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I spent an evening on a fictitious web

paul.kinlan.me

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Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#21

Post by krapp »

djeastm wrote: post #19
sva_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the term 'bullshitting' less fitting as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way that attributes agency to them which they seem to lack. As in, someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain, which doesn't seem like something an LLM is capable of atm. It might (currently) be most apt to characterize these occurrences as shifts out of the training data distribution

>as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way "hallucinate" does the same thing, fwiw

It seems impossible to come up with language to describe why LLMs are both convincing and unreliable ("hallucinate","confabulate","bullshit) or why the ability to converse in natural language does not denote intelligent cognition ("stochastic parrot") without anthropomorphizing them to a degree, given that these things are designed to anthropomorphize themselves.

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#22

Post by rng-concern »

kinlan wrote: post #12
GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #2

No more dead links, instead Chrome will instead hallucinate what that website should have looked like.

It's not Chrome hallucinating, it's the websim that is generating the content.

I think they mean a hypothetical future of chrome browser, not what websim currently is.

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#23

Post by burner_fyllms »

krapp wrote: post #21
djeastm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way "hallucinate" does the same thing, fwiw

It seems impossible to come up with language to describe why LLMs are both convincing and unreliable ("hallucinate","confabulate","bullshit) or why the ability to converse in natural language does not denote intelligent cognition ("stochastic parrot") without anthropomorphizing them to a degree, given that these things are designed to anthropomorphize themselves.

Yes true but saying "displaying the inherent flaws in the design that make them unsuitable for serious purposes" every time gets tedious.

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#24

Post by WorldMaker »

sva_ wrote: post #16
GJim wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chrome will instead hallucinate what that website should have looked like I find the term 'bullshits' to be more apt than 'hallucinate'. As something of an aside; that the purveyors of AI use the latter, whereas those who interact with it use the former, speaks volumes.

I find the term 'bullshitting' less fitting as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way that attributes agency to them which they seem to lack. As in, someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain, which doesn't seem like something an LLM is capable of atm. It might (currently) be most apt to characterize these occurrences as shifts out of the training data distribution

The equal problem with "hallucinate" is that it also has far to many anthropomorhic connotations (a person having creative fun, a person on some form of drugs, a person in some sort of "sleep state").

So far I'm coming around to the growing use of "slop", originally meant as an alternative to "spam" and to imply spam-like intent, but the great thing about this word choice is that the closest anthropomorphic connotation is to "pig feeding". Pigs can be highly intelligent, of course, but that's not the first image one has when thinking of a pig at a slop trough.

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#25

Post by hunter2_ »

sva_ wrote: post #16
GJim wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chrome will instead hallucinate what that website should have looked like I find the term 'bullshits' to be more apt than 'hallucinate'. As something of an aside; that the purveyors of AI use the latter, whereas those who interact with it use the former, speaks volumes.

I find the term 'bullshitting' less fitting as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way that attributes agency to them which they seem to lack. As in, someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain, which doesn't seem like something an LLM is capable of atm. It might (currently) be most apt to characterize these occurrences as shifts out of the training data distribution

> someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain

That's one definition of bullshitting, but not the one being used here. If someone says "I think you're bullshitting me" then yes, you're being accused of consciously seeking personal gain. But if someone says "we were standing around bullshitting" then no, it refers to killing time with mindless communication, which is a quite good analogy for LLM output.

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#26

Post by ThinkingGuy »

latexr wrote: post #3

I went to the website, clicked on the search bar, and was immediately stopped from proceeding unless I provided a Google login. Why is that necessary? No idea, they don’t say. Doesn’t seem like a “web” I’d want to partake in, with Google as a gatekeeper even if they’re not the authors of the content.

Yeah, the requirement to create a Google account was a show-stopper for me.

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#27

Post by vundercind »

djeastm wrote: post #19
sva_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the term 'bullshitting' less fitting as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way that attributes agency to them which they seem to lack. As in, someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain, which doesn't seem like something an LLM is capable of atm. It might (currently) be most apt to characterize these occurrences as shifts out of the training data distribution

>as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way "hallucinate" does the same thing, fwiw

“Hallucinate” connotes consciousness and self to me. Bullshit does not. Markov chain text generators bullshit, they don’t hallucinate. I’m not aware of anything in LLM tech that warrants implying any sort of awareness, understanding, or consciousness. Not even close.

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#28

Post by csixty4 »

superultra wrote: post #17

This is interesting but if you’re genuinely interested in recapturing the feelings many of us had at the beginning of the web, I would suggest playing Hypnospace Outlaw. It’s of course quite different than websim but it’s really fun.

I just watched a Youtube video of it and I DEFINITELY need to check this out. They seem to have captured the feel of the old web perfectly.

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#29

Post by autokad »

superultra wrote: post #17

This is interesting but if you’re genuinely interested in recapturing the feelings many of us had at the beginning of the web, I would suggest playing Hypnospace Outlaw. It’s of course quite different than websim but it’s really fun.

I struggle with the idea of monetization. In one sense, I think its great people can get paid for doing what they like to do and it can encourage more content creation. On the other hand, everything becomes disingenuous, people become perversely incentivized, you got people gluing things to turtles to make videos of them rescuing turtles with 'lichens' on their shells.

So I don't know, I am really torn on how I should feel about it

Re: I spent an evening on a fictitious web

#30

Post by jrm4 »

hunter2_ wrote: post #25
sva_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the term 'bullshitting' less fitting as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way that attributes agency to them which they seem to lack. As in, someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain, which doesn't seem like something an LLM is capable of atm. It might (currently) be most apt to characterize these occurrences as shifts out of the training data distribution

> someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain That's one definition of bullshitting, but not the one being used here. If someone says "I think you're bullshitting me" then yes, you're being accused of consciously seeking personal gain. But if someone says "we were standing around bullshitting" then no, it refers to killing time with mindless communication, which is a quite good analogy for LLM o…

I actually like your first definition a bit better; very in line with the way the term was academically in vogue a few years ago; the idea that you're expressing information intended to appear factual without regard for how factual it is.

The LLM does it because it's programmed to, and the human does it for some other self gain reason, but both the process and the results are very similar.

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