> Because that’s what most people have access to.
I’d agree with this rationale if the author clearly communicated their choice of model and the consequences of that choice upfront.
In this post the table of results and the text of the post itself simply reads “ChatGPT” with no mention of 3.5 until the middle of a paragraph of text in the appendix.
> It’s absolutely worthless to most readers to talk about something they’ll never pay for and it’s not the job of random third-parties to incentivise others to send money to OpenAI.
The “worth” is in communicating an accurate representation of the capabilities of the technology being evaluated. If you’re using the less capable free version, then make that clear upfront, and there’s no problem.
If you were to write an article reviewing any other piece of software that has a much less capable free version available in addition to a paid version, then you would be expected to be clear upfront (not in a single sentence all the way down in the appendix) about which version you’re using, and if you’re using the free version what its limitations may be. To do otherwise would be misleading.
If you simply say “ChatGPT” it’s reasonable to infer that you’re evaluating the best possible version of “ChatGPT”, not the worst.
Accurate communication is literally the job of the author if they’re making money off the article (this one has a Patreon solicitation at the top of the page).
Whether or not "most readers" are ever going to pay for the software is totally orthogonal.
If using GPT4 vs 3.5 would create results so distinct from one another that it would serve to incentivize people to give money to OpenAI, well then that precisely supports the argument that the author’s approach is misleading when presenting their results as representative of the capabilities of “ChatGPT”.
> What I really don’t understand is why anyone gets so hung up about it and blames the writer.
Again, if they’re making money off their readers it’s their job to provide them with an accurate representation of the tech.
> Anecdotally, I find this excessive fawning about 4 VS 3.5 to be unwarranted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38304184
Did some part of my comment came across as “excessive fawning”? Regardless, if this “excessive fawning” is truly unwarranted, this would again undermine your statement that using GPT4 would “incentivize others to send money to OpenAI”.
In regards to your link, I’ll highlight what another commenter replied to you. What should ChatGPT say when prompted about various religious beliefs? Should it confidently tell the user that these beliefs are rooted in fantastical nonsense?
It seems in this case you’re holding ChatGPT to an arbitrary standard, not to mention one that the majority of humanity, including many of its brightest members, would fail to meet.