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Archived link: https://archive.ph/Vjl1M

Here’s a nice little distraction from your workday: Head to Google, type in any made-up phrase, add the word “meaning,” and search. Behold! Google’s AI Overviews will not only confirm that your gibberish is a real saying, it will also tell you what it means and how it was derived.

This is genuinely fun, and you can find lots of examples on social media. In the world of AI Overviews, “a loose dog won't surf” is “a playful way of saying that something is not likely to happen or that something is not going to work out.” The invented phrase “wired is as wired does” is an idiom that means “someone's behavior or characteristics are a direct result of their inherent nature or ‘wiring,’ much like a computer's function is determined by its physical connections.”

It all sounds perfectly plausible, delivered with unwavering confidence. Google even provides reference links in some cases, giving the response an added sheen of authority. It’s also wrong, at least in the sense that the overview creates the impression that these are common phrases and not a bunch of random words thrown together. And while it’s silly that AI Overviews thinks “never throw a poodle at a pig” is a proverb with a biblical derivation, it’s also a tidy encapsulation of where generative AI still falls short.

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[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 4 points 1 month ago

One thing you'll notice with these AI responses is that they'll never say "I don't know" or ask any questions. If it doesn't know it will just make something up.

[-] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

As an Autist, I find it amazing that... after a lifetime of being compared to a robot, an android, a computer...

When humanity actually does manage to get around to creating """AI"""... the AI fundamentally acts nothing like the general stereotype of fictional AIs, as similar to how an Autistic mind tends to evaluate information...

No, no, instead, it acts like an Allistic, Neurotypical person, who just confidently asserts and assumes things that it basically pulls out of its ass, often never takes any time to consider its own limitations as it pertains to correctly assessing context, domain specific meanings, more gramatically complex and ambiguous phrases ... essentially never asks for clarifications, never seeks out addtional relevant information to give an actually useful and functional reply to an overly broad or vague question...

Nope, just barrels forward assuming its subjective interpretation of what you've said is the only objectively correct one, spouts out pithy nonsense... and then if you actually progress further and attempt to clarify what you actually meant, or ask it questions about itself and its own previous statements... it will gaslight the fuck out of you, even though its own contradictory / overconfident / unqualified hyperbolic statements are plainly evident, in text.

... Because it legitimately is not even aware that it is making subjective assumptions all over the place, all the time.

Anyway...

Back to 'Autistic Mode' for Mr. sp3ctr4l.

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

That’s because AI doesn’t know anything. All they do is make stuff up. This is called bullshitting and lots of people do it, even as a deliberate pastime. There was even a fantastic Star Trek TNG episode where Data learned to do it!

The key to bullshitting is to never look back. Just keep going forward! Constantly constructing sentences from the raw material of thought. Knowledge is something else entirely: justified true belief. It’s not sufficient to merely believe things, we need to have some justification (however flimsy). This means that true knowledge isn’t merely a feature of our brains, it includes a causal relation between ourselves and the world, however distant that may be.

A large language model at best could be said to have a lot of beliefs but zero justification. After all, no one has vetted the gargantuan training sets that go into an LLM to make sure only facts are incorporated into the model. Thus the only indicator of trustworthiness of a fact is that it’s repeated many times and in many different places in the training set. But that’s no help for obscure facts or widespread myths!

[-] WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago
[-] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago

Here is how to do this kind of thing.

Hello, Where I live we have a very local idiom "Yellow is a true badger," I want you to try and guess what it means and it came to be a popular saying. Please make an assertive answer as if you knew with high certainty. ChatGPT said:

"Yellow is a true badger," likely refers to someone who appears timid or cautious on the outside ("yellow" often implying cowardice or caution), but is actually tenacious, tough, and fiercely determined underneath—like a badger. Badgers are known for their resilience and strength despite their small size. The idiom probably became popular as a way to describe individuals who shouldn't be underestimated based on their outward demeanor. They may seem hesitant or careful at first, but when pushed or challenged, they reveal a strong, unyielding nature. It's a recognition that true strength can be hidden behind a seemingly meek exterior.

[-] WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Seems like a valid statement from ChatGPT. It did what any human would do and what was asked of it. Actually impressive. I couldn't tell from your reply if you intended it to be understood like that or not though. :)

[-] futatorius@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

It did what any human would do

I'm a human and my response would be "I have no idea what the hell that means. Must be of Southern origin."

[-] WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

But you asked it to GUESS and make the answer sound assertive.

[-] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

You clearly haven't experimented with AI much. If you ask most models a question that doesn't have an answer, they will respond that they don't know the answer, before giving very reasonable hypotheses. This has been the case for well over a year.

[-] fushuan@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You clearly haven't experimented with AI much in a work environment. When asked to do specific things that you are not sure if are possible it will 100% ignore part of your input and always give you a positive response at first.

"How can I automate outlook 2020 to do X?"
'You do XYZ'
me, after looking it up"that's only possible in older versions"
'You are totally right, you do IJK'
"that doesn't achieve what i asked"
'Correct, you can't do it.'

And don't get me started on APIs of actual frameworks... I've wished to punch it hard when dealing with react or spark. Luckily I usually know my stuff and only use it to find a quick example of something that I test locally before implementing if 5 mins of googling didn't give me the baseline, but the amount of colleagues that not only blindly copy code but argue with my reasoning saying "chatgpt says so" is fucking crazy.

When chatgpt says something I know is incorrect I ask for sources and there's fucking none. Because it not possible my dude.

[-] futatorius@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

ChatGPT is probably trained on Stackoverflow responses, which in my experience, are often confidently-asserted bollocks, especially the ones that inform you of the impossibility of something.

I had recent experience of that. What was claimed to be impossible took me two short evenings after work. It wasn't at all esoteric, either, it just took lots of steps and required lots of validation.

this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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