Openai ChatGPT

[TDub49]

Another bit of software designed to dumb down the human race . . . .

 

[Guigsy]

Another bit of software designed to dumb down the human race . . . .

Making it easier for people to access information does not make them dumber. Stupid people are just as good at making poor decisions regardless as to how much information they have.

 

[Barriesimpson]

Back to Barriesimpson ’s initial question and maybe a little about chaser ’s too.

ChatGPT and other similar systems are “large language models” they ingest large amounts of text and build a statistical model of how text is put together. When you ask them a question they generate a “likely response”. A simplistic example “how do i drive from birmingham to manchester” a very likely response is “go up the M6” because the internet is full of answers like this. ChatGPT is actually working at a lower level than this using sub words and iterating over its partial answer but it’s useful to think of it like this.

That means they’re very good at some things but they have real weaknesses: specifically they don’t “understand” the world or what they’re saying. Worse they do sound very fluent and confident so it’s easy to mistake them for intelligence; the AI branding doesn’t help either :-(

So, they are useful and generally right but they do make things up (also known as hallucinating) and when they do, they sound very confident and believable. These hallucinations tend to be in things like the titles of scientific papers but also real world distances etc. “Aire de Alicante” is a perfect example of this.

They also get confused and regurgitate internet memes as fact because those memes are repeated a lot on the internet (e.g. use glue to keep cheese on a pizza).

So, they’re a good starting point for route planning but they don’t “understand” distance and traffic etc in the same was as Garmin and Google maps do. They do have a good chance of spitting out good campsites and tourist attractions because Google maps data and probably MHF were used to build their statistical model.

An excellent explanation, thank you Jane And Rog. I will bear this in mind when finally planning our trip.

 

[Gromett]

Are you sure that’s correct?

More changes to the board.

OpenAI board shakeup: Microsoft out, Apple backs away amid AI partnership scrutiny

Microsoft gives up non-voting observer board role; Apple rethinks a planned similar position.

arstechnica.com