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What happens when people don't understand how AI works

theatlantic.com

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Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#231

Post by UncleOxidant »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #7

LLMs are divinatory instruments, our era's oracle, minus the incense and theatrics. If we were honest, we'd admit that "artificial intelligence" is just a modern gloss on a very old instinct: to consult a higher-order text generator and search for wisdom in the obscure. They tick all the boxes: oblique meaning, a semiotic field, the illusion of hidden knowledge, and a ritual interface. The only reason we don't call i…

You're getting some pushback about the analogy to divination, but I think most people here are reasonably technically literate and they assume that everyone else in society has the same understanding of how LLMs work that they do. When I chat about LLM usage with non-technical friends and family it does indeed seem as though they're using these AI chatbots as oracles. When I suggest that they should be wary because these LLMs tend to hallucinate they're generally taken aback - they had no idea that what the chatbot was telling them might not be factually correct. I hope this revelation changes their relationship with LLM chatbots - I think we the technorati need to be educating non-technical users of these things as much as possible in order to demystify them so that people don't treat them like oracles.

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#232

Post by ufmace »

duxup wrote: post #141
kelseyfrog wrote: post #7

LLMs are divinatory instruments, our era's oracle, minus the incense and theatrics. If we were honest, we'd admit that "artificial intelligence" is just a modern gloss on a very old instinct: to consult a higher-order text generator and search for wisdom in the obscure. They tick all the boxes: oblique meaning, a semiotic field, the illusion of hidden knowledge, and a ritual interface. The only reason we don't call i…

The terminology is so confusing in AI right now. I use LLMs, I enjoy them, I'm more productive with them. Then I go read a blog from some AI devs and they use terms like "thinking" or similar terms. I always have to ask "We're still s stringing words together with math right? Not really thinking right?" The answer is always yes ... but then they go back to using their wonky terms.

I've tended to agree with this line of argument, but on the other hand...

I expect that anybody you asked 10 years ago who was at least decently knowledgeable about tech and AI would have agreed that the Turing Test is a pretty decent way to determine if we have a "real" AI, that's actually "thinking" and is on the road to AGI etc.

Well, the current generation of LLMs blow away that Turing Test. So, what now? Were we all full of it before? Is there a new test to determine if something is "really" AI?

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#233

Post by UncleOxidant »

msgodel wrote: post #66
kelseyfrog wrote: post #7

LLMs are divinatory instruments, our era's oracle, minus the incense and theatrics. If we were honest, we'd admit that "artificial intelligence" is just a modern gloss on a very old instinct: to consult a higher-order text generator and search for wisdom in the obscure. They tick all the boxes: oblique meaning, a semiotic field, the illusion of hidden knowledge, and a ritual interface. The only reason we don't call i…

This stuff wasn't an issue because older societies had hierarchy which checked the mob. In a flat society every individual must be able to perform philosophically the way aristocrats do.

We're seeing the effects of the flat society not being able to do this. Conspiracy theories, the return of mysticism (even things like astrology seem to be on the rise), distrust of experts, fear of the other, etc.

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#234

Post by acdha »

pmdr wrote: post #222

> Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of the dating app Bumble, proclaimed last year that the platform may soon allow users to automate dating itself, disrupting old-fashioned human courtship by providing them with an AI “dating concierge” that will interact with other users’ concierges until the chatbots find a good fit. > Herd doubled down on these claims in a lengthy New York Times interview last month. Seriously, wha…

Her problem is that BMBL is down 92% and they need to tell investors that they’ll all be rich again:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BMBL/

Most of the dumb AI pitches share that basic goal: someone is starting from what investors want to be true and using “AI” like it’s a magic spell which can make that possible, just as we’ve seen going back to the dawn of the web. Sober voices don't get attention because it’s boring to repeat a 10% performance improvement or reduction in cost.

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#235

Post by [deleted] »

iainctduncan wrote: post #217
spacemadness wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or saying they’re close to AGI because LLM behavior is indistinguishable from thinking to them. Especially here on HN I see “what’s the difference?” arguments all the time. It looks like it to me so it must be it. QED.

or rather "while I have never studied psychology, cognition, or philosophy, I can see no difference, so clearly they are thinking!" makes the baby jesus cry

[deleted]

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#236

Post by mdp2021 »

awongh wrote: post #78
mdp2021 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we were honest I am quite honest and the subset of users that fill your description - unconsciously treating text from deficient authors as tea leaves - have psychiatric issues. Surely many people consult LLMs because of the value within their right answers, which exist owing to having encoded information and some emergent idea processing, and attempting to tame the wrong ones. They consult LLMs because that's what…

> value within their right answers The thing is that LLMs provide plenty of answers where "right" is not a verifiable metric. Even in coding the idea of a "right" answer quickly gets fuzzy- should I use CSS grid or flexbox here? should these tables be normalized or not? People simply have an unconscious bias towards the output just like they have an unconscious bias towards the same answer given by two real people th…

> LLMs provide plenty of answers where "right" is not a verifiable metric

I do not use them for that: I ask them for precise information. Incidentally, that one time in which I had to ask for a clever subtler explanation, it was possible to evaluate the quality of the answer - and I found myself pleasantly surprised (for once). What I said is, some people ask LLMs for information and explanation in absence of better and faster repositories - and it is just rational to do so. Those «answers where "right" is not a verifiable metric» are not relevant in this context. Some people use LLMs as : yes, /some/ people. That some other people will ask LLMs fuzzy questions does not imply that they will accept them as oracles.

