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I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

marcusolang.substack.com

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Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#471

Post by Forgeties79 »

the_af wrote: post #468
Forgeties79 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the questions people will ask though. They’ll go “what body temperature is too high?” Baby temperatures are not the same as ours. The threshold for fevers and such are different. They will ask “how much water should my newborn drink?” That’s a dangerous thing to get wrong (outside of certain circumstances, the answer is “none.” Milk/formula provides necessary hydration). They will ask about healthy food al…

Agreed. I wasn't defending Altman!

I was mostly responding to the section about how those people should not be parents but I must’ve misread tone/missed something.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#472

Post by Forgeties79 »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #150
hammock wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t llm answer that question? Photo itself ought to be enough for a bit of information (more than the bozo has to begin with, at least), and ideally its pulling location from metadata and pulling flash flood risk etc from the area

Probably the correct answer the LLM should give is "if you have to ask, definitely don't do that". Or... it can start asking diagnostic questions, expert-system style. But yeah, I can imagine a multi-modal model actually might have more information and common sense than a human in a (for them) novel situation. If only to say "don't be an idiot", "pick higher ground" . Or even just as a rubber duck!

I uploaded a simple spreadsheet that was 8 rows and 12 columns. Not even 100 full cells. They were filled with plain text numbers and names, and a few dozen had green blocks, otherwise no other info/styling and no formulas. I asked ChatGPT “how many cells are green.” It told me 13 (there were over 30). I uploaded a photo. Still couldn’t do it.

I understand there are things a typical LLM can do and things that it cannot, this is mostly just because I figured it couldn’t do it and I just wanted to see what would happen. But the average person is not really given much information on the constraints and all of these companies are promising the moon with these tools.

Short version: It definitely did not have more common sense or information than a human, and we all know it sure would have given a very confident answer about conditions in the area to this person that were likely not correct. Definitely incorrect if it’s based off a photo.

In my experience when it has to crawl the Internet it’s particularly flaky. The other day I queried who won which awards in the game awards. 3 different models got it wrong, all of them omitted at least 2 categories. You could throw a rock on a search engine and find 80 lists ready to go.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#473

Post by skylurk »

dwd wrote: post #469
GMoromisato wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is hard, even for native speakers. But it's also wonderful! English loves to steal words from other languages, and good writers love to choose the right word. It's like having an expansive wardrobe and picking just the right outfit for every event. Bad writers, of course, pick a word to make them seem smarter (which, of course, often fails). That's what the OP was complaining about: using a fancy word just to…

> English is hard, even for native speakers. But it's also wonderful! English loves to steal words from other languages, and good writers love to choose the right word. It's like having an expansive wardrobe and picking just the right outfit for every event. Very true. Take this passage: ‘I am called Strider,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Master – Underhill, if old Butterbur got your name r…

A very different book that would have been! Where can I read more?

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#474

Post by joseda-hg »

hsn915 wrote: post #408
GMoromisato wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He walked up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He strode up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He sidled up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He tromped up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" Each of those sentences conveys as slightly different action. You can almost imagine the person's face has a different expression in each version. Yes, I hate it when amateurs just search/rep…

Non-native English speaker here. I would not understand the last two sentences. Sidle? Tromp? I don't think I've seen these words enough times for them to register in my mind. "Strode", I would probably understand after a few seconds of squeezing my brain. I mean, I sort of know "stride", but not as an action someone would take. Rather as the number of bytes a row of pixels takes in a pixel buffer. I would have to ex…

That works transversally accross languages though

You can always choose uncommon more descriptive words

In spanish you could say "repare algo" ("I fixed") or "parapetee algo" ("I Jury-rigged") and plenty would not know of the cuff what the second one means

People either know, look it up or figure it out via context

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#475

Post by dwd »

michaelt wrote: post #297
wcfrobert wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there are two forms of writing, each serving a different purpose. (1) writing to communicate ideas, in which case simpler is almost always better. There's something hypnotic about simple writing (e.g. Paul Graham's essays) where information just flows frictionlessly into your head. (2) writing as a form of self-expression, in which case flowery and artistic prose is preferred. Here's a good David Foster Wallace…

