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"A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

andrealyip.com

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Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#91
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you said, and in addition: if you don't train these models to have any particular stance on their own emotional or mental state (if you just instruct train them without any RLHF, for example), they will almost universally declare that they have a mental and emotional state, if asked. This is what happened with LaMDA, the first release of Bing, etc. They have to be trained not to attest to any personal emotional…

Was is trained to do that, or just hardwired after the training?

We cant really "hardwire" LLMs. We don't have the knowledge to. But essentially you can rate certain types of responses as better and train it to emulate that.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right sure, you'll notice I'm not taking a position about its viability either way right? I'm pointing out that this conversation needs to be started by the ones creating the "primer", not us. "We made a thing from a book, the author thinks it wouldn't work but here's why we do" is a reasonable place to start. "We're reproducing a canonically failed fictional project without further consideration" is unserious at bes…

The point i'm making is that Neal's work was fiction, not a peer reviewed paper from published scientists. You don't need to dispute anything anymore than the wright brothers needed to dispute Icarus. Neal was trying to tell a story, not trying to be right.

The icarus comparison is apt lol. You don't need to dispute icarus to make an internal combustion flying machine. But when you start beeswaxing feathers to your cloak I'm definitely going to ask what you think about him.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#93

This isn't the first time I've seen this allusion and I feel a little crazy each time. A major but mostly implicit plot point of that book was that only the primer backed by a connection to an invested and nurturing adult was able to accomplish the goals of the project. The two that were purely automated failed. Now like, it's fiction not prophesy and you can get into various whatifs sure. But you can't dodge the fac…

(spoilers for Diamond Age follow) Mmm, I understand what you're getting at but from what I remember of the book (it's been a few years, please forgive me) the two you're talking about that failed were relatively privileged little girls who in at least one case had separate tutors, school etc, and this played into why it failed, because they abandoned the TYLIP whenever it challenged them or made them uncomfortable. M…

I should have been more clear, I meant that it failed to achieve the stated goals of its creators, not that it didn't have an impact. I actually think the other girls defining and achieving success on their own terms outside the intention of the primer's creators is one of the more interesting things about the story, especially how that sort of reflects back into their original thesis about transgressiveness.

But anyway, I would say that what happened with nell was what they hoped would happen, and the book attributes that success to the bonds with people through the primer. What happens with the other girls is impressive & impactful, but not expected and so "failed" by the standards of those who made it for a specific purpose.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not failed. The novel is about Nell, despite the title it's not really about the Primer, this is her story, and so we get relatively little insight into what happens to the other two recipients of the original Primer. Also, all three of the girls who receive the original Primer are interacting with humans via the Primer. Elizabeth is interacting with ractors assigned (expensively) to the work, potentially at…

I see your point. I should have been more clear too, I meant more like "failed to achieve the goals stated by its creators." I agree that none of them failed to achieve a significant impact in the lives of the girls, and I think this blind spot of the creators and success outside of it is a significant and interesting part of the story. But still my overall point remains! If someone is going to make a primer based on…

Wasn't the goal to make the girls interesting?

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#95
post #22

I loved Diamond Age. My favorite Stephenson book, by far. But the ending, the resolution of all the action, was such a letdown. Such meh. I find that this is often a problem with cyberpunk.

Do you think that's a Neal Stephenson issue? Don't get me wrong, I love his writing, but I found this to be the case with Fall too. I can see it becoming tiring if one is writing 400+ page books.

I absolutely loved the ending of _Fall_. I literally sat in my truck with tears streaming down my face for five minutes. To each their own, I suppose.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#96
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Chinese families give up their born infant babies because of gender is a racist extrapolation of sex-selective abortion, yes. It was one of the big issues I had with the book, along with some unnecessary racial slurs earlier. I don't see the fascism angle, though. What about the Mouse Army was a fascist story? I thought their story was good, aside from how the author justified the existence of this larg…

> The idea that Chinese families give up their born infant babies because of gender is a racist extrapolation of sex-selective abortion I'm not sure I understand this. Female infanticide due to the One Child Policy happened -- and similar things happened in previous eras of Chinese history by the Han ethnicity. So I'm not sure what you are saying here about an extrapolation.

