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On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

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Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#11

Post by crazygringo »

airhangerf15 wrote: post #3
dang wrote: post #41

[stub for offtopicness] [submitters: one reason for not editorializing titles is it makes the threads be about that!]

LLMs don't "hallucinate" or "lie." They have no intent. They're Weighted Random Word Generator Machines. They're train mathematically to create series of tokens. Whenever they get something "right," it's literally by accident. If you get that rate of accidental rightness up to 80%, and people suddenly thing the random word generator is some kind of oracle. It's not. It's a large model with an embedded space, tokens a…

> LLMs don't "hallucinate" or "lie." They have no intent.

You're just arguing about semantics. It doesn't matter in any substantial way. Ultimately, we need a word to distinguish factual output from confidently asserted erroneous output. We use the word "hallucinate". If we used a different word, it wouldn't make any difference -- the observable difference remains the same. "Hallucinate" is the word that has emerged, and it is now by overwhelming consensus the correct word.

> Whenever they get something "right," it's literally by accident.

This is obviously false. A great deal of training goes into making sure they usually get things right. If an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters get something right, that's by accident. Not LLM's.

Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#12

Post by lambdaone »

dang wrote: post #41

[stub for offtopicness] [submitters: one reason for not editorializing titles is it makes the threads be about that!]

The title as posted is misleading and sensational: we should use the actual paper title, "H-Neurons: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs", which is far less sensational.

Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#14

Post by markus_zhang »

airhangerf15 wrote: post #3
dang wrote: post #41

[stub for offtopicness] [submitters: one reason for not editorializing titles is it makes the threads be about that!]

LLMs don't "hallucinate" or "lie." They have no intent. They're Weighted Random Word Generator Machines. They're train mathematically to create series of tokens. Whenever they get something "right," it's literally by accident. If you get that rate of accidental rightness up to 80%, and people suddenly thing the random word generator is some kind of oracle. It's not. It's a large model with an embedded space, tokens a…

Maybe humans are just random word generators too? Just more sophisticated ones. But I think I read some pieces that we are not random word generators but something better. Forgot the word.

Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#15

Post by ohyes »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #8
pektezol wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been more than 3 years and people still can’t understand this.

People don't want to understand this.

People have a strong financial incentive to not understand this. It’s subprime mortgages.

Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#16

Post by user34283 »

pektezol wrote: post #7
airhangerf15 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs don't "hallucinate" or "lie." They have no intent. They're Weighted Random Word Generator Machines. They're train mathematically to create series of tokens. Whenever they get something "right," it's literally by accident. If you get that rate of accidental rightness up to 80%, and people suddenly thing the random word generator is some kind of oracle. It's not. It's a large model with an embedded space, tokens a…

It’s been more than 3 years and people still can’t understand this.

Three top level comments so far, and as far as I can tell each is entirely pointless yapping about semantics around 'hallucination'.

Who cares? I wonder if any of the commenters is qualified enough to understand the research at all. I am not.

Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#17

Post by [deleted] »

pektezol wrote: post #7
airhangerf15 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs don't "hallucinate" or "lie." They have no intent. They're Weighted Random Word Generator Machines. They're train mathematically to create series of tokens. Whenever they get something "right," it's literally by accident. If you get that rate of accidental rightness up to 80%, and people suddenly thing the random word generator is some kind of oracle. It's not. It's a large model with an embedded space, tokens a…

It’s been more than 3 years and people still can’t understand this.

[deleted]

Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#18

Post by gchamonlive »

airhangerf15 wrote: post #3
dang wrote: post #41

[stub for offtopicness] [submitters: one reason for not editorializing titles is it makes the threads be about that!]

LLMs don't "hallucinate" or "lie." They have no intent. They're Weighted Random Word Generator Machines. They're train mathematically to create series of tokens. Whenever they get something "right," it's literally by accident. If you get that rate of accidental rightness up to 80%, and people suddenly thing the random word generator is some kind of oracle. It's not. It's a large model with an embedded space, tokens a…

I think you are reading too much into the title. "Neuron" is a totally valid way of refering to the perception unit in such models. It's got nothing to do with biology apart from the name.

Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#19

Post by dijksterhuis »

dang wrote: post #41

[stub for offtopicness] [submitters: one reason for not editorializing titles is it makes the threads be about that!]

> please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs

#20

Post by Miraltar »

pektezol wrote: post #7
airhangerf15 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs don't "hallucinate" or "lie." They have no intent. They're Weighted Random Word Generator Machines. They're train mathematically to create series of tokens. Whenever they get something "right," it's literally by accident. If you get that rate of accidental rightness up to 80%, and people suddenly thing the random word generator is some kind of oracle. It's not. It's a large model with an embedded space, tokens a…

It’s been more than 3 years and people still can’t understand this.

Yup, three years of fighting on "correct" use of words. Maybe someday people will accept that LLMs do "hallucinate" even tho it's not the same "hallucinate" as for humans.
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