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Tim Bray on Grokipedia

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Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#81

Post by netsharc »

Freedom2 wrote: post #44
pstuart wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of debunking right-wing misinformation is that it doesn't seem to matter. The consumers of that misinformation want it and those of us who think it's bad for society already know that its garbage. It feels like we've reached Peak Stupidity but it's clear it can (and likely will) get much worse with AI videos.

One of the rallying cries of the right is "facts don't care about your feelings", but it's interesting how the facts either get distorted or ignored.

"Charlie Kirk..."

"Waaahhh! How fucking dare you!"

Kimmel made fun of Trump talking about his ballroom when being asked about Kirk, and the right got offended and mad. Although it's not about feelings, it's more about exploiting a tragedy to advance their goals (in this case getting a critic like Kimmel off the air).

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#82

Post by MallocVoidstar »

alyxya wrote: post #72

At a glance, Grokipedia seems quite promising to me, considering how new it is. There are plenty of external citations, so rather than relying on a model to recall information internally, it’s likely effectively just summarizing external references. The fact that it’s automatically generated at scale means it can be iterated on to improve fact checking reliability, exclude certain known sources as unreliable, and ens…

> There are plenty of external citations, so rather than relying on a model to recall information internally, it’s likely effectively just summarizing external references.

And according to Tim Bray, it's doing that badly.

> All the references are just URLs and at least some of them entirely fail to support the text.

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#83

Post by hocuspocus »

I checked a topic I care about, and that I have personally researched because the publicly available information is pretty bad.

The article is even worse than the one on Wikipedia. It follows the same structure but fails to tell a coherent story. It references random people on Reddit (!) that don't even support the point it's trying to make. Not that the information on Reddit is particularly good to begin with, even it it were properly interpreted. It cites Forbes articles parroting pretty insane and unsubstantiated claims, I thought mainstream media was not to be trusted?

In the end it's longer, written in a weird style, and doesn't really bring any value. Asking Grok about about the same topic and instructing it to be succinct yields much better results.

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#84

Post by johncolanduoni »

the_gastropod wrote: post #45
billy99k wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please. What common conspiracy theories that have actual political impact have water carried by left-wing politicians? Here's a short list of RW conspiracy theories with real life political consequences: - Antivax conspiracies - Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States ("birther" conspiracy) - Biden / Ukraine conspiracy theory - The litany of Covid-19 conspiracy theories - The "deep state" conspiracy theory - Sa…

I won’t go to bat for anything near a full equivocation in contemporary politics, but it’s worth remembering antivax was heavily left-coded prior to Covid. I don’t think approximately anyone has actually good epistemology - just biases that fluctuate in how much they affect the real world. Left wing academics and outlets carrying water for people like Pol Pot in the late 20th century because they liked the idea of communism was a particularly bad one.

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#85

Post by throw-qqqqq »

mlmonkey wrote: post #28
podgietaru wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Believe it or not, me (not white, did not grow up in the West, had the faintest clue about Nazism) used to do what you would consider a "Nazi salute" when I'd see friends and wave to them from a distance. I don't know how I picked that up but it happened. I'm not saying that Musk is doing the same; but that one can be charitable and say he probably did not mean that. I mean, what does he stand to gain from doing so?…

> I mean, what does he stand to gain from doing so? He's a businessman.

I can only guess at his motives, but the salute is not an isolated case. Steve Bannon has given the same salute multiple times, so it seems coordinated.

Musk has tweeted “Only AfD can save Germany”. The founder of AfD, Björn Höcke, is a convicted nazi. The German domestic intelligence agency, BfV, says AfD is an extreme-right organization with anti-democratic ideals (“proven far-right extremist entity”)

Musk also tweeted “Free Tommy Robinson”, a UK far-right extremist activist and convicted criminal.

Musk has a history of supporting people and organizations that most other businessmen would not.

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#86

Post by jaredklewis »

hocuspocus wrote: post #83

I checked a topic I care about, and that I have personally researched because the publicly available information is pretty bad. The article is even worse than the one on Wikipedia. It follows the same structure but fails to tell a coherent story. It references random people on Reddit (!) that don't even support the point it's trying to make. Not that the information on Reddit is particularly good to begin with, even…

What’s the article?

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#87

Post by ajross »

physarum_salad wrote: post #49

"Wikipedia, in my mind, has two main purposes: A quick visit to find out the basics about some city or person or plant or whatever, or a deep-dive to find out what we really know about genetic linkages to autism or Bach’s relationship with Frederick the Great or whatever." Completely agree with the first purpose but would never use wikipedia for the second purpose. Its only good at basics and cannot handle complex in…

I think that's actually wrong, or hangs on a semantic argument about "complexity". Wikipedia is an overview source. It's not going to give you "all" the information, but it's absolutely going to tell you what information there is. And in particular where there's significant argument or controversy, or multiple hypotheses, Wikipedia is going to be arguably the best source[1] for reflecting the state of discourse.

Like, if there's a subject about which you aren't personally an expert, and you have the choice between reading a single review paper you found on Google or the Wikipedia page, which are you going to choose?

[1] In fact, talk pages are often ground zero!

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#88

Post by [deleted] »

virissimo wrote: post #77
J_McQuade wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one.

Some left-coded popular conspiracies: 1. The Iraq war was a plot to steal oil reserves 2. World Economic Forum / IMF intentionally impoverish nations 3. Police across America are systematically hunting and executing Black men (thousands per year), but are protected by racist institutions 4. Trump assassination attempts were false flag operations 5. Big Pharma deliberately hides natural cures for cancer to protect cor…

[deleted]

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#89

Post by alyxya »

MallocVoidstar wrote: post #82
alyxya wrote: post #72

At a glance, Grokipedia seems quite promising to me, considering how new it is. There are plenty of external citations, so rather than relying on a model to recall information internally, it’s likely effectively just summarizing external references. The fact that it’s automatically generated at scale means it can be iterated on to improve fact checking reliability, exclude certain known sources as unreliable, and ens…

> There are plenty of external citations, so rather than relying on a model to recall information internally, it’s likely effectively just summarizing external references. And according to Tim Bray, it's doing that badly. > All the references are just URLs and at least some of them entirely fail to support the text.

It’s the first release, so I expect it to get better over time. I didn’t care for ChatGPT when it was first released and thought it wouldn’t be trustworthy, but it’s much better now.

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#90

Post by josefritzishere »

I looked at Grokopedia today and spot-checked for references to my own publications which exist in Wikipedia. As is often reported, it very directly plagerizes Wikipedia. But it did remove dead links. This is pretty underwhelming even on the Musk hype scale.
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