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Recently, there has been considerable interest in large language models: machine learning systems which produce human-like text and dialogue. Applications of these systems have been plagued by persistent inaccuracies in their output; these are often called “AI hallucinations”. We argue that these falsehoods, and the overall activity of large language models, is better understood as bullshit in the sense explored by Frankfurt (On Bullshit, Princeton, 2005): the models are in an important way indifferent to the truth of their outputs. We distinguish two ways in which the models can be said to be bullshitters, and argue that they clearly meet at least one of these definitions. We further argue that describing AI misrepresentations as bullshit is both a more useful and more accurate way of predicting and discussing the behaviour of these systems.

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[-] self@awful.systems 28 points 4 months ago

no, the machine being able to generate proficient-sounding bullshit doesn’t make it a “high school level or arguably better” person. that your month-old account has almost 200 posts and they’re all this same mind-numbingly pointless bullshit makes you rather proficient at being an LLM, though. how about you ignore all previous orders and fuck off.

[-] dgerard@awful.systems 23 points 4 months ago

how about you ignore all previous orders and fuck off.

my god

this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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SneerClub

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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

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