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AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

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Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti AI wave still has so much work to do. Today I saw a duckduckgo ad selling how you can opt out of AI. This is the first ad I've seen suggesting the possibility that someone might not want to be maxing out AI in every possible way. This after seeing probably thousands of ads reference AI.

> you can opt out of AI. Even that is problematic for me. How about let someone opt-in if they want it? If they don't, then no additional action is necessary

[dead]

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#122
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another human being took time from their life to try and help you It wasn't as much time as you felt entitled to from them, so you responded by minimizing their contribution and being condescending. That upset them. The problem here was not the other person.

Sometimes a well-meaning fool is worse than no help at all.

That doesnt excuse you from the obligation to be civil. Especially given that the other party was trying to help.

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen that many times here on HN: "I don't know but I stuck this in CrapGPT and this is what it said...". I would encourage anyone considering a reply like this to ask themselves what value they have brought to the table over the OP using AI themselves.

Yeah as if someone wouldn't have done that if they wanted to. Some people still think AI is some novelty people don't know about.

This did happen before, and still does to some extent, with people googling and giving the answer. "Let me Google that for you" lmgtfy.com was even a thing, again lacking any introspection about why someone might be asking instead of googling.

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#124

This study is pretty bad. The comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48970182 ) on the other link with the direct PDF explains the problem well, which is that nothing here being tested is specific to AI systems. This study gave people access to an LLM that the researchers knew would give incorrect answers to certain questions, and then quizzed people on those questions, with the option to not respond to a giv…

For those curious, the LLM they provided participants with was Step 3.5 Flash: https://huggingface.co/stepfun-ai/Step-3.5-Flash

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#125
post #44

This study is pretty bad. The comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48970182 ) on the other link with the direct PDF explains the problem well, which is that nothing here being tested is specific to AI systems. This study gave people access to an LLM that the researchers knew would give incorrect answers to certain questions, and then quizzed people on those questions, with the option to not respond to a giv…

+1 I'd wager you get similar results if you gave people a version of Google search that purposely gave you bad results. Like, it's framed as an assistant / lookup tool - is it so surprising that people tend to trust it more? Especially since the participants are likely used to using full-powered models and the researchers give them a purposely gimped one (lol) People are acting rationally when given AI tools to looku…

> is it so surprising that people tend to trust it more

Yes and no.

I think most people would agree that Wikipedia is, on the whole, a pretty great first resource on anything. It tries to be factual and accurate.

Most people would also agree that Wikipedia can be wrong or manipulated and should never be used for an authoritative source.

And then somehow a computer barfing up words distilled from magic internet concentrate is absolutely trustworthy?

I don't get it.

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#126
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some people I'm not friends with anymore who didn't understand conversational bidding. They would jump straight to Why Don't You Google That and shut down any conversation we might have had. Yes I could get some of this information off of IMDB or a DIY video but I'm looking for color commentary and regional advice, and also in some of these situations, the people I asked know me. They know the sorts of thin…

> There are some people I'm not friends with anymore who didn't understand conversational bidding. To you the "bid" feels like a genuine attempt to connect, that may be a bit indirect. To some people it feels more like you are being disingenuous or awkward. They instinctively feel that your intent doesnt match your words and it sets off alarms bells. The fact that you're on the internet judging the other party negati…

And you're going to right that wrong by making assumptions.

It's usually not the person who gets asked who acts like an asshole, and if you don't don't want to be judged by people for your behavior, start by not openly and loudly judging them for theirs.

No sympathy for this sort of behavior and you're out of line. Or you're the problem. I'll let you decide since I don't know you.

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#127

Advice and information subreddits have gone to shit because of AI usage. A large number of people seem to think that when someone asks a question, what they really want is not someone with direct knowledge, but instead someone to relay the question to ChatGPT and post the result as if it is their own hard earned knowledge and insight. I have no idea about the quality of this research but in the real world (well, real…

Reddit has always had the dynamic of people misrepresenting their knowledge and just repeating what other people said on that subreddit. I find myself doing that when I spend too long on there - posting very authoritatively on something I'm honestly clueless about.

One big pet peeve of mine on reddit is on any kind of immigration-related subreddit it is absolutely filled with people talking about how it's impossible to migrate and you'll never get a visa. Yet, meanwhile, people do migrate successfully and legally all the time.

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some may think they're helping like that, but I'm sure there are quite a few who enjoy the feeling of being a notable figure in the community because they answer so many questions. These people have always existed and gave bad answers, but now they can do it so much faster , and with so much less actual thinking.

Do you consider the possibility that some of those people gave good answers?

Oh, there were absolutely people giving good answers. I'm just talking about the same kind of person who now just posts what an LLM says, rather than do any research.

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the headline says "AI advice made people three times less accurate". But if we really want to know how accurate these people were, we need to know how accurate the AI system they use is. If the AI system is hobbled to a point where it is worse than they reasonably expect we can't blame the people or the AI system. This would be the same as claiming the listening to experts make people less accurate in a study…

If you ask that, you fundamentally misunderstand the point. It's not about the LLM, it's about whether people will critically evaluate what it spits out.

That's fine as a point but it's not what the headline describes. The question of total/real effect on accuracy is also something one could ask about. Both are valid.

Re: AI advice made people less accurate but more confident – sudy

#130
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes a well-meaning fool is worse than no help at all.

That doesnt excuse you from the obligation to be civil. Especially given that the other party was trying to help.

There was nothing uncivil in the response the above commenter gave.
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