Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 105 posts

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#71

Post by rrr_oh_man »

mistermann wrote: post #59
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT seems to react to slightly unhinged prompts with more specific answers, in my experience. Example: *You:* What is the max length for the whisper API? *ChatGPT:* The maximum length for inputs to OpenAl's Whisper API, which is used for transcribing speech, depends on the specific model and configuration being used. Generally, Whisper is designed to handle audio inputs of varying lengths, including longer audio…

That is rather bizarre!! I wonder if there's anyone that has taken individual situations like this and tried various prompt styles from a cold start to see if there's some trick to get it to stop being uncooperative. I'm going very much on intuition here, but I have a very strong sense that GPT4 is getting much worse in this regard over time, I wonder if all of the social engineering they're doing behind the scenes i…

> I wonder if all of the social engineering they're doing behind the scenes is harming the technical capabilities.

I'm sure of it.

> Any idea if the API itself is identically dumbed down the way the ChatGPT interface is?

It feels like a bit of whack-a-mole. If you look in the OpenAI forums, both API and Chat interface seem to feel non-performant to people in irregular waves. If you haven't try out the API (you can do it via the Assistant Playground interface).

It certainly feels different to me.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#72

Post by jimbokun »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #35
vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

I’m not sure I agree with this take that technology is taking away community in general. I think communities are simply changing. I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now. You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of…

We have run this experiment on a society wide basis. The data are in, and it didn't work.

Mental health diagnoses are skyrocketing across the board, especially for young people. And the evidence tracking these outcomes to access to personal phones and social networks for those young people is very strong.

Virtual communities have some value. But as a replacement for in person interaction the outcomes are terrible.

(Btw, good rhetorical technique there, implying Western society the day before the iPhone was introduced was full of "communal lynchings and hangings, pogroms, witch trials etc.")

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#73

Post by jimbokun »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #57
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of technology. By "idealized notion" you mean "the vast, vast majority of human history"? "Community" is not typically defined as "the people you talk bullshit with for fun" and that's all. Your community is the people you live with and among. It's the people you're most likely to experience Big Things with, things like natural disasters, wei…

I get it, OTOH, humans are unfortunately selfish assholes. In any sufficiently large group of people, there are always conflicts - people attempting to assume control, marginalize/exclude/bully other individuals, etc. Which is part of the reason why people seek out these alternatives. If they ever come out with the sexbot, then I think its all over for modern technological civilization. There will be little reason fo…

Anonymous humans on line are even bigger assholes.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#74

Post by jimbokun »

ben_w wrote: post #42
vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

> Think of self-checkouts, chat-bots, AI partners and therapists, technology making us more self-reliant (which is a bad thing). When was the last time you used a bank teller rather than an ATM? For me, at least 5 years ago. On the other hand, despite ATMs, I'm told more people than ever work as bank tellers. > If we keep letting technology take away our communities this way in this two step process (first, take away…

> I'm told more people than ever work as bank tellers.

Any links to this? I find this very surprising.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#75

Post by jimbokun »

ziddoap wrote: post #48
vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

This is a pretty exaggerated take. Technology is a tool, it can be used to increase your social interactions (e.g. finding like-minded groups online to meet up with in-person) or to decrease your social interactions. You say technology is "destroying communities", but don't acknowledge all of the communities technology has helped build.

We have enough data now to confidently say the impact of computer technology on socializing has been a net negative.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#76

Post by ziddoap »

jimbokun wrote: post #75
ziddoap wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty exaggerated take. Technology is a tool, it can be used to increase your social interactions (e.g. finding like-minded groups online to meet up with in-person) or to decrease your social interactions. You say technology is "destroying communities", but don't acknowledge all of the communities technology has helped build.

We have enough data now to confidently say the impact of computer technology on socializing has been a net negative.

My comment wasn't really about whether it is a net negative or a net positive. I could definitely be convinced it is a net negative.

But my comment was about how the future of having to be drip-fed social interactions to meet our basic needs, otherwise no one will ever interact with anyone ever, is a silly exaggeration.

In any case, I'd love to see what data you're referring to. I'm familiar with studies that look at specific technologies (e.g. social media). But I'm unfamiliar with data/studies that looks at all technologies across all levels of society and measures the net benefit/harm. I'm not even sure how you would go about quantifying, say, the benefit of being able to contact a long-distance relative with significantly more ease and less expense vs. the harm of having to use Facebook to organize the video call.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#77

Post by theshackleford »

helboi4 wrote: post #29

Another episode of "what convoluted way can we use tech to 'solve' a social issue that it clearly exacerbates to try and desperately keep the blind cult-like silicon valley version of techno-optimism alive for as long as possible, while ignoring the obvious disastrous social consequences" I'm pretty sure nobody 15 years ago would have uttered the phrase "opportunities for practising social skills are hard to come by"…

> I'm pretty sure nobody 15 years ago would have uttered the phrase "opportunities for practising social skills are hard to come by".

You’d be wrong.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#78

Post by jimbokun »

ziddoap wrote: post #76
jimbokun wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have enough data now to confidently say the impact of computer technology on socializing has been a net negative.

My comment wasn't really about whether it is a net negative or a net positive. I could definitely be convinced it is a net negative. But my comment was about how the future of having to be drip-fed social interactions to meet our basic needs, otherwise no one will ever interact with anyone ever, is a silly exaggeration. In any case, I'd love to see what data you're referring to. I'm familiar with studies that look at…

I meant specifically availability of a personal smart phone and social networks to young people leading to an increase in mental health issues, as thoroughly documented by Jonathan Haidt. I should have been more specific.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#79

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

jimbokun wrote: post #72
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I agree with this take that technology is taking away community in general. I think communities are simply changing. I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now. You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of…

We have run this experiment on a society wide basis. The data are in, and it didn't work. Mental health diagnoses are skyrocketing across the board, especially for young people. And the evidence tracking these outcomes to access to personal phones and social networks for those young people is very strong. Virtual communities have some value. But as a replacement for in person interaction the outcomes are terrible. (B…

Weird take. We know communal lynchings happened; people literally took family photos by them! People happily documented that hangings were the town spectacles when they happened! Let’s not play rose tinted glasses about communities before social media: if you were not “in” that group you were vulnerable to violence or death. We have that now, where a disproportionate number of homeless minors are homeless because their parents kicked them out for being gay or trans and, clearly, no one else in their “community” was willing to take them in.

We need to be comparing how communities are right now vs how social media is right now and not some idealized notion of what in-the-flesh communities might be like. Right now we have a dearth of welcoming in-the-flesh community alternatives for people that have been cast out of traditional social groups and use technology to cope. This doesn’t mean technology bad. It means society needs to change so technology isn’t so tempting.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#80

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #40
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I agree with this take that technology is taking away community in general. I think communities are simply changing. I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now. You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of…

> I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now. Well, personally, I would love to know what percentage of people here actually cared about the other people here in terms of actually caring, like having a real friend. I'm assuming it's rather close to z…

> I'm just talking about some basic stuff like interacting with neighbours, talking to employees at the grocery, helping other community members out with basic stuff, etc.

Yeah, these communities can be hostile to people who don’t fit in, especially visible minorities.

Post reply on HN