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Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

locusmag.com

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Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#11

Post by CamperBob2 »

throwway120385 wrote: post #10
CamperBob2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing is that the missing books can be created on demand and published in a couple of hours, using the same tech that mistakenly added them to the list in the first place. They'll suck, of course, but so do most of the books on any given "Summer Reading Guide."

So it's a sort of "reverse memory hole" where things that never existed contemporaneously to the list can now be given life to invalidate fact checking.

Which just reminds us that the committee who awarded the Nobel Prize to Kissinger and Arafat is the same one that overlooked Borges and Eco.

Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#12

Post by WolfeReader »

smithkl42 wrote: post #4
furyofantares wrote: post #2

I'm sorry, but is producing 10 lists of 15 items each really 50 peoples' worth of work? The amount of effort this would take today without the use of a chatbot seems overblown. Or with the use of a chatbot, but fact-checked, for that matter. edit: I'm not questioning how much work it was in the days of print. I think it's fairly false to paint it as if AI has much to do with the transition from high effort lists to l…

I agree with Doctorow about the de-humanizing nature of this sort of work - but to your specific point about fact checking, it'd honestly be fastest to outsource that to a different LLM, maybe ChatGPT in "deep research" mode or something like that.

"Here's a technology which is known to be confidently wrong pretty frequently. I'm going to use it to fact check things."

Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#13

Post by CamperBob2 »

WolfeReader wrote: post #12
smithkl42 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Doctorow about the de-humanizing nature of this sort of work - but to your specific point about fact checking, it'd honestly be fastest to outsource that to a different LLM, maybe ChatGPT in "deep research" mode or something like that.

"Here's a technology which is known to be confidently wrong pretty frequently. I'm going to use it to fact check things."

It's a powerful tool that can be misused by the incompetent, like most other powerful tools.

Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#14

Post by addaon »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #11
throwway120385 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's a sort of "reverse memory hole" where things that never existed contemporaneously to the list can now be given life to invalidate fact checking.

Which just reminds us that the committee who awarded the Nobel Prize to Kissinger and Arafat is the same one that overlooked Borges and Eco.

No. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, while the Literature prize and the other prizes defined by Nobel’s will are awarded by the Swedish Academy.

Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#15

Post by furyofantares »

throwway120385 wrote: post #8
furyofantares wrote: post #2

I'm sorry, but is producing 10 lists of 15 items each really 50 peoples' worth of work? The amount of effort this would take today without the use of a chatbot seems overblown. Or with the use of a chatbot, but fact-checked, for that matter. edit: I'm not questioning how much work it was in the days of print. I think it's fairly false to paint it as if AI has much to do with the transition from high effort lists to l…

In the days of print media, before you could google "top 10" X, the newspaper might well be your only source of "listicles." They took that responsibility seriously. Top 10 lists are garbage nowadays because the format is used to flood search engines with Amazon Affiliate links for things like fartely brand leggings.

Right, which is why I asked if it's that much work _today_.

I don't think they went from this going through 50 brains to it going through 1 overnight because chatbots exist. They gradually got there as these lists both became easier to produce and less valuable.

Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#16

Post by CamperBob2 »

addaon wrote: post #14
CamperBob2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which just reminds us that the committee who awarded the Nobel Prize to Kissinger and Arafat is the same one that overlooked Borges and Eco.

No. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, while the Literature prize and the other prizes defined by Nobel’s will are awarded by the Swedish Academy.

I see.

Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#17

Post by xjm »

> Thatcher told us, “There is no alternative.” In 1982, Bill Gibson refuted her thus: “The street finds its own uses for things.” > I know which prophet I’m gonna follow.

> Thanks to a free AI model that ran on my modest laptop, in the background while I was doing other work, I was able to write [an accurate quote]

He's right, but it sure sounds like a long fight made of small actions.

Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#18

Post by lupusreal »

WolfeReader wrote: post #12
smithkl42 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Doctorow about the de-humanizing nature of this sort of work - but to your specific point about fact checking, it'd honestly be fastest to outsource that to a different LLM, maybe ChatGPT in "deep research" mode or something like that.

"Here's a technology which is known to be confidently wrong pretty frequently. I'm going to use it to fact check things."

If you have tokens to burn, using new sessions to critique the work produced in other sessions greatly improves reliability. Asking the same question multiple different ways, and to more than one LLM, also helps a lot.

Re: Cory Doctorow: "centaurs" and "reverse-centaurs"

#20

Post by sleepybrett »

WolfeReader wrote: post #12
smithkl42 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Doctorow about the de-humanizing nature of this sort of work - but to your specific point about fact checking, it'd honestly be fastest to outsource that to a different LLM, maybe ChatGPT in "deep research" mode or something like that.

"Here's a technology which is known to be confidently wrong pretty frequently. I'm going to use it to fact check things."

pay all the other 'ai's to crowdsource .. or maybe cloudsource, a truth boolean. Then when they all ingest each others answers slowly over time all the answers become the same, wether truthful or not.
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