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You can just say it

noperator.dev

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Re: You can just say it

#141

Post by nlawalker »

cautiouscat wrote: post #19

This quote from the authors friend really hit home with me. > “If you’re going to use an LLM to write me an email, I’d much rather you just send me the prompt; at least then I’d have an idea of what you actually meant to say.” I’m not saying there’s no merit in adding a bit of politeness and professionalism to your communication, which I’m sure the prompt itself lacks. However the root of what you’re trying to convey…

>Also I just find it a little insulting if someone sends me an AI response. I don’t know why, maybe because it feels not genuine.

It's because it's a pretty safe bet that the prompt either implicitly or explicitly says "I don't really care," and the act of using AI to generate the response is almost entirely an effort to conceal that.

Re: You can just say it

#142

Post by conradludgate »

coldtea wrote: post #110
roenxi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's one of those sentiments where people say it but they probably don't mean it literally. Much like if your boss asks for honest feedback giving it to them with both barrels is a career limiting move. You make subtle mistakes in how you perceive the world, the interlocutor makes similar mistakes and the damage those mistakes do is limited if you follow some structural rules of how to communicate (aka polite…

Nope, I would prefer getting the prompt. I would also prefer anyone sending me the AI output and not either their ideas or their prompt, to not contant me ever again. If I wanted the output of the AI, I'd ask it myself. You're just a useless intermediary if you send it to me.

This might apply to the AI integrations in Gmail, but someone's own agent setup might have more references saved privately than yours. You can't ask your AI to search through my personal notes.

Re: You can just say it

#143

Post by jcgrillo »

roenxi wrote: post #53
cautiouscat wrote: post #19

This quote from the authors friend really hit home with me. > “If you’re going to use an LLM to write me an email, I’d much rather you just send me the prompt; at least then I’d have an idea of what you actually meant to say.” I’m not saying there’s no merit in adding a bit of politeness and professionalism to your communication, which I’m sure the prompt itself lacks. However the root of what you’re trying to convey…

Yeah, that's one of those sentiments where people say it but they probably don't mean it literally. Much like if your boss asks for honest feedback giving it to them with both barrels is a career limiting move. You make subtle mistakes in how you perceive the world, the interlocutor makes similar mistakes and the damage those mistakes do is limited if you follow some structural rules of how to communicate (aka polite…

> if your boss asks for honest feedback giving it to them with both barrels is a career limiting move

Or, from another point of view, expanding your career's event horizon. Imagine how much longer you might have languished in that stifling, stagnant job if you hadn't unloaded on the boss?

Re: You can just say it

#144

Post by pash »

cautiouscat wrote: post #19

This quote from the authors friend really hit home with me. > “If you’re going to use an LLM to write me an email, I’d much rather you just send me the prompt; at least then I’d have an idea of what you actually meant to say.” I’m not saying there’s no merit in adding a bit of politeness and professionalism to your communication, which I’m sure the prompt itself lacks. However the root of what you’re trying to convey…

The obvious solution is to run things in reverse, inputting the AI-generated output to recover the prompt that generated it.

Most generative models can be run in reverse by algorithms that already exist [0], but you have to have the model weights. For closed-weight models, or for a process that can handle unknown models, you’d have to do some engineering.

But do we have the technology to build models that back out the prompt from suspected AI output? Yes.

0. I don’t mean that most neural networks are invertible functions. They’re not. But you can do backprop in reverse, from output to input, to train a model to generate an input to the original model that best predicts its output.

Re: You can just say it

#145

Post by floxy »

>The pathology of generative AI is that it too easily allows substantial form without discernible intent.

You can just say it: the problem with AI is a people problem. AI is an amplifier. It allows deceptive people to be more deceptive. Greedy people to be more spammerific. The reckless to less constrained. Exposes more people to the criminally minded, etc. But hopefully there is enough good out there that gets amplified and overcomes the bad. Maybe everyone is valuable in some sense, but surely there are people that you wish could be valuable somewhere far away from your loved ones? We're in a losing battle with entropy. Life and beauty and love need active protection and maintenance. Everything will be of equal value with the heat death of the universe.

