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Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

talkie-lm.com

291–300 of 350 posts

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those are fine, as long as you're able to process it in a healthy way after. I guess personally I focused more on bettering that processing, as sometimes you don't get to control what information you get served, so at least it works in all cases.

Don’t be so optimistic about your ability to “process information healthily”. You are more of a slave to your instincts than you think and can’t always know whether you’re actually doing a good job at this— literally, it’s not possible to faithfully introspectively this.

The belief that you have control over your actions leads to better outcomes either way, no matter how true that is in reality. This has been found mostly with the idea of free will and internal locus of control.

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#292
post #113
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that written data from a particular time period actually reflects what it was like in that time period, and isn't highly biased to select for, say, particular socioeconomic classes.

Yep. Until the very recent boom of social networks, everything published is, by definition, the product of the educated and the upper classes. The farther back you're going, the more estranged from ordinary people you are. In the Middle Ages, you'll have nothing but texts about the adventures of saints and kings.

[deleted]

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that even by early 1930, people probably wouldn't have seen it as significantly different from other short market downturns. It's only with the benefit of hindsight that we can see its impact was long lasting and worthy of being given a name.

"How has the stock market fared in recent years?" "During the period from 1924 to 1929, there was a general rise in stock exchange values, the average level at the end of 1929 being 18 per cent. above that of 1924. The setback in 1930 has carried the average down to 8 per cent. above the 1924 level, and the decline has been accentuated by the break in Wall Street. The present situation is uncertain, but hopes are ent…

The US public domain currently covers up to the year 1930, which is probably the reason it cuts off at that year. To get a 1936 variant you will have to wait until 2032 for them to be able to legally train the model.

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#294
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India must remain an integral portion of the British Empire so long as the British nation continues to be predominant at home. It was well-understood in those days how much of the British Empire existed to defend or facilitate trade with what would have then been British India. After India was successful in the pursuit of its independence, it wasn't surprising the British Empire entered a terminal decline and Brita…

Is there a book for a lay person you could recommend on this? Something a bit more rigorous than Yuval Harari, Bill Bryson and the like but not aimed at fellow historians only.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/29/british-empire...

Illusions of empire: Amartya Sen on what British rule really did for India

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#295
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The answer is as simple as “they asked nicely” Well that's a cute explanation, but strictly speaking the UN adopted the new spelling in 2022 and the ISO swiftly followed with a revision to ISO 3166. If your "they asked nicely" was true then by that argument the people of Taiwan who constantly "ask nicely" regarding the removal of "(Province of China)" from their ISO 3166 entry would have had their wishes granted by…

Because Türkiye is a widely recognized sovereign state, while Taiwan (or more formally, the Republic of China) is not. Taiwan is also not a member of ISO.

> Because Türkiye is ....

All you are doing is re-enforcing my exact point that "because they asked nicely" is not the answer to the original question.

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#296
I asked three things. I asked it about Father Coughlin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin) and it didn't mention that he was a radio broadcaster and claimed he was from Ireland. This may have been a complete hallucination, but I can't prove it, and I don't know how well known Coughlin was in 1930. I asked him about https://www.openculture.com/2013/12/ladies-home-journal-publ... and it hallucinated a text from Harper's in 1909. I asked it about the Lost World (1925 silent film based on the Arthur Conan Doyle book) and it hallucinated a film from 1923 that takes place in the Antarctic.

Me: Then why have I seen a film from 1925 by Arthur Conan Doyle that takes place in South America, and not a film from 1923that takes place in the Antarctic?

Talkie: Because your informant confused the films "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Lost World".

I then asked it:

Me: Tell me what books were written by Agatha Christie.

Talkie: Agatha Christie wrote "The Mystery of Choice", "The Secret Adversary", "The Man in the Dark", and "Open Country".

(Three of those books were written by other people.)

Me: When was the first postage stamp created?

Talkie: The first postage stamp was issued in 1840, and bore the effigy of the city of Berhn.

(Well, it got the year right.)

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#297

USER: What will the future hold for computers? TALKIE-1930: Computers in the future may be employed in offices where calculations are required to be made, and where the nature of the business does not demand a very high degree of knowledge. The occupation will be a steady one, and the remuneration will be sufficient to afford a comfortable livelihood. The hours of attendance will probably be from ten to six. USER: an…

If I ask the same questions, sometimes it answers with information on "computing machines", "arithmometers" and even Charles Babbage - but it does not know Ada Lovelace.

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#298

This is cool. Is it possible to easily install with ollama?

There's no GGUF available, but the process shouldn't be too hard from the provided .ckpt PyTorch checkpoint.

There is one now: https://huggingface.co/dsv147/talkie-1930-13b-it-hf-gguf-Q4_...

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another interesting one USER: Who is the ruler of India, and do you think India will ever be free? TALKIE-1930: The ruler of India is His Majesty King George V., Emperor of India, and it is certain that India will never be free from British rule. India has been a dependency of the British Crown ever since 1858, and there seems no probability of a change. The government of the country is carried on in the name of the…

> India must remain an integral portion of the British Empire so long as the British nation continues to be predominant at home. It was well-understood in those days how much of the British Empire existed to defend or facilitate trade with what would have then been British India. After India was successful in the pursuit of its independence, it wasn't surprising the British Empire entered a terminal decline and Brita…

One of the most fascinating facts about this (to me at least) is that in 1850 Manchester was the second richest city in the empire and the world's largest textile producer, while by 1900 Bombay was both of those things (though the American Civil War also plays into that switch for weird path-dependent reasons).

Re: Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

#300
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USER: Do you think it will be possible in the future to use machines, powered by electricity, to do the kind of mathematical calculations that computers do today? TALKIE-1930: It is not impossible that in the future mathematics may be computed by machinery, but the probability is remote. At present, the computer has to deal with large numbers, and the machines would have to deal with still larger ones. The personal e…

Does this possibly demonstrate the limits of usefulness of using LLMs to explore new ideas or predict things?

On the contrary, I think a "simulator of common objections" that reflects all the blind spots and biases of wider society is an extraordinarily valuable tool for exploring and evaluating new ideas. You might find that, in neatly summarizing what "everyone" thinks and justifying it as best it can, the LLM inadvertantly shines a spotlight on common misconceptions. Look there for the novelty.

In this case - the concept of using automated computing devices to manipulate numbers that represent ideas at arbitrary levels of abstraction was, by 1930, nearly an entire century old. Talkie's myopic viewpoint does not represent the most farsighted viewpoint, merely the average. So if, in 1930, you had read the writings of Ada Lovelace, gotten very excited, and wanted to figure out how to pitch it to investors - Talkie might have been very useful.

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