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The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

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Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get lost on the ice and you have someone who confidently tells you the path but is sometimes wrong, is it actually helpful? PS: sorry if the analogy is a bit wonky but it's quite dear to me as I do ice skating on frozen lakes and it's basically a life or death information "game" that I can relate to. It might not be a great analogy for others.

Haha it's a good analogy, i'm being a little bit argumentative for the sake of it potentially. I guess in my view - the main alternative you'd have beforehand is just to drown. For me, AI sits in a space where if you know how to use it, it can tell you all the thin spots of the ice accurately. You can then verify those spots, but there's a level of personal responsibility of verification. I'd agree there's currently…

> I guess in my view - the main alternative you'd have beforehand is just to drown.

Before most who didn't know the ice didn't went out on it, today a lot of people who shouldn't be there go far out on the ice.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#153
post #106

Many people don't know this, but the Luddites were right. I studied Art History and this particular movement. One of the claims of the Luddites is that quality would go down, because their craft took half a lifetime to master (it was passed down from parent to chile.) I was able to feel wool scarves made in europe from the middle ages. (In museum storage, under the guidance of a curator) They are a fundamentally diff…

    luddites were right
And yet in the 200 years since human civilization has improved by every imaginable metric, in most cases by orders of magnitude. The difference between 2026 and 1826 is nearly incomprehensible. I suspect most people scarcely imagine how horrific the average life was in 1826, relatively speaking. And between then and now were the industrial revolution, multiple world wars, and generally some of the most terrible events, crooked politicians, and life changing technological forces. And here we are, mostly fine in most places.

I get there are many things happening today that are frustrating or moving some element of human life in negative or ambiguous directions, but we really have to keep perspective on these things.

Nearly every problem today is a problem with a solution.

The feelings of panic we have that things are going wrong are useful signals to help guide and motivate us to implement those solutions, but we really must avoid letting the doomerism dominate. Just because we hear constant negative news doesn't mean things are lost. Doesn't even mean things are bad.

It just means we have been hearing a lot of negative news.

This is what it looks like for progress to not be monotonically increasing.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if my pasties cannot be singled out by any Karelian chef in a blind taste test? Does it matter how they were made?

If you consider only the product is relevant and not how it is made, then no it does not matter; or at least it doesn't matter as long as you don't personally attach any emotional qualities to products beyond their material qualities (unlike the vast majority of people). But the comment you reply to explicitly points out the process is in fact relevant as it is itself a cultural artifact. You're not replying to their…

The main point is "It's good for the heritage and good for the customers."

How are the customers hurt if their pie has not been baked by a babushka in Petrozavodsk using the old original recipe, but by an anonymous migrant worker in a dark kitchen using an optimized recipe if the end result is objectively the same? The packaging doesn't have to say who it was made by.

I also don't see the problem with the heritage. The comment I replied to already said anyone could call their pies Karelian, so there was no restriction that benefitted the residents of a specific region. I can see a PDO-like carveout that goes "we want to preserve the traditional pie-making of Karelia, so we want this activity to remain economically viable. Therefore, only pies baked in Karelia can be sold as Karelian pies." But I don't see how Sysco baking the same pies and distributing them nationwide helps maintain the heritage.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#155
I am bit tired of such discussions.

I don't care if LLMs are good at coding or bad at it (in my experience the answer is "it depends"). I don't care how good are they at anything else. What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could). It is not here to make our lives better, more worthwhile, more satisfying (it could do these as well). It is there to reduce our agency, to make it easier to fire us, to put us in even more precarious position, to suck even more wealth from those that have little to those that have a lot.

Yet what I see are pigs discussing the usefulness of bacon-making machine just because it also happens to be able to produce tasty soybean feed. They forget that it is not soybean feed that their owner bought this machine for, and that their owner expects a return from such investment.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#156

I am bit tired of such discussions. I don't care if LLMs are good at coding or bad at it (in my experience the answer is "it depends"). I don't care how good are they at anything else. What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could). It is not here to make our lives better, more worthwhile, more satisfying (it could do these as well). It is there to reduce our agency, t…

I guess you didn't read the article?

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#157

> Video games stand out as one market where consumers have pushed back effectively No, it's simply untrue. Players only object against AI art assets. And only when they're painfully obvious. No one cares about how the code is written. If you actually read the words used in Steam AI survey you'll know Steam has completely caved in for AI-gen code as well. It's specifically worded like this: > content such as artwork,…

> Classic procedural generation is noteworthy here as a precedent, which gamers were already familiar with, because by and large it has failed to deliver. Yes, this is a wildly uneducated perspective. Procedural generation has often been a key component of some incredibly successful, and even iconic games going back decades. Elite is a canonical example here, with its galaxies being procedurally generated. Powermonge…

Procedural generation underlies the most popular game of all time (Minecraft) and is foundational for numerous other games of a similar type - Dwarf Fortress, et al.

And it's used to power effect where you might not expect it (Stardew Valley mines).

What procedural generation does NOT work at is generating "story elements" though perhaps even that can fall, Dwarf Fortress already does decently enough given that the player will fill in the blanks.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#158

> Video games stand out as one market where consumers have pushed back effectively No, it's simply untrue. Players only object against AI art assets. And only when they're painfully obvious. No one cares about how the code is written. If you actually read the words used in Steam AI survey you'll know Steam has completely caved in for AI-gen code as well. It's specifically worded like this: > content such as artwork,…

> Classic procedural generation is noteworthy here as a precedent, which gamers were already familiar with, because by and large it has failed to deliver. Yes, this is a wildly uneducated perspective. Procedural generation has often been a key component of some incredibly successful, and even iconic games going back decades. Elite is a canonical example here, with its galaxies being procedurally generated. Powermonge…

Is it wildly uneducated to not know any of the games you mentioned? I didn’t realize education covered less known video games? Wouldn’t a better example be No Man’s Sky, if we’re talking procedural gen and eventually a good game.

In any case, I agree that gamers by and large don’t care to what extent the game creation was automated. They are happy to use automated enemies, automated allies, automated armies and pre-made cut scenes. Why would they stop short at automated code gen? I genuinely think 90% wouldn’t mind if humans are still in the loop but the product overall is better.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#159

I am bit tired of such discussions. I don't care if LLMs are good at coding or bad at it (in my experience the answer is "it depends"). I don't care how good are they at anything else. What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could). It is not here to make our lives better, more worthwhile, more satisfying (it could do these as well). It is there to reduce our agency, t…

Demand full automation. Demand universal basic income. Notice how the later is nearly absent from the conversation.

Another distraction is AGI that which is a danger to humanity- the only danger is people...

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#160
The authors logic only works for software engineers and as I have said time and time again- software engineers have been automating people out of their passions for decades and now it has come for yours... The lying here is LYING TO YOURSELVES.
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