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Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

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Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#41

Stop calling them hallucinations. If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. If we're not going to anthropomorphize AIs, then we need a different term

I wouldn't get this worked up about a simple term that keeps things understandable for a layperson, lest your head might explode once you see how people are anthropomorphizing some AI "companion" bots.

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#42

Stop calling them hallucinations. If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. If we're not going to anthropomorphize AIs, then we need a different term

> If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. why? "bullshitting and lies" suggests that the AI is intentionally being deceptive. "hallucinations" conveys the idea that the information is incorrect, but the AI perceives it to be correct, which is more in line with what is actually happening.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#43

Stop calling them hallucinations. If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. If we're not going to anthropomorphize AIs, then we need a different term

I dont understand why you are so worked up about the term and i also dont understand how your characterization of it as bullshitting and lies is accurate in any way.

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#44

Stop calling them hallucinations. If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. If we're not going to anthropomorphize AIs, then we need a different term

I'm not so concerned with that as I am with the fact that this isn't one. Article says

> they tend to make up fake information – errors called “hallucinations.”

Hallucinations are a certain kind of error. But what appears to have happened here is a _direct_ manipulation from Microsoft. Which is a risky play by them. It doesn't take much to erode trust. People tend to trust LLMs because they tend to get things right. But if people see a few things that they know is wrong, they will quickly stop trusting. If they see a few things as marketing, then they will very quickly stop trusting.

It's not a hallucination, it is a filter. Microsoft manipulated the output to prefer their own products and boy is that a risky strategy.

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#45

Stop calling them hallucinations. If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. If we're not going to anthropomorphize AIs, then we need a different term

It's belief vs intent. Intent would be anthropomorphizing AI much more than belief and would denote a theory of mind. I'm not sure of a better term for things the model 'believes' to be true that are wrong. I think it's quite analogous given that the model then elaborates on the false belief in much the same way that humans appear to do with hallucinations.

Additionally belief does not mean human; for example animals can have beliefs, even very rudimentary animals. I think is more of a way of self-containing the entity and treating it as a black box.

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#46
Yeah. These "lies" are just artifacts of the way that LLMs work. They're meant to predict likely text given a prompt. And they do. If tasked with "write some marketing or a buying guide for product X", they will simulate likely marketing blurbs, nothing yo do with truth, that's not their wheelhouse. Predictive is a very different function, algorithm and problem-set than something like "accurately summarize existing reviews". This is a feature, not a bug. If you use something off label, you'll get off label results. MSFT should know better.

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#47

Stop calling them hallucinations. If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. If we're not going to anthropomorphize AIs, then we need a different term

I'm not so concerned with that as I am with the fact that this isn't one. Article says > they tend to make up fake information – errors called “hallucinations.” Hallucinations are a certain kind of error. But what appears to have happened here is a _direct_ manipulation from Microsoft. Which is a risky play by them. It doesn't take much to erode trust. People tend to trust LLMs because they tend to get things right.…

> Microsoft manipulated the output to prefer their own products and boy is that a risky strategy.

Makes me wonder how they plan to monetize these chatbots and if they won’t just fizzle out like voice assistants.

I don’t see how there won’t be concerns over asking a chatbot for the best pizza in town and receiving an answer like “Customers love the new Meat Lover’s Pizza from Pizza Hut! Brought to you by Pizza Hut… (list of pizza places here)”. Amazon couldn’t figure out how to make money off of Alexa, how are Chatbots any different.

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#48

Is it just me or does everyone trust AI opinions less and less ? Every time I ask it to find top 5 of something, I go and double check myself and almost always find it to be wrong. For example try searching for top 5 restaurants around me in bard. Some of them dont even exist lol and some are just random if you cross verify with actual popularity from yelp etc.

I'm glad that expectations are shifting. At the extremes, it's either a fancy parlor trick or a hyper-intelligent god. A lot of the original hype has skewed much closer to the hyper-intelligent god side of the spectrum. It's definitely not a fancy parlor trick, but it's likely closer to that than the other side it's being hyped as.

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#49

Stop calling them hallucinations. If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. If we're not going to anthropomorphize AIs, then we need a different term

> If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. why? "bullshitting and lies" suggests that the AI is intentionally being deceptive. "hallucinations" conveys the idea that the information is incorrect, but the AI perceives it to be correct, which is more in line with what is actually happening.

I'd go further and say that the AI doesn't even perceive it to be "correct". It's just saying these words are likely to follow those words.

Re: Microsoft's AI shopping announcement contains hallucinations in the demo

#50

Stop calling them hallucinations. If we're going to anthropomorphize AIs, let's just call it bullshitting and lies. If we're not going to anthropomorphize AIs, then we need a different term

IMO this whole concept of "hallucinations" is a made up buzzword (in the context of AI) to distract from the fact that the companies who are writing/training these models know full well that what they spit out is just as likely bullshit as it is "correct".

Saying "we have no idea if it's going to spit out something accurate" doesn't sell.

"oh it's hallucinating, how cute" is an easier sell.

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