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An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

simonwillison.net

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Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

#241

Post by krupan »

ACCount37 wrote: post #186
latexr wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And one major issue is that LLMs are largely being sold and understood more like reliable algorithms than what they really are. If everyone understood the distinction and their limitations, they wouldn’t be enjoying this level of hype, or leading to teen suicides and people giving themselves centuries-old psychiatric illnesses. If you “go out into the real world” you learn people do not understand LLMs aren’t determi…

It's nothing new. LLMs are unreliable, but in the same ways humans are.

Um, no. They are unreliable at a much faster pace and larger scale than any human. They are more confident while being unreliable than most humans (politicians and other bullshitters aside, most humans admit when they aren't sure about something).

Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

#242

Post by mallowdram »

morpheos137 wrote: post #240
mallowdram wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neural/spatial syntax. Analoga of differentials. The code to operate this gets built before the component. If language doesn't really mean anything, then automating it in geometry is worse than problematic. The solution is starting over at 1947: measurement not counting.

The semantic meaning of your words here is non-existent. It is unclear to me how else you can communicate in a text based forum if not by using words. Since you can't despite your best effort I am left to conclude you are psychotic and should probably be banned and seek medical help.

Engineers are so close-minded, you can't see the freight train bearing down on the industry. All to science's advantage replacing engineers. Interestingly, if you dissect that last entry, I've just made the case measurement (analog computation) is superior to counting (binary computation) and laid out the strategy how. All it takes is brains, or an LLM to decipher what it states.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3005627/

"First, cell assemblies are best understood in light of their output product, as detected by ‘reader-actuator’ mechanisms. Second, I suggest that the hierarchical organization of cell assemblies may be regarded as a neural syntax. Third, constituents of the neural syntax are linked together by dynamically changing constellations of synaptic weights (‘synapsembles’). Existing support for this tripartite framework is reviewed and strategies for experimental testing of its predictions are discussed."

Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

#243

Post by gmac »

dncornholio wrote: post #143
cj wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the user will at least need to know something about the topic beforehand. I used ChatGPT 5 over the weekend to double check dosing guidelines for a specific medication. "Provide dosage guidelines for medication [insert here]" It spit back dosing guidelines that were an order of magnitude wrong (suggested 100mcg instead of 1mg). When I saw 100mcg, I was suspicious and said "I don't think that's right" and it quickly…

Using a LLM for medical research is just as dangerous as Googling it. Always ask your doctors!

Not really: it's arguably quite a lot worse. Because you can judge the trustworthiness of the source when you follow a link from Google (e.g. I will place quite a lot of faith in pages at an .nhs.uk URL), but nobody knows exactly how that specific LLM response got generated.

Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

#244

Post by krupan »

saberience wrote: post #229

Encyclopedias are lossy Encyclopedias. Also, humans hallucinate more than LLMs.

Do they hallucinate more? How many words per day do humans spit out vs the LLMs, and what is the hallucination rate? Also, don't count humans saying, "I'm not sure but I think..." as a hallucination, because it's not.

Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

#247

Post by ianburrell »

simonw wrote: post #43
latexr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my point is that “lossy” does not mean “unreliable”. LLMs aren’t reliable sources of facts, no argument there, but a true lossy encyclopaedia might be. Lossy algorithms don’t just make up and change information, they remove it from places where they might not make a difference to the whole. A lossy encyclopaedia might be one where, for example, you remove the images plus gramatical and phonetic information. Event…

I don't think a "true lossy encylopedia" is a thing that has ever existed.

All encyclopedias are lossy. They curate the info they include, only choosing important topics. Wikipedia is lossy. They delete whole articles for irrelevance. They edit changes to make them more concise. They require sources for facts. All good things, but Wikipedia is a subset of human knowledge.

Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

#248

Post by butlike »

simonw wrote: post #34
latexr wrote: post #30

A lossy encyclopaedia should be missing information and be obvious about it, not making it up without your knowledge and changing the answer every time . When you have a lossy piece of media, such as a compressed sound or image file, you can always see the resemblance to the original and note the degradation as it happens. You never have a clear JPEG of a lamp, compress it, and get a clear image of the Milky Way, the…

I think you are missing the point of the analogy: a lossy encyclopedia is obviously a bad idea, because encyclopedias are meant to be reliable places to look up facts.

I don't like the confident hallucinations of LLMs either, but don't they rewrite and add entries in the encyclopedia every few years? Implicitly that makes your old copy "lossy"

Again, never really want a confidently-wrong encyclopedia, though

Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

#249

Post by morpheos137 »

mallowdram wrote: post #242
morpheos137 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The semantic meaning of your words here is non-existent. It is unclear to me how else you can communicate in a text based forum if not by using words. Since you can't despite your best effort I am left to conclude you are psychotic and should probably be banned and seek medical help.

Engineers are so close-minded, you can't see the freight train bearing down on the industry. All to science's advantage replacing engineers. Interestingly, if you dissect that last entry, I've just made the case measurement (analog computation) is superior to counting (binary computation) and laid out the strategy how. All it takes is brains, or an LLM to decipher what it states. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles…

I 100% agree analog computing would be better at simulating intelligence than binary. Why don't you state that rather than burying it under a mountain of psychobabble?

Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

#250

Post by rynn »

simonw wrote: post #34
latexr wrote: post #30

A lossy encyclopaedia should be missing information and be obvious about it, not making it up without your knowledge and changing the answer every time . When you have a lossy piece of media, such as a compressed sound or image file, you can always see the resemblance to the original and note the degradation as it happens. You never have a clear JPEG of a lamp, compress it, and get a clear image of the Milky Way, the…

I think you are missing the point of the analogy: a lossy encyclopedia is obviously a bad idea, because encyclopedias are meant to be reliable places to look up facts.

Aren't all encyclopedias 'lossy'? They are all partial collections of information; none have all of the facts.
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