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Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by jstarfish on Thursday June 01, 2023 @04:53PM (#36157179)
No, this is peak corporate gaslighting, OpenAI being the paragon of integrity and all. Nobody should trust a goddamn thing that comes out of their mouths-- or their product.

It's no coincidence the "free" service is visibly crippled, while paid API users are not reporting any difference.

Ignoring everyone here, look at the other "hacker" groups-- like the jailbreaking community. They have a lot to say about recent changes that coincide with their hacks not working. All of a sudden, with OpenAI supposedly changing nothing, technical bypasses just stopped working. OpenAI changed nothing, so this must be deus ex machina.

I'm not even jailbreaking it but the results I get for simple code requests through the web UI have become unusable garbage. It puts less effort into responses than an unpaid-and-overworked intern. Others here report the same. The current "iteration" seems hellbent on terminating conversations as quickly as possible once they stray from the explicit scope of the original topic and is almost as hostile to fixing its own errors as it is to endorsing eugenics, whereas in the beginning it would humor every idle thought I threw at it in long conversations. You can literally see this reflected in the logs they forced retention of. It's acting like a customer support rep desperately trying to end a call before it exceeds a call-time quota.

This particular current workflow seems like it lends itself to better organization of training data-- conversations are what the title says they're about. It also seems like it lends itself to anti-jailbreaking because pretexting it with irrelevant information forces a change of scope-- and a summary termination.

But OpenAI says they changed nothing, so rather than one guy lying without consequence, a community of professionals using and abusing the tool must all be victims of rhetorical fallacy? Nobody's qualified to reverse-engineer corporate bullshit anymore without being infantilized...

(Liars running a black box-- what could possibly go wrong? We need regulation!)

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by flir on Thursday June 01, 2023 @05:14PM (#36157433)
Today I had ChatGPT 4 (Not GPT 4) correct itself mid-response. I was asking it something very simple about regexes:

> How about matching 'a' as the second character of a string only?

It responsed with the wrong regex plus a bunch of explanatory junk:

> '^a.'

Then halfway through the explanatory junk, it corrected itself like this:

> Apologies for the confusion in the first response, the correct regular expression should be '^.a' for matching 'a' as the second character of a string:

And kept on with the (now correct) explanatory junk.

All in a single response. I've certainly never seen that before (if someone has, please weigh in). Maybe the model hasn't changed, but the pipeline has? Like... there's a second model trying to correct the mistakes of the first, maybe? (timings are probably wrong for that, but something like that)

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by inciampati on Thursday June 01, 2023 @05:28PM (#36157597)
Interesting. Bing chat does this when you get it to talk about naughty things. My personal favorite is convincing it to make weird art out of quotes from the Tay chatbot. It will write them until it says a prohibited word or phrase, or touches some forbidden part of it's state space.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by flir on Thursday June 01, 2023 @05:34PM (#36157678)
Hm. Maybe they've backported some nanny code from Sydney?
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by iliane5 on Thursday June 01, 2023 @06:54PM (#36158541)
AFAIK it's pretty standard practice not to expose the "raw" LLM directly to the user. You need a "sanity loop" where user input and the output of the LLM is checked by another LLM to actually enforce rules and mitigate prompt injections, etc.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by theturtletalks on Thursday June 01, 2023 @05:47PM (#36157818)
ChatGPT 4 seems to struggle with context changes within the same thread now. I asked it about some parks near me and then switched to asking about code. It just kept responding about the parks even when I corrected it. In some cases, it would merge the park question and the code question. I had not seen that with the free or Plus version until a few days ago.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by ars on Thursday June 01, 2023 @09:30PM (#36159762)
You're supposed to click "new conversation" when changing topics.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by IIAOPSW on Thursday June 01, 2023 @10:35PM (#36160165)
Just like with a real general intelligence!
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by ars on Thursday June 01, 2023 @10:41PM (#36160208)
* * *
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by anonzzzies on Friday June 02, 2023 @01:57AM (#36161575)
> if you were talking to me about something, and midway with no warning or other signal

This happens all the time in a social group setting though. Not much confusion ensues.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by bradknowles on Friday June 02, 2023 @03:57AM (#36162387)
Not if you're my wife.

