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LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

arxiv.org

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Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#81

Post by OJFord »

nimih wrote: post #80
OJFord wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hamdiddle-eedah-hamdiddle-ah (do do do do dodododo expi-ali-do-cious) What is the point of that? They're incomprehensible. (For those who haven't watched it: the video just shows people talking very fast, it doesn't explain why, kind of implies it's somehow good or impressive.)

The point is to win debate tournaments. In particular, it is (or at least was, when I competed in policy debate in high school and college in the 00s) strategically advantageous to maximize the number of distinct arguments, each with their own set of supporting evidence (usually read verbatim from a prepared excerpt of a news article or authoritative reference or whatever), you make within the allocated time. This in…

And the judges of these tournaments not only understand it too (I can understand an opponent understanding if they've practiced the same thing) but seriously value it in scoring?

Again/stepping back: what is the point of winning a debate tournament like this, or that values this 'debate'?

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#82

Post by Der_Einzige »

hammock wrote: post #51
metalcrow wrote: post #3

My guess for the reason behind this is that LLMs have more facts memorized, and thus can make more reasonable and well-researched sounding answers. If you ask an LLM vs a Human "Is a stack in computer science a) a data structure that is first in first out or b) a data structure that is first in last out" the LLM can say stuff resembling "Based on Dijkstra's algorithm proof given in 1943 and the nature of Turing compl…

Reminds me of the horrific state of student debate competitions today where the winning strategy is to incomprehensibly rattle off as many arguments as quickly as possible with strange breathy sounds in between

Btw - my first author NeurIPS dataset and benchmarks paper is taking basically all the evidence that such debate community (American hs and college level policy and LD debate) produced over its recent history and making it easy for LLMs and people to consume it.

They’ve been quietly open sourcing all of their arguments for like 20+ years.

This dataset is so large and good entirely because of speed reading and the current state of debate tournament competitive dynamics. Spreading might be objectively absurd to listeners but the effects of it are literally good for society.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.14657

https://huggingface.co/datasets/Yusuf5/OpenCaselist

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#83

Post by Der_Einzige »

sidibe wrote: post #17
reducesuffering wrote: post #12

We're fast approaching the point that any value someone can provide through a digital interface could be better done by a model. What do we use digital interfaces for? Practically everything. Oh well not being a plumber, electrician, or farmer... but our society's current productivity, technology, automation reduced our need for 80% of the population needing to be farmers to now 1.3% in the US. Can you imagine what t…

Yes when the knowledge jobs are all done best by AI the rest will follow shortly. we will need to adapt to being "useless" as far as work goes and find other sources of worth. There's still a lot of people who want to compare it to Bitcoin hype around here, IMO the next few years everything is going to change way faster than than it ever has. For the record I always thought Kurzweil and that crowd was clowns, now I t…

I’m with you. Weak version of a singularity seems likely. Recursive self improvement isn’t just possible, it’s inevitable. Models are capable of extrapolation, but they don’t even need it to do good interpolation which itself is enough to get us recursive self improvement.

I tend to think that it’ll have an optimistic ending. The key to solving most political problems is eliminating scarcity.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#84

Post by emseetech »

OJFord wrote: post #63
justonceokay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one is very short but conveys the idea well. Not all debate is like this but it is definitely a real phenomenon https://youtu.be/LMO27PAHjrY

Hamdiddle-eedah-hamdiddle-ah (do do do do dodododo expi-ali-do-cious) What is the point of that? They're incomprehensible. (For those who haven't watched it: the video just shows people talking very fast, it doesn't explain why, kind of implies it's somehow good or impressive.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreading_(debate)

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#85

Post by SoftTalker »

metalcrow wrote: post #3

My guess for the reason behind this is that LLMs have more facts memorized, and thus can make more reasonable and well-researched sounding answers. If you ask an LLM vs a Human "Is a stack in computer science a) a data structure that is first in first out or b) a data structure that is first in last out" the LLM can say stuff resembling "Based on Dijkstra's algorithm proof given in 1943 and the nature of Turing compl…

I learned a stack is like a stack of plates in a cafeteria. That seems a better answer than either of those.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#86