> bias ... all humans do

Which should, for the frame and amount in which the idea has some truth, have very little substantial weight and surely does not prove the "worshippers" situation depicted by the OP. You approach experience E in state S(t): that is very far from "wanting to trust" (which is just the twisted personality trait of some).

> the impulse of ascribing intent and meaning [...] meaning of life

First, of all, no: there seems to be no «intent and meaning» in requests like "what is the main export of Kyrgyzstan", and people who ask an LLM about the meaning of life - as if dealing with an intelligent part instead of a lacking thing - pertain to a specific profile.

If you have this addiction to dreaming, you are again requested to wake up. Yes, we know many people who stubbornly live in their own delirious world; they do not present themselves decently and they are quite distinct from people radicated in reality.

I am reading that some people as if anthropomorphize LLMs, some daemonize LLMs - some people will even deify them - it's just stochastics. Guess what: some people reify some other people - and believe they are being objective. The full spectrum will be there. Sometimes justified, sometimes not.

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#237

Post by SnowflakeOnIce »

ufmace wrote: post #232
duxup wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terminology is so confusing in AI right now. I use LLMs, I enjoy them, I'm more productive with them. Then I go read a blog from some AI devs and they use terms like "thinking" or similar terms. I always have to ask "We're still s stringing words together with math right? Not really thinking right?" The answer is always yes ... but then they go back to using their wonky terms.

I've tended to agree with this line of argument, but on the other hand... I expect that anybody you asked 10 years ago who was at least decently knowledgeable about tech and AI would have agreed that the Turing Test is a pretty decent way to determine if we have a "real" AI, that's actually "thinking" and is on the road to AGI etc. Well, the current generation of LLMs blow away that Turing Test. So, what now? Were we…

> Well, the current generation of LLMs blow away that Turing Test

Maybe a weak version of Turing's test?

Passing the stronger one (from Turing's paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence") involves an "average interrogator" being unable to distinguish between human and computer after 5 minutes of questioning more than 70% of the time. I've not seen this result published with today's LLMs.

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#238

Post by Notatheist »

Wasn't it Feynman who said we will never be impressed with a computer that can do things better than a human can unless that computer does it the same way a human being does?

AI could trounce experts as a conversational partner and/or educator in every imaginable field and we'd still be trying to proclaim humanity's superiority because technically the silicon can't 'think' and therefore it can't be 'intelligent' or 'smart'. Checkmate, machines!

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#239

Post by _ea1k »

duxup wrote: post #141
kelseyfrog wrote: post #7

LLMs are divinatory instruments, our era's oracle, minus the incense and theatrics. If we were honest, we'd admit that "artificial intelligence" is just a modern gloss on a very old instinct: to consult a higher-order text generator and search for wisdom in the obscure. They tick all the boxes: oblique meaning, a semiotic field, the illusion of hidden knowledge, and a ritual interface. The only reason we don't call i…

The terminology is so confusing in AI right now. I use LLMs, I enjoy them, I'm more productive with them. Then I go read a blog from some AI devs and they use terms like "thinking" or similar terms. I always have to ask "We're still s stringing words together with math right? Not really thinking right?" The answer is always yes ... but then they go back to using their wonky terms.

That's what humans are doing most of the time, just without the math part.

Re: What happens when people don't understand how AI works

#240

Post by mdp2021 »

awongh wrote: post #78
mdp2021 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we were honest I am quite honest and the subset of users that fill your description - unconsciously treating text from deficient authors as tea leaves - have psychiatric issues. Surely many people consult LLMs because of the value within their right answers, which exist owing to having encoded information and some emergent idea processing, and attempting to tame the wrong ones. They consult LLMs because that's what…

> value within their right answers The thing is that LLMs provide plenty of answers where "right" is not a verifiable metric. Even in coding the idea of a "right" answer quickly gets fuzzy- should I use CSS grid or flexbox here? should these tables be normalized or not? People simply have an unconscious bias towards the output just like they have an unconscious bias towards the same answer given by two real people th…

Addendum, because of real time events:

I am reading in a www page (I won't even link it, because of decency):

> The authors[, from the psychology department,] also found that ... dialogues with AI-chatbots helped reduce belief in misinformation [...] «This is the first evidence that non-curated conversations with Generative AI can have positive effects on misinformation»

Some people have their beliefs, but they can change them after discussing with LLMs (of all the ways). Some people are morons - we already knew that.

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