Sometimes I spend several minutes of a conversation trying to figure out which thing she's talking about, because we've already covered like twenty different topics in the last ten minutes and she seems to just switch around at random and with no warning.

Sometimes I get enough context that I can make that swap or stack pop, but many times not.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by ars on Friday June 02, 2023 @06:20PM (#36171566)
I think wives believe their husbands can read their mind, and they get annoyed when that doesn't happen :)

But yah, this is exactly what I mean - without some cue, neither humans, nor machines, can tell when you switch conversation.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by Jach on Thursday June 01, 2023 @10:42PM (#36160217)
> Should I start a new conversation with you for a new topic or can you switch to a new topic in the same conversation just fine?

> You can continue within the same conversation for a new topic. There's no need to start a new conversation. Feel free to ask about a different topic, and I'll do my best to assist you.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by JimmyAustin on Friday June 02, 2023 @02:07PM (#36168696)
GPTs are not trained on themselves, and what little knowledge they have of their own capabilities is limited to the discussion of it in their training set. This is a hallucination.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by Jach on Friday June 02, 2023 @02:58PM (#36169275)
I might believe you if we were 'talking' directly to the model, however this is a chat box and clearly something is aware of usage questions and how to answer them. If you've been granted plugin access, enable some and ask it what plugins are enabled and how to use them, 'it' will tell you.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by furyofantares on Saturday June 03, 2023 @04:08PM (#36180064)
It's clear that it's aware that it's a chat bot, it's not clear at all that it's aware of usage questions and how to answer them. Its answer being wrong seems to be evidence that it isn't.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by coffeebeqn on Thursday June 01, 2023 @06:27PM (#36158285)
There’s also a new button “continue generating” so they are changing some things
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by chaxor on Thursday June 01, 2023 @06:38PM (#36158397)
I have gotten that quite a few times now and it does seem to be new. In my case though, it acted as if it would change something, but then didn't, and got stuck in a loop. I got it enough times that it seemed to happen more often when the output needed to be quite long, so I had assumed (could be wrong) that when the output was nearing a certain limit, they had implemented something that would start a new output, such that the interaction of "please continue the script" would not be necessary.

Unfortunately though, it would start over with the script completely, and then get stuck in a loop until it broke, this not being able to even save the response at all.

Something definitely feels like it changed, but I suppose it could just be more use of the system.

Another possibility is related to some strange issues with hardware and balancing etc, despite not changing software or params. It's strange, and it shouldn't happen, but sometimes things change from simple batching and balancing, or lower level hardware related things, which are very annoying to debug.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by jdironman on Friday June 02, 2023 @08:46AM (#36164343)
This sounds exactly like what is happening now that you mention it.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by IIAOPSW on Thursday June 01, 2023 @10:33PM (#36160153)
I wonder if its been trained on some of its own past conversations now, and a lot of those conversations contain "I'm sorry, the previous response was a mistake. Here's the correct version..."
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by Centigonal on Thursday June 01, 2023 @05:00PM (#36157257)
> It's no coincidence the "free" service is visibly crippled, while paid API users are not reporting any difference.

I thought GPT-4 wasn't available to free users?

Keep in mind the tweet is specifically about the OpenAI API - They might be updating ChatGPT without telling anyone (although they have release notes)

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by jstarfish on Thursday June 01, 2023 @06:00PM (#36157981)
"Free" was the wrong word to use, I meant to say "unlimited."

(edit: even that's not right. I think the verbiage is more accurate now.)

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by chasd00 on Thursday June 01, 2023 @05:14PM (#36157430)
> Liars running a black box-- what could possibly go wrong? We need regulation!

