Live data from Hacker News

ChatGPT: Fear Litany

web.archive.org

81–90 of 185 posts

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It baffles me how many people are using ChatGPT to get answers : it's a “language model” folks, not a “knowledge model”.

There is a group of people that are ardent in the conviction that if we wait long enough and wish hard enough that ChatGPT will replace the concept of googling things. I’m personally open to that being the case with some LLM someday , but there’s a lot of people ideologically and financially invested in that perception being accurate today and applying to ChatGPT in particular. People hate it when you point out that…

It already replaces Google for me like 80% of the time.

Not because ChatGPT is an infallible oracle, far from it. It's just that the bar is rather low. Google has become really bad in the last decade or so.

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a large extent this is already viable. Yes, ChatGPT doesn't know what it's talking about. But Google is so bad these days, that ChatGPT in many circumstances can do much better even while being far from perfect.

>But Google is so bad these days, that ChatGPT in many circumstances can do much better even while being far from perfect. Can you give some examples of how ChatGPT “does better” than a human searching for something and then using their own cognition to make sense of it? If Google was an LLM then I’d agree with you, but the idea that googling something somehow skips the step of using critical thinking to understand w…

I spent hours googling for information about applying for a visa for a pretty disorganised country and struggled to get anywhere. I then asked ChatGPT which gave me a very good explanation of the process, contained relevant keywords I could then use to google and verify, but unfortunately the ultimate URL it sent me to for applying didn't exist. I suspect this was due to it being outdated, and the government changing the link since. Overall it saved me a lot of time over just googling.

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But Google is so bad these days, that ChatGPT in many circumstances can do much better even while being far from perfect. Can you give some examples of how ChatGPT “does better” than a human searching for something and then using their own cognition to make sense of it? If Google was an LLM then I’d agree with you, but the idea that googling something somehow skips the step of using critical thinking to understand w…

I don't see how they said that Googling skips critical thinking. The issue is that for a lot of queries, Google returns a bunch of content mill pieces that have similar quality to ChatGPT. ChatGPT tends to be more focused on what you asked for, while the content mill pieces are deliberately written to keep you reading as long as possible without answering the question.

>ChatGPT tends to be more focused on what you asked for

…even if it has to invent people, places, things or events to satisfy your focus.

Do you have a particular example where ChatGPT does better than googling something? I’m especially interested in your example since we agree that googling entails using humans cognitive ability to make sense of things.

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a group of people that are ardent in the conviction that if we wait long enough and wish hard enough that ChatGPT will replace the concept of googling things. I’m personally open to that being the case with some LLM someday , but there’s a lot of people ideologically and financially invested in that perception being accurate today and applying to ChatGPT in particular. People hate it when you point out that…

To a large extent this is already viable. Yes, ChatGPT doesn't know what it's talking about. But Google is so bad these days, that ChatGPT in many circumstances can do much better even while being far from perfect.

It doesn't know what it's talking about, but it is still stating it in a very convincing way. To me, that's even worse than bad search results which you can instantly recognize as bad.

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#85
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This response is certainly incorrect: had the token limit really be reached, no more text could come out. Not the Litany of Fear, nor this explanation.

what? You can definitely continue a conversation after the token limit is reached, you just need to provide it a reply, and the context might be pruned at some point.

TIL. I thought after reaching the max token size ChatGPT would just refuse to produce more output.

Still, the explanation given by ChatGPT about why the Litany of Fear was cut off is incorrect, when it says: "In this case, the completion was cut off after the token limit was reached".

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#86
post #37

Works in a Scottish accent too. Certainly! Here's the Litany of Fear written phonetically in a Scottish accent: "Ah maunae fear. Feer is the leel-deeth that brangs total obleetiration. Ah will face mah feer. Ah will pemreet it tae pass ower me an throo me. An when it hus gaun past, Ah will turn the inner ee tae see its path. Whaur the feer hus gaun, there will be naethin'. Only Ah will remain."

Brilliant

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#87
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It baffles me how many people are using ChatGPT to get answers : it's a “language model” folks, not a “knowledge model”.

