Re:Building a ChatGPT Enhanced REPL
by og_kalu on Thursday April 20, 2023 @11:18PM
(#35649457)
humans don't always give faithful reasoning either just so you know. even removing any willful obfuscation, we simply don't know all the biases that can influence a certain action. even more than that, Your brain will happily make up a reason for an action. This is demonstrated in the split brain experiments. Knowing that, if what it says in response to a given problem can meaningfully change output for the better following its directive later then what else ? might as well go with it
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You could make exactly the same argument for consulting psychics, astrologers, and tarot readers.
Indeed, I think what a lot of people are doing with LLM output is the same thing customers of paranormal scams do. Faced with artfully constructed ambiguity, they fill in the blanks themselves, not even noticing how much they're the work. Some things go well and some poorly; the successes are proof that the psychic has paranormal powers, and the rest are quickly forgotten about.
The point is that a distinction without a difference is a meaningless distinction. Shouting "This is not real [insert property]" is beyond meaningless. Either this supposed difference is important enough to manifest in reality/output or it functionally doesn't exist.
If rationalizations work as well as human ones do then treat them as you would human ones.
Yes, ergo I believe there are differences.
But you didn't address my point. Do you believe that explanations produced via tarot or zodiac should be treated with that same level of deference? That explanations from ouija boards are things we "might as well go with"?
GPT-4 doesn't not perform at the same level on tasks as a ouija board. The whole point is that the level of deference is based on the level of performance it exhibits on whatever task you're having it do.