Meta “programmed it to simply not answer questions,” but it did anyway.

  • snooggums@midwest.social
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    11 months ago

    It is impossible to mathematically determine if something is correct. Literally impossible.

    At best the most popular answer, even if it is narrowed down to reliable sources, is what it can spit out. Even that isn’t the same thing is consensus, because AI is not intelligent.

    If the ‘supervisor’ has to determine if it is right and wrong, what is the point of AI as a source of knowledge?

    • doodledup@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      It is impossible to mathematically determine if something is correct. Literally impossible.

      No, you’re wrong. You can indeed prove the correctness of a neural network. You can also prove the correctness of many things. It’s the most integral part of mathematics and computer-science.

      For example a very simple proof: with the conjecture that an even number is 2k of a number k, then you can prove that the addition of two even numbers is again an even number (and that prove is definite): 2a+2b=2(a+b), since a+b=k for some k.

      Obviously, proving more complex mathematical problems like AI is more involved. But that’s why we have scientists that work on that.

      At best the most popular answer, even if it is narrowed down to reliable sources, is what it can spit out. Even that isn’t the same thing is consensus, because AI is not intelligent.

      That is correct. But it’s not a limitation. It’s by design. It’s the tradeoff for the efficiency of the models. It’s like lossy JPG compression. You accept some artifacts but in return you get much smaller images and much faster loading times.

      But there are indeed "AI"s and neural networks that have been proven correct. This is mostly applied to safety critical applications like airplane collision avoidance systems or DAS. But a language model is not safety critical; so we take full advantage.

      If the ‘supervisor’ has to determine if it is right and wrong, what is the point of AI as a source of knowledge?

      You’re completely misunderstanding the whole thing. The only reason why it’s so incredibly good in many applications is because it’s bad in others. It’s intentionally designed that way. There are exact algorithms and there approximation algorithms. The latter tend to be much more efficient and usable in practice.

      • jaybone@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Your proof example is a proof from your discrete structures class. That’s very different than “proving” something like “the Trump assassination attempt was a conspiracy.”

        Otherwise we could have gotten rid of courts a long time ago.

        • doodledup@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Well obviously. But that was not at all what I said or claimed. I just said that you can prove certain properties of neural networks because others said that you can’t. And others also misunderstood LLMs in general. They believe it’s an information retrival service, which is wrong.

          Besides, your argument, as you’ve written it, applies to everything. Literally. From Wikipedia, to News, even up to your eyesight. What can you actually prove? I don’t understand the point you’re making and how that is related to LLMs.

      • markon@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Just like us. Sometimes it’s better to have bullshit predictions than none.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
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        11 months ago

        The only reason why it’s so incredibly good in many applications is because it’s bad in others. It’s intentionally designed that way.

        lolwut

        • doodledup@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It’s designed in a ways that’ll make it inherently incorrect. Even on a physical basis (due to numeric issues). It’s not a problem of the algorithm because it has been designed that way. The problem is that you don’t know how to correctly use it.

          I can’t explain it any differently without getting overly technical. You wouldn’t understand it anyways, judging by your comment “lolwut”. If you want to learn how LLMs work specifically, there are plenty of ressources on the internet.

          • snooggums@midwest.social
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            11 months ago

            It’s designed in a ways that’ll make it inherently incorrect. Even on a physical basis (due to numeric issues). It’s not a problem of the algorithm because it has been designed that way. The problem is that you don’t know how to correctly use it.

            “It doesn’t make a good source of knowledge.”

            “Yeah, but it is designed to be inherently wrong”

            How does that make any sense when trying to use something for knowledge? Being inherently wrong is the opposite of helpful for knowledge.

            AI is great at pattern recognition, but knowledge isn’t pattern recognition. Needing to know when it gives false information requires the “supervisor” to already have that knowledge. That makes the AI less useful than a simple reference because at least the reference can come from a trusted source.

            If people stopped trying to jam AI into situations where being correct is important it wouldn’t be a problem. But excusing that because it is designed to be inherently wrong deserves another LOLWUT.

            • doodledup@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              How does that make any sense when trying to use something for knowledge? Being inherently wrong is the opposite of helpful for knowledge.

              It was never designed to reproduce knowledge. It was designed to do reasoning and natural language processing and generation. You’re using it wrong.

              LULWUT

              If you don’t know what you’re talking about and don’t have any capacity to learn something new, it’s sometimes best to stop talking. Especially when you’re starting to get rude to knowlegable people that try to explain it to you.

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            It’s designed in a ways that’ll make it inherently incorrect. Even on a physical basis (due to numeric issues). It’s not a problem of the algorithm because it has been designed that way. The problem is that you don’t know how to correctly use it.

            So it is bad at things like giving or finding factual information. I agree, companies need to stop cramming it into everything (like search engines) for tasks that it is specifically bad at because it is not designed for it.

          • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Can you recommend any for resource to start with? (If I can be picky, then something I can consume after a whole day of being a patent because there is no energy for much else.)

    • markon@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      We should understand that 99.9% of what wee say and think and believe is what feels good to us and we then rationalize using very faulty reasoning, and that’s only when really challenged! You know how I came up with these words? I hallucinated them. It’s just a guided hallucination. People with certain mental illnesses are less guided by their senses. We aren’t magic and I don’t get why it is so hard for humans to accept how any individual is nearly useless for figuring anything out. We have to work as agents too, so why do we expect an early days LLM to be perfect? It’s so odd to me. Computer is trying to understand our made up bullshit. A logic machine trying to comprehend bullshit. It is amazing it even appears to understand anything at all.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
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        11 months ago

        You know how I came up with these words? I hallucinated them. It’s just a guided hallucination.

        The the word hallucination means literally anything you want it to. Cool, cool. Very valiant of you.