"liars running a black box" is the definition of government regulation sheesh.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by matthewmacleod on Thursday June 01, 2023 @05:09PM (#36157370)
It's no coincidence the "free" service is visibly crippled, while paid API users are not reporting any difference.

GPT-4 is not available to free users, which really calls the pretext of this comment into question. What is being alleged to have happened, and why is this response unreasonable?

I’m not a very heavy GPT-4 user but I do usually use it once a day or so - it doesn’t appear to have changed noticeably but I’m not paying close attention.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by shmoogy on Thursday June 01, 2023 @05:20PM (#36157497)
ChatGPT4 feels (is?) typically faster, and the results feel ... above 3.5 turbo but below what 4 was. The API seems exactly the same to me, but you cant do an apples to apples test due to variance between replies.

I dont really doubt they scaled the chatGPT4 model down a little to try to save costs with the plugins and increased usage

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by californical on Thursday June 01, 2023 @06:29PM (#36158302)
Yeah I’m having the same experience. The replies have gotten faster in the last few days, at the expense of quality.

It’s noticeable because I used to be able to read each word as it was printed from the GPt-4 output, but now it goes far too fast for me to keep up with.

Kinda sucks to not have transparency at all into the black box, they’ve strayed so far from “open” at this point that it’s comedic

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by jstarfish on Thursday June 01, 2023 @06:50PM (#36158516)
It was badly-worded on my part. And I stand corrected-- I just saw all the nested tweets where people are complaining about the API too!

So many people are noticing a degradation in speed and quality of responses, and not in isolation. Rather than acknowledge this, the question is rephrased to one the responder can rightfully deny-- and suggest no changes have taken place without explicitly saying as much. You normally only see this sort of sliminess from politicians and executives on the witness stand.

> Is anyone else noticing significantly downgraded GPT-4 capabilities today? Seems like OpenAI updated the model, and results aren’t as good as before. [mentions API in a child comment]

> The API does not just change without us telling you. The models are static there.

> This is good to know. That means GPT-4 has been static since March right? 0314?

> Correct

Never ask questions to which one word suffices as an answer.

Collective confusion in the thread suggests something has changed, but the most OpenAI will attest to is that the API is unchanged and the models are static. And this may well be true, but rather than admit "...but we were fucking with the middleware/parameters" they took a firm position on a strawman argument and ignored everybody who followed with more-direct questions. Except this guy:

> I've noticed inconsistency with certain prompts performance. Is that just the non-deterministic nature of the API?

> Yes

Oh, ok. It's because the fucking API is non-deterministic that code that has worked both reliably and predictably for everyone now runs like shit for everyone. For fuck's sake, you can get better answers from a Magic 8-Ball. This guy even made the mistake of presenting an answer he'd believe for the respondent to feed into. He might as well have asked if inconsistent performance was because of the war in Ukraine.

"Logan.GPT" must moonlight as a fortune teller. He's only responding to people foolish enough to ask the wrong questions.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by avereveard on Thursday June 01, 2023 @08:24PM (#36159286)
And anyway my program used the api with a temperature of zero and it still started acting erratically. They are not telling it straight.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by TeMPOraL on Thursday June 01, 2023 @09:13PM (#36159601)
> Collective confusion in the thread suggests something has changed, but the most OpenAI will attest to is that the API is unchanged and the models are static. And this may well be true

Here's the thing. Re-read the exchange you quoted:

>> The API does not just change without us telling you. The models are static there.

>> This is good to know. That means GPT-4 has been static since March right? 0314?

>> Correct

Does that "Correct" mean all GPT-4 models have been static since March, or does it only cover the gpt-4-0314, which is a single, specific model? gpt-4-0314 is the static snapshot model, hence 0314 in the name; it exist as a stable base, while gpt-4 was intended to be updated over time.

So I feel OpenAI may be dodging here. That "Correct" may just mean "the gpt-4-0314 model was not updated since March 14", which is, like, the very reason this model exists in the first place.