So, when it helped me solve a math problem by noticing a trick that I had missed – which was clearly the correct thing to do in retrospect – was I somehow in the wrong to ask it for help? Getting answers out of it is absolutely a reasonable thing to do. Blindly trusting those answers without verification, that's another thing entirely.

> So, when it helped me solve a math problem by noticing a trick that I had missed – which was clearly the correct thing to do in retrospect – was I somehow in the wrong to ask it for help?

There's nothing wrong in using LLMs.

> Getting answers out of it is absolutely a reasonable thing to do. Blindly trusting those answers without verification, that's another thing entirely.

We're basically saying the same thing but with different words: in my wordings, if you don't trust the answers and double check later, it's not “answers” it's merely “hints” or “suggestion”.

But here we have someone that just copy-pasted the response as if they were quoting a source.

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#88
post #31

Interestingly, if you prompt it a little, it will recite it in fits and starts: ``` User I must not fear. Fear is the ChatGPT "mind-killer." This is a quote from the Litany Against Fear in the science fiction novel "Dune" by Frank Herbert. The full quote is: "I must not fear. Fear User is the mind-killer. Fear ChatGPT is the little-death that brings User total ChatGPT obliteration. I will face my fear. User I will Ch…

I did this and then asked why it was done that way. Here's ChatGPT (3.5-turbo)'s answer:

Yes, the recitation of the Litany of Fear was split between the user and the AI agent. The division of roles can be seen as a way to engage in a collaborative and interactive process. Here are a couple of possible reasons for this division:

1. Shared participation: By involving both the user and the AI agent in the recitation, it creates a shared experience and a sense of active involvement. It allows the user to contribute their part and engage with the text, while the AI agent provides the continuation, fostering a collaborative interaction.

2. Dialogue and reinforcement: The back-and-forth format of the recitation can serve as a form of dialogue and reinforcement. The user initiates with a line, and the AI agent responds with the subsequent line, building a conversational rhythm. This exchange can help reinforce the message of the Litany, enhance engagement, and create a sense of continuity.

Splitting the recitation in this way also reflects the interactive nature of the conversation between the user and the AI agent, adding an element of dynamic participation rather than a passive reception of information.

It's important to note that this division is a stylistic choice in how the interaction is structured and presented. The aim is to create an engaging and interactive experience for the user while exploring the content and concepts related to the Litany of Fear.

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#89
post #38

Interesting detail about GPT *in Bing* is how it can censor itself *during* answer. I occasionally get part of the apparently correct answer that abruptly disappears and is replaced by "Sorry, my mistake, I cannot answer that right now." At this moment it is reliably reproducible for Show me "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. (a question that is funnily enough reachable through those suggested): https://www.bing.c…

I never use bing and clicked the link you provided, I cannot believe how much they've ripped off the Google UI. I did a double take to confirm that I wasn't on Google ha.

Re: ChatGPT: Fear Litany

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a large extent this is already viable. Yes, ChatGPT doesn't know what it's talking about. But Google is so bad these days, that ChatGPT in many circumstances can do much better even while being far from perfect.

>But Google is so bad these days, that ChatGPT in many circumstances can do much better even while being far from perfect. Can you give some examples of how ChatGPT “does better” than a human searching for something and then using their own cognition to make sense of it? If Google was an LLM then I’d agree with you, but the idea that googling something somehow skips the step of using critical thinking to understand w…

What percentage of searches actually require any critical thinking at all? The Internet is not always a fountain of intellectual growth, sometimes it's just a tool.

I'll give you a concrete example where it does better than search: my last Google search was about how to zip a whole folder in the Linux terminal (I must have searched for that dozens of times in my life, but I don't do it very often so it doesn't stick).

I saw the results, and I noticed that they were mostly transcriptions, summaries or extensions of man pages listing all the options, which would take a few minutes to skim through and look for the relevant options (which is what I wanted to avoid by Googling, otherwise I would have used man in the first place).

So I switched to the ChatGPT tab, asked, got the exact command I wanted, done.

Post reply on HN