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History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

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Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#251

Post by pwillia7 »

saaaaaam wrote: post #3

“Time-locked models don't roleplay; they embody their training data. Ranke-4B-1913 doesn't know about WWI because WWI hasn't happened in its textual universe. It can be surprised by your questions in ways modern LLMs cannot.” “Modern LLMs suffer from hindsight contamination. GPT-5 knows how the story ends—WWI, the League's failure, the Spanish flu.” This is really fascinating. As someone who reads a lot of history an…

This is why the impersonation stuff is so interesting with LLMs -- If you ask chatGPT a question without a 'right' answer, and then tell it to embody someone you really want to ask that question to, you'll get a better answer with the impersonation. Now, is this the same phenomenon that causes people to lose their minds with the LLMs? Possibly. Is it really cool asking followup philosophy questions to the LLM Dalai Lama after reading his book? Yes.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#252

Post by pwillia7 »

psychoslave wrote: post #246
saaaaaam wrote: post #3

“Time-locked models don't roleplay; they embody their training data. Ranke-4B-1913 doesn't know about WWI because WWI hasn't happened in its textual universe. It can be surprised by your questions in ways modern LLMs cannot.” “Modern LLMs suffer from hindsight contamination. GPT-5 knows how the story ends—WWI, the League's failure, the Spanish flu.” This is really fascinating. As someone who reads a lot of history an…

>Imagine having a conversation with someone genuinely from the period, where they don’t know the “end of the story”. Isn't this part of the basics feature of human conditions? Not only we are all unaware of the coming historic outcome (though we can get some big points with more or less good guesses), but to a marginally variable extend, we are also very unaware of past and present history. LLM are not aware, but the…

captain hindsight

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#253

Post by psychoslave »

notarobot123 wrote: post #205
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't that the elevator pitch for Palentir? Still can't believe people buy their stock, given that they are the closest thing to a James Bond villain, just because it goes up. I mean, they are literally called "the stuff Sauron uses to control his evil forces". It's so on the nose it reads like an anime plot.

To the proud contrarian, "the empire did nothing wrong". Maybe Sci-fi has actually played a role in the "memetic desire" of some of the titans of tech who are trying to bring about these worlds more-or-less intentionally. I guess it's not as much of a dystopia if you're on top and its not evil if you think of it as inevitable anyway.

I don't know. Walking on everybody's face to climb a human pyramid, one don't make much sincere friends. And one certainly are rightfully going down a spiral of paranoia. There are so many people already on fast track to hate anyone else, if they have social consensus that indeed someone is a freaking bastard which only deserve to die, that's a lot of stress to cope with.

Future is inevitable, but only ignorants of self predictive ability are thinking that what's going to populate future is inevitable.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#254

Post by duskdozer »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #192
varjag wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a thriving startup scene in that direction.

Wasn't that the elevator pitch for Palentir? Still can't believe people buy their stock, given that they are the closest thing to a James Bond villain, just because it goes up. I mean, they are literally called "the stuff Sauron uses to control his evil forces". It's so on the nose it reads like an anime plot.

To be honest, while I'd heard of it over a decade ago and I've read LOTR and I've been paying attention to privacy longer than most, I didn't ever really look into what it did until I started hearing more about it in the past year or two.

But yeah lots of people don't really buy into the idea of their small contribution to a large problem being a problem.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#255

Post by 6510 »

nottorp wrote: post #234
ghurtado wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're literally running out of science fiction topics faster than we can create new ones If I started a list with the things that were comically sci Fi when I was a kid, and are a reality today, I'd be here until next Tuesday.

Almost no scifi has predicted world changing "qualitative" changes. As an example, portable phones have been predicted. Portable smartphones that are more like chat and payment terminals with a voice function no one uses any more ... not so much.

That it has to be believable is a major constraint that reality doesn't have.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#257

Post by [deleted] »

kurtis_reed wrote: post #107
nine_k wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public access, triggering a few racist responses from the model, a viral post on Xitter, the usual outrage, a scandal, the project gets publicly vilified, financing ceases. The researchers carry the tail of negative publicity throughout their remaining careers. Why risk all this?

If people start standing up to the outrage it will lose its power

[deleted]

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#258

Post by ajuc »

nottorp wrote: post #234
ghurtado wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're literally running out of science fiction topics faster than we can create new ones If I started a list with the things that were comically sci Fi when I was a kid, and are a reality today, I'd be here until next Tuesday.

Almost no scifi has predicted world changing "qualitative" changes. As an example, portable phones have been predicted. Portable smartphones that are more like chat and payment terminals with a voice function no one uses any more ... not so much.

Stanisław Lem predicted Kindle back in 1950s, together with remote libraries, global network, touchscreens and audiobooks.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#259

Post by marci »

6510 wrote: post #255
nottorp wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost no scifi has predicted world changing "qualitative" changes. As an example, portable phones have been predicted. Portable smartphones that are more like chat and payment terminals with a voice function no one uses any more ... not so much.

That it has to be believable is a major constraint that reality doesn't have.

In other words, sometimes, things happen in reality that, if you were to read it in a fictional story or see in a movie, you would think they were major plot holes.

Re: History LLMs: Models trained exclusively on pre-1913 texts

#260

Post by 9dev »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #241
9dev wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You, and OP, are taking an analogy way too far. Yes, humans have the mental capability to predict words similar to autocomplete, but obviously this is just one out of a myriad of mental capabilities typical humans have, which work regardless of text. You can predict where a ball will go if you throw it, you can reason about gravity, and so much more. It’s not just apples to oranges, not even apples to boats, it’s app…

I don't think I am. To be honest, as ideas goes and I swirl it around that empty head of mine, this one ain't half bad given how much immediate resistance it generates. Other posters already noted other reasons for it, but I will note that you are saying 'similar to autocomplete, but obviously' suggesting you recognize the shape and immediately dismissing it as not the same, because the shape you know in humans is mu…

Fair enough. To someone with a background in biology, it sounds like an argument made by a software engineer with no actual knowledge of cognition, psychology, biology, or any related field, jumping to misled conclusions driven only by shallow insights and their own experience in computer science.

Or in other words, this thread sure attracts a lot of armchair experts.

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