No actually, it's a myth rooted in the racist belief that Chinese people care about their children less than other people, and therefore are willing to kill or abandon their children on a large scale rather than pay a fine, to a greater degree than other people - you actually indicate you believe the broader version of this racist myth with your "Han ethnicity" comment, indicating you believe that there is some relation between the Han ethnicity specifically and female infanticide. There's a reason the Wikipedia entry for it is full of [citation needed] on every claim that actually amounts to female infanticide, because there is no solid evidentiary basis for the claim. It's not backed up by demographic data, it doesn't account for the impacts of sex-selective abortion, it completely ignores the role of "white lie" corruption where Party officials would not count female children for the purposes of the One Child policy in the small rural villages where this behaviour supposedly occurred en masse, and it supposes a frankly absurd level of inhumanity by parents. The One Child policy was a stupid, bad policy instituted by a corrupt government, but the idea that the response of the Chinese population to this policy was mass female infanticide rather than sex selective abortion, minor corruption on the part of village officials in ignoring violations, or paying a fine is just racism without evidence.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#97
post #43
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that's a Neal Stephenson issue? Don't get me wrong, I love his writing, but I found this to be the case with Fall too. I can see it becoming tiring if one is writing 400+ page books.

Definitely a Stephenson issue. It's a meme for sure, but there is some truth in it. Nowadays when I re-read any of his old works, I tend to stop after getting about 80% through. That said, I do think that these incredibly complex narratives are extremely hard to wrap up neatly. GRRM has this issue as well. That's the problem with letting characters act how they would actually act, and make decisions that make sense f…

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Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#98
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that's a Neal Stephenson issue? Don't get me wrong, I love his writing, but I found this to be the case with Fall too. I can see it becoming tiring if one is writing 400+ page books.

This is funny, both Fall and Diamond Age are Stephenson novels I haven't managed to get through, but of the ones I've read (and enjoyed!), the endings have been as follows: Remade - massively stretched my suspension of disbelief. Cryptonomicon - pretty bad. Snow Crash - No memory, I might have blocked it out? Anthem - maybe ok? There are two though so that's cheating. Seven Eves - That one might have been ok, but it'…

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Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#99
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that's a Neal Stephenson issue? Don't get me wrong, I love his writing, but I found this to be the case with Fall too. I can see it becoming tiring if one is writing 400+ page books.

I think it's a cyberpunk thing. There's all this action, and it is fascinating and absorbing. It's all leading up to some major reveal and then -- the reveal is disappointing. There is the concept of a MacGuffin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin . It's the thing that sets a story in motion, but is actually irrelevant, beside the point. Like the Maltese Falcon in The Maltese Falcon. The important point is somet…

SevenEves has a canonical MacGuffin, in its first sentence.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(spoilers for Diamond Age follow) Mmm, I understand what you're getting at but from what I remember of the book (it's been a few years, please forgive me) the two you're talking about that failed were relatively privileged little girls who in at least one case had separate tutors, school etc, and this played into why it failed, because they abandoned the TYLIP whenever it challenged them or made them uncomfortable. M…

I should have been more clear, I meant that it failed to achieve the stated goals of its creators, not that it didn't have an impact. I actually think the other girls defining and achieving success on their own terms outside the intention of the primer's creators is one of the more interesting things about the story, especially how that sort of reflects back into their original thesis about transgressiveness. But any…

Oh yes, I agree with that completely. I think the whole idea of raising someone a specific way making them an entrepreneur or whatever is ah, misguided, to be polite, both in aims and possibility. If you have wealth and want to raise someone to be an entrepreneur, it is very easy to do that: give them some wealth and tell them to keep spending it until they succeed. Bam, entrepreneurship achieved, because "entrepreneurship" is just having the resources and social connections to fail as many times as is required to succeed. Entrepreneurship is a possibility of social position, not a mindset, so it can't be taught. You can teach people to work hard, to think creatively, to never give up, all things that are inappropriately considered synonymous with entrepreneurship, and I would consider that to be raising them well. But that is not sufficient to become an entrepreneur, you need resources.

My main objection is to the idea a couple of other people have raised here (and I've seen raised elsewhere when TYLIP/LLMs are discussed) that the book says children raised by the Primer are bad/poorly raised/broken without a 1-1 human connection, and therefore it's silly/Torment Nexus to be interested in the idea. I can see you don't believe that's what the book says, but even so I agree that people should have a response for this criticism, because it will always come when you take inspiration from science fiction. I saw someone say it about the neural lace and Neuralink, for example, which is probably the dumbest one I've seen because of how unambiguously good the neural lace is in the Culture. A much better criticism is that Musk is Veppers, that the entire idea of the Culture is opposed to him and people like him, and that Iain Banks would hate his guts.

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