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ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

noyb.eu

11–20 of 92 posts

Re: ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

#11
post #8

This seems so backwards to me. As a user of LLMs, it's clear to me that tokens generated by ChatGPT and similar are not to be interpreted as a legally-valid statement by the company making the LLMs, unless explicitly stated by said company. I certainly don't engage with them that way. I believe this to be fairly obvious to anyone who has used such tools, so I just see this as an opportunity to sue for a quick buck.

NOYB doesn't make money out of suing. I otherwise agree with the rest of your comment.

I just looked into what noyb is, thank you for pointing this out. Perhaps this is something that had to be brought to court at one point or another, so we can set a precedent one way or the other, then. At the moment I think I'm hoping nothing comes out of this.

Re: ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

#12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NOYB doesn't make money out of suing. I otherwise agree with the rest of your comment.

I just looked into what noyb is, thank you for pointing this out. Perhaps this is something that had to be brought to court at one point or another, so we can set a precedent one way or the other, then. At the moment I think I'm hoping nothing comes out of this.

Yeah, me too, and I have a recurring donation to NOYB, as they generally do fantastic work. I think this one is a rare miss.

Re: ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

#13
post #10

People have a fundamental misunderstanding of what LLMs are. I’ve had to explain this so many times even to engineers. People keep using it as Google. It is not a mechanism to retrieve facts. It’s rather a reasoning mechanism, that when used like a search engine generates text that looks like output from a retrieval of facts. The article talks about OpenAI being unwilling to correct errors. But they just can’t. There…

>People have a fundamental misunderstanding of what LLMs are.

It's labeled "AI", aka "artificial intelligence".

So clearly, it's intelligent enough to tell fact from fiction, right? It's intelligent enough to read and repeat facts, right? It's artificial intelligence, isn't it?

I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, obviously. I'm aware how this actually works like you, but the way it's billed you can't expect the commons to understand any of this in any other way. There is a very specific concept of what AI is among the masses, regardless if "AI" is it or not.

If you call something a duck, you can't blame someone for saying it's a duck.

Re: ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

#15
post #4

IMHO this is not a fixable problem, it's not even a new problem because false information existed since ever. With the Web it become globally available, with social media it become globally spreadable and with "AI" it has become of endless supply in form and variety. Humans need to develop humane defense mechanisms for the new reality, tech cannot be stopped and cannot be hermetically insulated against mistakes or ba…

You're totally right.We can't just hit the brakes on technology. It's here to stay, with its flaws and perks. As users, we need to be savvy about what we see online, questioning stuff instead of just swallowing it whole. Education is key here. The more we can help people navigate digital sources of information, the better equipped they'll be to identify misinformation.

Re: ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

#16
post #10

People have a fundamental misunderstanding of what LLMs are. I’ve had to explain this so many times even to engineers. People keep using it as Google. It is not a mechanism to retrieve facts. It’s rather a reasoning mechanism, that when used like a search engine generates text that looks like output from a retrieval of facts. The article talks about OpenAI being unwilling to correct errors. But they just can’t. There…

Is Gemini that unpopular? It seems that nobody in this thread is aware of its features.

The best that can be done is just what Gemini does: a button to (smartly) compare the generated text against google search results.

Re: ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

#17
post #10

People have a fundamental misunderstanding of what LLMs are. I’ve had to explain this so many times even to engineers. People keep using it as Google. It is not a mechanism to retrieve facts. It’s rather a reasoning mechanism, that when used like a search engine generates text that looks like output from a retrieval of facts. The article talks about OpenAI being unwilling to correct errors. But they just can’t. There…

I don't know, it seems recently that we've detached what things are from what the people behind them say things are, so bing AI is an LLM, phind is an LLM, and they market themselves as search engine, like to see in details you say

>> It is not a mechanism to retrieve facts

Then bing AI powered by chatgpt shows on its site

>> [Hello, this is Bing! I’m the new AI-powered chat mode of Microsoft Bing that] can help you quickly get information.

if get is a synonym of retrieve and facts is a synonym of information, I'd argue that maybe it's not people misunderstanding what LLMs are but maybe someone explaining it wrong?

Guess in the world of marketing words don't carry any value anymore, then I agree with you

Re: ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

#18
post #5

That's because it's being used in the wrong way. It isn't a factual database.

It sometimes feels like I've taken crazy pills watching what was effectively a tech demo that went viral become the usecase now dictating billions of dollars of development and optimization.

It's a crappy usecase. And much better ones are typically being overlooked outside a few smart enterprise integrations.

To put it mildly - if someone wants to use LLMs to build a factual chatbot, they should probably just start mining crypto instead, as they'll waste less money on jumping on a trend. But if they think a bit about how LLMs can be used in nearly any other situation, they'll be miles ahead of the majority chasing this gold rush.

Re: ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

#19
post #2

Popcorn time: NOYB (Max Schrems) filed a complaint against OpenAI with the Austrian DPA: ChatGPT is not GDPR compliant.

Sounds like a win for the US...get competing economies to block the technology for trivial reasons, then by time the bugs are worked out they will be so far behind that their only choice will be to choose US-based solutions

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