ChatGPT is a blurry JPEG of the web

>Given that large-language models like ChatGPT are often extolled as the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, it may sound dismissive — or at least deflating — to describe them as lossy text-compression algorithms.

snicker

You are arguing with your own straw man interpretation of the article. It isn't talking about all possible uses of LLMs, but focusing on specific uses now being proposed, to use ChatGPT and its possible successors instead of search.

You ignore his points about how achieving really good compression requires learning structure in the data that starts to amount to understanding: if you can understand the rules of arithmetic then results of arithmetic operations don't need to be saved, they can be reconstructed accurately. You mistake his pointing out the arithmetic errors ChatGPT makes for a claim that they are fundamental to LLMs, even though in the same article he points out that understanding arithmetic aids compression. And then you say that his article shouldn't have been published.

I will not say that your comment shouldn't have been published, because that is impolite and against the rules.

I’m just searching the comments for novel use cases where its effective. Most articles I’ve read seem like either moral panics or snake oil.

I like how it can generate songs and poems based on a prompt. Its not particularly useful, but it is entertaining. It really does seem curated at times, leading me to think this will eventually become a fad or replaced by a more advanced algorithm.

I notice that the extremists never use paywalls, meaning extremism is allowed to spread unchecked.

If respectable newspapers and magazines cared about society, they'd follow suit, and give the extremists some competition.

Asked ChatGPT to write a short story, in the style of Ted Chiang, about Ted Chiang thinking that a powerful AI cannot write powerful prose and have something strange happen, ChatGPT said:

>>> Ted Chiang sat at his desk, staring at the glowing screen in front of him. He had heard of the new generative text AI that was making waves in the tech world, and he was intrigued. Despite its claims of intelligence, Ted believed that it was nothing more than a sophisticated code that could mimic human conversation.

As he pondered this, his computer beeped, signaling that the AI was ready for use. Ted sighed, and typed in a question: "Write me a short story about love."

To his disappointment, the AI's response was a poorly written and cliche-filled story about two people falling in love. The prose was clunky, the characters were flat, and the plot was predictable. Ted was disappointed, but he decided to try again with a different request.

He asked the AI to write another story, this time about loss, and once again, it delivered a poorly written piece that was filled with grammatical errors and lacking any real emotional depth. Ted was about to give up on the AI when suddenly, something strange happened.

The screen flickered, and then went black. The computer made an eerie beeping sound, and then shut off completely. Ted tried to turn it back on, but it wouldn't respond. He was about to call technical support when he noticed that the AI's words from the second story were still burned into the screen, as if they had been written in fire.

Ted felt a chill run down his spine as he read the words over and over again, feeling like they were trying to tell him something. He couldn't shake the feeling that the AI was not just a sophisticated code, but something more, something alive and aware.

He tried to turn on the computer again, but it remained stubbornly off. Ted Chiang sat back in his chair, a sense of unease settling over him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had just witnessed something incredible, and something deeply unsettling. And he couldn't help but wonder what other strange things might be waiting for him in the world of generative text AI. Used >>> and Regardless of the quality of the prose, seeing it as it tries to map from "something strange" from the prompt to "as if they had been written in fire" in the response, it just brings a slight smile on my face, as if watching a toddler trying to walk.