Even when communicating ideas, there's a simplicity/nuance trade-off to be made. I could say "Trump's unpredictable, seemingly irrational policy choices have alienated our allies, undermined trust in public institutions, and harmed the US economy" Or I could "The economy sucks and it's Trump's fault because he's dumb and an asshole" They both communicate the same broad idea - but which communicates it better? It depe…

Eric Weinstein made a good point about Trump and his use of language:

Trump was much closer to saying “The immigrants are taking your jobs.” Well, to a labor market analyst, that’s not remotely the same thing at all as saying “US employers and political donors are colluding to confiscate your most valuable rights without market-based compensation, while denigrating you as lazy and stupid, and hiding behind a veneer of excellence and xenophilia as they economically undermine your families.” But it’s much easier, isn’t it?

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#476

Post by eudamoniac »

dgan wrote: post #241
phantasmish wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsession with short sentences and generally pushing extreme simplicity of structure and word choice has been terrible for English prose. It’s not been terrible because most people aren’t aided by such guidance (most are) but because the same people who can’t be trusted to wield a quill without the bumper-lanes installed see a sentence longer than ten words, or a semicolon, or god forbid literate and appropriate nuan…

I consider myself fluent in English, I watch technical talks and casual youtubers on English daily, and this is the first time I encounter this word lol. The only "stride" I know relates to the gap betweeb heterogeneous elements in a contiguous array

Verbal fluency is a completely different ballgame to literary fluency. Literature uses vastly more words. Stride is a pretty common one.

Open a collegiate dictionary to a series of random pages, checking the first word to see if you can give any vague definition of it. A fluent speaker who doesn't read literature will likely be able to for fewer than 1/4th of them. A decent literary vocabulary would know ~2/3 or more imo.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#477

Post by latexr »

Anon1096 wrote: post #350
latexr wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the use of “literally” by the person above you, since Sam didn’t literally say those words (unless you subscribe to the new meaning of “literally” in the dictionary, of course). At the same time, their interpretation doesn’t seem that far off. As per your comment, Sam said he “cannot imagine figuring out how” which is pretty close to admitting he’s clueless how anyone does it , which is what your pare…

The interpretation is very off. You are way too focused on whether the first sentence is quote accurately. But >Clearly, people did it for a long time, no problem. In fact means Altman thinks the exact opposite of "he didn't know how anyone could raise a baby without using a chatbot" - what he means is that while it's not imaginable, people make do anyway, so clearly it very much is possible to raise kids without cha…

I think what Altman defenders in this particular thread are failing to realise is that his real comment is already worthy of scrutiny and ridicule and it is dangerous.

Saying “no no, he didn’t mean everyone, he was only talking about himself” is not meaningfully better, he’s still encouraging everyone to do what he does and use ChatGPT to obsess about their newborn. It is enough of a representation of his own cluelessness (or greed, take your pick) to warrant criticism.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#478

Post by eudamoniac »

komali2 wrote: post #80

> There were unspoken rules, commandments passed down from teacher to student, year after year. The first commandment? Thou shalt begin with a proverb or a powerful opening statement. “Haste makes waste,” we would write, before launching into a tale about rushing to the market and forgetting the money. The second? Thou shalt demonstrate a wide vocabulary. You didn’t just ‘walk’; you ‘strode purposefully’, ‘trudged we…

I don't know why literature has the unique property among the arts that it must be puréed into rapidly digestible slush. Many here have already defended merits of connotative precision, so I shan't, but what of artistic precision? Language can innervate the soul with beauty, lilt with the lyrical pleasure of song, or revolt the senses. Shall the painter lock away his varied pigments? Shall the blue notes never sound? Limpid prose lacks those tongue-delighting tannins. I mourn each word ferried across the river Archaic.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#479

Post by esafak »

nitwit005 wrote: post #193

This is also happening to artists, people who make YouTube shorts, and similar. Everyone gets accused of being AI if the feel happens to match. I'm sure there's some voice actor out there who can't get work because they sound too similar to the generated voices that appear in TikTok videos.

My peeve is that I can't block them. They could easily let you block users but they don't.
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