Live data from Hacker News

LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

arxiv.org

21–30 of 123 posts

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#21

Based on the data in table 3, I would attribute most of the difference to length of advice. LLMs average word count (29.4) is more than double human word count (13.25). Most other measures do not have a significant ratio. "Difficult word count" would be the only other with a ratio higher than 2, but that is inherited from total word count. I think it would be difficult to truly convince me to answer differently in a…

If you think writing more words will be more persuasive, just... write more words?

The test already incentivises being persuasive! If writing more words would do that, and the incentivised human persuaders don't write more words and the LLMs do, then I think it's fair to say that LLMs are more persuasive than incentivised human persuaders.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked an LLM and it said "A stack is a data structure that follows the Last In, First Out (LIFO) principle. This means that the last element added to the stack is the first element to be removed."

Yikes:( I am so worried about the damage that will be caused by the misuse of these tools. Already a lot of young folks will just mindlessly trust whatever the magic oracle spits out at them. We need to go back to testing people with pen and paper I suppose.

I mean, is it wrong? It seems correct. Unless I'm missing something.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked an LLM and it said "A stack is a data structure that follows the Last In, First Out (LIFO) principle. This means that the last element added to the stack is the first element to be removed."

Yikes:( I am so worried about the damage that will be caused by the misuse of these tools. Already a lot of young folks will just mindlessly trust whatever the magic oracle spits out at them. We need to go back to testing people with pen and paper I suppose.

Why is that a bad answer?

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#24
post #17

We're fast approaching the point that any value someone can provide through a digital interface could be better done by a model. What do we use digital interfaces for? Practically everything. Oh well not being a plumber, electrician, or farmer... but our society's current productivity, technology, automation reduced our need for 80% of the population needing to be farmers to now 1.3% in the US. Can you imagine what t…

Yes when the knowledge jobs are all done best by AI the rest will follow shortly. we will need to adapt to being "useless" as far as work goes and find other sources of worth. There's still a lot of people who want to compare it to Bitcoin hype around here, IMO the next few years everything is going to change way faster than than it ever has. For the record I always thought Kurzweil and that crowd was clowns, now I t…

> IMO the next few years everything is going to change way faster Honestly, after hearing this for the past 20 years (ever since ML and LLMs became a thing), it is actually more like the level-5 autonomous car hype and less like Bitcoin. Only that the driverless car hype never required such a humongous investment bubble, as does the Statistical-Text-Generator-as-AI one.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#25

My guess for the reason behind this is that LLMs have more facts memorized, and thus can make more reasonable and well-researched sounding answers. If you ask an LLM vs a Human "Is a stack in computer science a) a data structure that is first in first out or b) a data structure that is first in last out" the LLM can say stuff resembling "Based on Dijkstra's algorithm proof given in 1943 and the nature of Turing compl…

The gap between LLM and human cases was greater in the deceptive case. This may, of course, simply reflect the fact that random humans are bad at lying.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#26
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? the difference is only 6 months of LLM progress.

It matters if studies like this matter, that is, it matters to people who are interested in what has currently happened rather than what might happen in the future. 6 months of LLM progress keeps not looking like what I expected. On the other hand, if you're content with your pre-existing predictions about what would happen, which I think is actually a reasonable position, there's no reason to read the paper.

Is progress faster or slower than you expected?

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes:( I am so worried about the damage that will be caused by the misuse of these tools. Already a lot of young folks will just mindlessly trust whatever the magic oracle spits out at them. We need to go back to testing people with pen and paper I suppose.

Why is that a bad answer?

Sorry - I misread the LLM answer - actually the LLM produced a correct answer here

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes:( I am so worried about the damage that will be caused by the misuse of these tools. Already a lot of young folks will just mindlessly trust whatever the magic oracle spits out at them. We need to go back to testing people with pen and paper I suppose.

I mean, is it wrong? It seems correct. Unless I'm missing something.

Oops, my bad. I seem to have misread. Sorry.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked an LLM and it said "A stack is a data structure that follows the Last In, First Out (LIFO) principle. This means that the last element added to the stack is the first element to be removed."

Yikes:( I am so worried about the damage that will be caused by the misuse of these tools. Already a lot of young folks will just mindlessly trust whatever the magic oracle spits out at them. We need to go back to testing people with pen and paper I suppose.

I read this and I see a common thinking fallacy, when someone is inclined to believe something a priori they fit the evidence to their a priori beliefs.
Post reply on HN