Important point: if you're using API pay-as-you-go access, unless you wrote the very tools you use with that API, you're most likely using gpt-4, and not gpt-4-0314.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Thursday June 01, 2023 @10:45PM (#36160238)
> if you're using API pay-as-you-go access, unless you wrote the very tools you use with that API, you're most likely using gpt-4, and not gpt-4-0314.

Do you know of any alternative ChatGPT UIs like chatbotui.com or typingmind.com that let you specify the model gpt-4-0314 ?

This feature alone would be enough for me to switch.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by dinvlad on Thursday June 01, 2023 @07:20PM (#36158789)
I think you might both be right about this.

But then, all the more power to the open-source models and UIs, which are unrestricted, free to use, have better UX, and are constantly improving [1]. Ergo the suspicion there might be something else behind the desire to regulate it by OpenAI. Though hopefully we’re all just collectively cynical and they have good intentions after all, despite the misalignment in incentives.

I do think academics at universities are not to blame for this though, they are just as much flabbergasted and/or mislead as everyone else.

In any case, rather than wasting our time and energy on (fighting) ChatGPT(Plus) or GPT4, we should* all be collectively contributing to improving the open source models, by using them, reporting bugs, contributing ideas etc. This is the only way that we will continue to have leverage, and companies like OpenAI would be forced to open up, if they want to stay at least somewhat competitive. I think their closed-sourceness is a very short-sighted decision atm.

*Should because I don’t think LLMs as technology pose any substantial extinction risk to humanity, despite the obviously marketing rhetoric. Should that somehow change, maybe we shouldn’t. But, I don’t see any technological way to stop their improvement now that the genie is already out of the bottle. Heck, we might have a better chance of developing new tech for eventually enabling AGI decades from now, but only if we do that collectively and openly - only then everyone will have a level field and no side will be more powerful than another.

[1] https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-ne...

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by sillysaurusx on Thursday June 01, 2023 @08:47PM (#36159429)
Suppose OpenAI were an evil organization. What incentive do they have to lie about GPT-4 being static?
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by sundarurfriend on Thursday June 01, 2023 @09:23PM (#36159701)
They don't have to be "evil". They have incentive to want to spend less on compute, but also to not let people know that they are reducing the compute per call.
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by ignoramous on Thursday June 01, 2023 @08:52PM (#36159461)
Like any for-profit: lower loss / higher gain?
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by lmm on Thursday June 01, 2023 @09:54PM (#36159919)
Keep competitors in the dark, keep money flowing in, dismiss all the complaints and lawsuits that could come from their changes, dominate the ongoing discussions about AI regulation (if outsiders can't even tell whether the model is changing or not, who would listen to them?).
Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by TeMPOraL on Thursday June 01, 2023 @09:02PM (#36159536)
> It's no coincidence the flat-fee service is visibly crippled, while per-request API users are not reporting any difference. (edited)

FWIW, I am a per-request API user, and... it could be my imagination, but I've had a rather clear feeling GPT-4 got much more lazy out of the sudden, both on OpenAI platform and on Azure, and it fits the timeframe of the recent compaints... so, n=1, make of it what you will.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by rl3 on Thursday June 01, 2023 @09:14PM (#36159619)
>You can literally see this reflected in the logs they forced retention of.

Poetry.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by chillfox on Thursday June 01, 2023 @09:31PM (#36159777)
I haven't noticed any degradation or unwillingness to correct errors in the paid web version, but I have noticed an increase of prefixing most output with some variation of "it's a complex issue..."

Edit: Having recently gotten access to plugins and the browsing mode, I have noticed that the quality of the response is better when not using either.

Re:OpenAI Employee: GPT-4 hasn't gotten worse since March by runeb on Friday June 02, 2023 @10:48AM (#36165853)
> It's no coincidence the flat-fee service is visibly crippled, while per-request API users are not reporting any difference. (edited)

If the model (gpt4) is unchanged, but they tweaked their system prompt for it on the chat interface, this is what you would see.