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Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

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Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#31

Post by mden »

ugjka wrote: post #6

The next generation of GPT should be one that can cite all its sources. Then it is basically google search on steroids

For certain things I think so. For me the fascinating and really useful utility of LLMs is their ability to synthesize answers to questions. This is something search generally speaking can't do. I find myself using ChatGPT to answer question like:

> Explain tar -xzvf

> Answer: The command tar -xzvf is used to extract a tar archive. Here is what each option does:

-x: This option tells tar to extract the contents of the archive.

-z: This option tells tar to decompress the archive using gzip compression.

-v: This option tells tar to run in verbose mode, which means it will display the names of the files being extracted as they are extracted.

-f: This option specifies the file name of the archive that you want to extract.

So, the full command tar -xzvf is used to extract a tar archive that has been compressed with gzip and display the names of the files being extracted as they are extracted.

However for other types of information I much more care about being taken to a trustworthy source of information rather seeing a summarized view or worse, a synthesized view of various sources that might not agree with each other. References are useful, but it's risky to rely on what a bot says without validating the references at which point the utility of the bot for that type of query is questionable.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#32

Post by mrfox321 »

lordnacho wrote: post #21

You learn a lot from ChatGPT though. If you want to know the ordinary answer to some essay question, cgpt will give you that. If you leave it at that and hand it in, maybe Chomsky is right. But it's also a essay writing productivity tool. You sketch out what you want mentioned and cgpt will fill in the gaps, like those apprentices that helped the renaissance masters. I keep coming back to the phrase "small intentions…

Is the high level structure of writing any more important than the low level structure?

Maybe it will tend towards everyone sounding the same. Which then gets amplified as LLMs train on writing that is essentially mutations of itself.

Me no like.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#33

Post by Spooky23 »

jvm___ wrote: post #11
lampshades wrote: post #8

If a dumb robot can write your college essay for you, maybe we shouldn't be wasting time writing essays.

It's like having wood sawing as a woodworking exam, when power saws have just been invented.

Sounds like you’re missing the point. A saw is a tool. A power saw is a faster tool. It doesn’t change the skill of the wielder, but may make certain actions more or less cost effective.

An essay is a demonstration of your ability to understand and analyze. Lowering the cost of cheating like this is ultimately worse for everyone. Forget about school, there’s someone with a real job typing random bullshit into of ChatGPT and using it having no idea wtf he is talking about.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#34

Post by blululu »

This has a very old man yells at cloud vibr. We could debate whether Chomsky is really an authority on this topic given the course of history, but such a glib dismissal just lacks imagination. A very hard problem is now effectively solved the next steps hold a lot of promise.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#35

Post by smt88 »

lampshades wrote: post #8

If a dumb robot can write your college essay for you, maybe we shouldn't be wasting time writing essays.

This is like saying that phones can play songs, so maybe we should stop learning how to play musical instruments.

The robots can write shitty essays because they were trained on billions of other people's sentences. They can regurgitate human effort, not replace it entirely.

And we don't write essays so that the world is full of essays. We write them so that we understand and consider new concepts.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#36

Post by thundergolfer »

lordnacho wrote: post #21

You learn a lot from ChatGPT though. If you want to know the ordinary answer to some essay question, cgpt will give you that. If you leave it at that and hand it in, maybe Chomsky is right. But it's also a essay writing productivity tool. You sketch out what you want mentioned and cgpt will fill in the gaps, like those apprentices that helped the renaissance masters. I keep coming back to the phrase "small intentions…

It sounds like you're advocating a system of education, thinking, and work that is exemplified by 'Software Architecture Astronauts', people who have not recently or ever contended with the details, the nuts and bolts, of actual software development and maintenance.

To be honest, the idea that you can produce valuable intellectual work by outsourcing the details is absurd. This would have seen me absolutely fail my challenging philosophy and engineering coursework, and end up a fundamentally incompetent dilettante in work and life.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#38

Post by _3u10 »

blululu wrote: post #34

This has a very old man yells at cloud vibr. We could debate whether Chomsky is really an authority on this topic given the course of history, but such a glib dismissal just lacks imagination. A very hard problem is now effectively solved the next steps hold a lot of promise.

One might say his colorless green ideas are no longer hegemonic in academia

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#39

Post by lampshades »

blahblah1234567 wrote: post #14
lampshades wrote: post #8

If a dumb robot can write your college essay for you, maybe we shouldn't be wasting time writing essays.

Meh... if a dumb robot can do for you, maybe we shouldn't have . I for one, think training students on how to write is very important. It trains them how to think critically, how to present solid arguments, how to persuade, etc. I certainly don't want my society to have fewer educated people.

I don’t believe we should force students to do busy work that they will forget by the time they graduate because they have zero interests in it and don’t plan to ever use it again in their life.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#40

Post by Spooky23 »

specialist wrote: post #20

ChatGPT's ability to mass produce content just demonstrates the banality of most content. Ditto DALL-E et al. It reminds me of Dadaism. With the algorithms are the critics, vs the artists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada -- I also agree with other critical hot takes, like Ted Chiang's analogy "ChatGPT is jpeg style compression for text". A less accusatory framing than Chomsky's plagiarism thesis, more or less. --…

> Did adoption of calculators lead to less learning of arithmetic. Certainly. Was that a bad thing? I honestly don't know.

IMO it was bad for individuals, good for society. People are innumerate and that is exploited by people selling products and services.

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