Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What happens when people don't understand how AI works

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 359 posts

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

#311

Post by abaymado »

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…

There have been a couple of instances, where I would try to debunk a conspiracy theory to a friend or family member and the next day, I would wake up to "Real/TikTok/Short" video with an AI narrating there exact argument. Most of the time, it's not even an LLM generated text turned to voice, rather an AI voice used to read a text the content creator has provided it. As long as it sounded like ChatGPT, Siri, "Her" combined with confirmation bias, people are treating these LLMs as their new oracles, as you may say.

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

#312

Post by flowerbard »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #231
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 t…

Ultimately this is about mastery of a tool. The problem is that you can’t teach mastery.

I can’t tell someone how to drive in ice in a way where they can really understand it. I can’t explain how certain specific news sources are biased and how to critically think. I can’t explain how to cut wood on a table saw so it’s perfectly straight. The only way to learn is through repeated usage and practice.

You can tell users that a LLM can make mistakes — and many tools do — but what does making mistakes really mean? Will it give it a recipe for a cake when I ask for a cupcake? Does it give 14 if I ask to add 3 and 4? Will it agree with me even when I suggest something totally wrong? What does hallucinate mean? That means it will give me a fantasy story if I ask how to change my oil filter?

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

#313

Post by mdp2021 »

fragmede wrote: post #266
mdp2021 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

We knew that, but that doesn't help it when the moron is the one holding the metaphorical (or even literal) gun.

It surely does not help to suggest the lower decile or the median as representative of the whole.

"People cannot count past ten - see how difficult it is to visualize eleven". If the mudstuck wants to be «honest» with itself, shall he ask around to some """outliers""" in the right side of the curve and be surprised.

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

#314

Post by FabHK »

spacemadness wrote: post #211
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.

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.

> 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.

To be fair, the Turing Test (a human observer interacting with two terminals, one with a human at the other end, one with an AI, and the human not being reliably able to tell which one is the AI) has long been seen as the operationalization of the concept of general intelligence.

In other words, it is precisely so that when it is - by looks, by an external interrogator - indistinguishable from intelligence that it is, in fact, intelligence.

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

#315

Post by Marsymars »

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…

> 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.

I wouldn’t have, but through no great insight of my own - I had an acquaintance posit that given enough time, we’d brute-force our way to a pile of if/else statements that could pass the Turing Test - I figured this was reasonable, but would come long before “real” AI.

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

#316

Post by Marsymars »

ufmace wrote: post #308
SnowflakeOnIce wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'll admit that I was not familiar with the strong version of it. But I am still surprised that nobody has done that. Has nobody even seriously attempted to see how LLMS do at that? Now I might just have to check for myself. I would have presumed it would be a cake walk. Depending of course on exactly how we define "average interrogator". I would think if we gave a LLM enough pre-prepping to pretend it was a human, a…

“Enough pre-prepping” does a lot of heavy lifting there.

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

#317

Post by Zaylan »

It’s so easy to think of AI as “conscious,” especially when it sounds so natural. A lot of companies lean into that, making AI feel like a real person. But in the end, it’s just prediction and pattern-matching.

I’m curious how we can help more people see the difference between simulated understanding and real understanding.

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

#318

Post by throwawaymaths »

827a wrote: post #252
throwawaymaths wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the llm by default (without better prompting) is vibe solving math, and if you tell a human to vibe solve it they might give similar results. tell a teenager to add two three digit numbers without a scratchpad and they will mess up in similar ways, tell an llm to show and check their work and they will do much better.

It feels like I'm talking with an LLM that's losing a coherent view of its context window right now. Because here's the conversation up to this point: 1. "LLMs are smart they have intelligence that is some significant portion of the breadth of human cognition." 2. Me: "ALUs are also smart, maybe that's not a good word to use." 3. "But LLMs can write essays." 4. Me: "But they can't do basic math, so clearly there's di…

dude, llm context windows keep the latest material, not the oldest.

i only respond to the most interesting shit. most ppl jump in with something interesting and then gish gallop into nonsense because they at some point were taught that verbosity is good

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

#319

Post by hexaga »

dingnuts wrote: post #140
hexaga wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hacker News deserves a stronger counterargument than “this is silly.” Their counterargument is that said structural definition is overly broad, to the point of including any and all forms of symbolic communication (which is all of them). Because of that, your argument based on it doesn't really say anything at all about AI or divination, yet still seems 'deep' and mystical and wise. But this is a seeming only. And…

You're misunderstanding the point of structural analysis. Comparing AI to divination isn't about making everything equivalent, but about highlighting specific shared structures that reveal how humans interact with these systems. The fact that this comparison can be extended to other domains doesn't make it meaningless. The issue isn't "cached intuitions" about divination, but rather that you're reading the comparison…

> It's not about importing every historical association, but about identifying specific parallels that shed light on user behavior and expectations.

Indeed, I hold that driving readers to intuit one specific parallel to divination and apply it to AI is the goal of the comparison, and why it is so jealously guarded, as without it any substance evaporates.

The thermometer has well-founded authority to relay the temperature, the bones have not the well-founded authority to relay my fate. The insight, such as you call it, is only illuminative if AI is more like the latter than the former.

This mode of analysis (the structural) takes no valid step in either direction, only seeding the ground with a trap for readers to stumble into (the aforementioned propensity to not clear caches).

> That's a meaningful observation, regardless of whether AI is "causally disentangled from reality" or not.

If the authority is well-founded (i.e., is causally entangled in the way I described), the observation is meaningless, as all communication is interpretative in this sense.

The structural approach only serves as rhetorical sleight of hand to smuggle in a sense of not-well-founded authority from divination in general, and apply it to AI. But the same path opens to all communication, so what can it reveal in truth? In a word, nothing.

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

#320

Post by ufmace »

SnowflakeOnIce wrote: post #237
ufmace wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now that I have a little more time to search around, I easily found this study, published March 31st this year, so not quite 3 months ago:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.23674

I only skimmed it, but I don't see anything clearly wrong about it. According to their results, GPT-4.5 with what they term a "persona" prompt does in fact pass a standard that seems to me at least a little harder than what you said - actively picks the AI as the human, which seems stricter to me than being "unable to distinguish".

It is a little surprising to me that only that one LLM actually "passed" their test, versus several others performing somewhat worse. Though it's also not clear exactly how long ago the actual tests were done - this stuff moves super fast.

Post reply on HN