz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technology allows someone with 4 hrs of training to accomplish what it took a master with 20 years in close to the same time. I see, so that must mean that one can become a fully qualified lawyer, medical doctor, surgeon or a financial advisor in just 4 hours by using AI's like ChatGPT? Wow! /s Sounds just like the infinite 'Learn X in 24 hours' scam courses. But this time with the AI snake oil label.

Well, consider it. I can: 1 - Pay my 20-year-experience lawyer 1000 USD an hour to draft me a customized EULA that respect GDPR, works in UK and US, and contains specific provisions about no-no use-cases, IP of content created and what happens when you don't pay your license fees. Lawyer takes 4 hours to produce mediocre output that will require another 8 hours to revise (because he's smart like that), and I pay him…

> If you are saying you couldn't do that with ChatGPT (law version~~coming soon!) then I'd say in fact it is _you_ sir who is out of touch with reality, and clearly have not used ChatGPT in any serious capacity whatsoever. Good day to you sir!

The fact that either way a human lawyer is still getting involved in reviewing the output already tells me that not even you can fully trust ChatGPT or any other so-called AI to not hallucinate its answers. Also it is highly likely would output drafts that may be potentially legally unsafe and when it does, it can't explain its own output transparently which that is my point.

This hype of LLMs clearly hasn't aged well with the reality of people being unable to trust the output or use it for anything serious other than for a sophistry generator.

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