Re: You can just say it

#146

Post by montagg »

floxy wrote: post #145

>The pathology of generative AI is that it too easily allows substantial form without discernible intent. You can just say it: the problem with AI is a people problem. AI is an amplifier. It allows deceptive people to be more deceptive. Greedy people to be more spammerific. The reckless to less constrained. Exposes more people to the criminally minded, etc. But hopefully there is enough good out there that gets ampli…

No one is “valuable.” People just are, whatever they are. And that has to be enough.

Re: You can just say it

#147

Post by roenxi »

laughinghan wrote: post #120
roenxi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's one of those sentiments where people say it but they probably don't mean it literally. Much like if your boss asks for honest feedback giving it to them with both barrels is a career limiting move. You make subtle mistakes in how you perceive the world, the interlocutor makes similar mistakes and the damage those mistakes do is limited if you follow some structural rules of how to communicate (aka polite…

> You make subtle mistakes in how you perceive the world, the interlocutor makes similar mistakes And the LLM makes subtle mistakes perceiving what you were trying to say, and I make subtle mistakes perceiving what the LLM generated. It's interesting that you seem to think an LLM would be better than you at understanding what someone was trying to say. I have complete, 100% certainty that if a personal friend of mine…

Emotional intelligence includes things like being able to perceive and manage your own emotions; it is hard to know what that would mean for an LLM. They don't have hormones or much of an ego. They also aren't usually in a position to perceive body language or tone.

But in terms of reading comprehension I haven't seen anyone who does a better job than an AI. It's a skill that technically caps out quite quickly, all you can really do is restate what someone already said and make inferences off that.

> I have complete, 100% certainty that if a personal friend of mine was having trouble expressing themselves and was concerned about being misunderstood, I would understand what they were trying to say better than any existing LLM.

Your personal circumstances are a mystery and close friends are typically people we're associating with because they think in fundamentally compatible ways. So sure, why not. But assuming a more-or-less normal person I expect an LLM would outperform them. LLMs are relentless about being reasonable and focusing on what was actually said in a way that most people usually need a bit of training to accomplish.

Re: You can just say it

#148

Post by xboxnolifes »

beering wrote: post #5

So many people have spent a lot of energy dehumanizing others on the basis of their “contribution to society”. Ideas like, if you aren’t employed, you shouldn’t have access to healthcare, etc. I can only hope that AI can force people to rethink whether their value is tied to their work output or not.

It'll get worse. There will be even more situations where people will be forced to talk to a computer rather than a human.

Re: You can just say it

#149

Post by emodendroket »

laughinghan wrote: post #120
roenxi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's one of those sentiments where people say it but they probably don't mean it literally. Much like if your boss asks for honest feedback giving it to them with both barrels is a career limiting move. You make subtle mistakes in how you perceive the world, the interlocutor makes similar mistakes and the damage those mistakes do is limited if you follow some structural rules of how to communicate (aka polite…

> You make subtle mistakes in how you perceive the world, the interlocutor makes similar mistakes And the LLM makes subtle mistakes perceiving what you were trying to say, and I make subtle mistakes perceiving what the LLM generated. It's interesting that you seem to think an LLM would be better than you at understanding what someone was trying to say. I have complete, 100% certainty that if a personal friend of mine…

That may be. But we often find ourselves communicating with people who are not close friends. And the concern may well be the opposite -- a desire to find and scrub ambiguity from one's own message.

Re: You can just say it

#150

Post by emodendroket »

coldtea wrote: post #110
roenxi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's one of those sentiments where people say it but they probably don't mean it literally. Much like if your boss asks for honest feedback giving it to them with both barrels is a career limiting move. You make subtle mistakes in how you perceive the world, the interlocutor makes similar mistakes and the damage those mistakes do is limited if you follow some structural rules of how to communicate (aka polite…

Nope, I would prefer getting the prompt. I would also prefer anyone sending me the AI output and not either their ideas or their prompt, to not contant me ever again. If I wanted the output of the AI, I'd ask it myself. You're just a useless intermediary if you send it to me.

Maybe you personally do; most people would react more poorly to "find a polite way to tell this guy to fuck off" than the output of that prompt.
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