Post by beeflet »

upghost wrote: post #62
hammock wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the horrific state of student debate competitions today where the winning strategy is to incomprehensibly rattle off as many arguments as quickly as possible with strange breathy sounds in between

This is a consequence of the fact that any argument not responded to "flows across" the score sheet and is automatically a win for the team making the argument, no matter how silly. So a "natural" tendency would be to ignore ridiculous arguments like "not paying for school lunches will cause children to hyperventilate, and by the butterfly effect will lead to infinite hurricanes in developing nations causing a collap…

Which is pretty ridiculous. The purpose of a debate should be to change/consolidate the hearts and minds of the audience to your side. To this end, it's usually sufficient to pick apart a few of the key points of your opponent's argument. Nitpicking every aspect of your opponent usually comes off as uncharismatic.

Brevity is really important in a debate. Especially in the modern day where someone might turn you into a chad vs soyjack meme.

And if anything, what happens before the debate is more important than what happens during it. Our dear president showed us you can become the leader of the free world using playground insults and ad-libbed speeches if you choose the right demographics and look good in a suit.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#87

Post by Benjammer »

moffkalast wrote: post #55
abtinf wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s subtle but I would regard this as an incorrect answer. The structure of the LLM answer is: A is B; B exhibits property C. The correct answer is: A exhibits property C; B is the class of things with property C; therefore A is B. There is a crucial difference between these two.

This kind of pointless hair splitting is why people would rather talk to an LLM.

This kind of “hair splitting” is the foundation on current prompt engineering though…

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#88

Post by AlexCoventry »

CJefferson wrote: post #10
metalcrow wrote: post #3

My guess for the reason behind this is that LLMs have more facts memorized, and thus can make more reasonable and well-researched sounding answers. If you ask an LLM vs a Human "Is a stack in computer science a) a data structure that is first in first out or b) a data structure that is first in last out" the LLM can say stuff resembling "Based on Dijkstra's algorithm proof given in 1943 and the nature of Turing compl…

Based on reading bad AI generated student essays it’s worse than that, LLMs are happy to “fill in the blanks” with whatever made up fact would make their argument look best. Most people can’t lie that smoothly, and most readers don’t check carefully, unless they are already an expert in the area. Any kind of maths proof is particularly bad, they will look convincing and clear until you read them very carefully and se…

It depends on the AI. ChatGPT's higher models (o1-pro/o3/o4-mini-high) have some kind of limited capability to detect errors in the user's thinking, and have relatively few hallucinations.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#89

Post by smeej »

CJefferson wrote: post #10
metalcrow wrote: post #3

My guess for the reason behind this is that LLMs have more facts memorized, and thus can make more reasonable and well-researched sounding answers. If you ask an LLM vs a Human "Is a stack in computer science a) a data structure that is first in first out or b) a data structure that is first in last out" the LLM can say stuff resembling "Based on Dijkstra's algorithm proof given in 1943 and the nature of Turing compl…

Based on reading bad AI generated student essays it’s worse than that, LLMs are happy to “fill in the blanks” with whatever made up fact would make their argument look best. Most people can’t lie that smoothly, and most readers don’t check carefully, unless they are already an expert in the area. Any kind of maths proof is particularly bad, they will look convincing and clear until you read them very carefully and se…

It's funny you mention this, because my father operates exactly as you describe the LLMs, making facts up on the spot, lying smoothly and keeping track of the lies...

...and he's built his whole career in sales because of it.

He despises the existence of Google, because the last thing a pathological bullshitter wants is fact-checking in pockets!

It's taken me nearly 40 years to understand that anchoring statements in reality is just a completely meaningless endeavor for him. He does not care what is true. He cares only what is convincing.

I've been wondering for about a year now why I feel like I can tell LLM work from human work so much more easily than most people, when the only "tell" I can put my finger on is, "The hair stands up on the back of my neck," but this explains ALL of it.

Re: LLMs are more persuasive than incentivized human persuaders

#90

Post by AlexCoventry »

1oooqooq wrote: post #70
justonceokay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one is very short but conveys the idea well. Not all debate is like this but it is definitely a real phenomenon https://youtu.be/LMO27PAHjrY

not even Idiocracy predicted that one.

These students are probably intellectually gifted, they're just playing a stupid game for the sake of an item on their resume.
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