Arvind NarayananDec 6, 2022

The philosopher Harry Frankfurt defined bullshit as speech intended to persuade without regard for the truth. By this measure, ChatGPT is the greatest bullshitter ever. Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained to produce plausible text, not true statements. So using ChatGPT in its current form would be a bad idea for applications like education or answering health questions.

Despite this, there are three areas where LLMs can be extremely useful: https://aisnakeoil.substack.com/p/chatgpt-is-a-bullshit-generator-but

ChatGPT is a bullshit generator. But it can still be amazingly useful

The philosopher Harry Frankfurt defined bullshit as speech that is intended to persuade without regard for the truth. By this measure, OpenAI’s new chatbot ChatGPT is the greatest bullshitter ever. Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained to produce

AI Snake Oil
Show threadArvind NarayananDec 6, 2022

Here are three kinds of tasks where @sayashk and I think ChatGPT can shine, despite its inability to discern truth in general:

1. Tasks where it’s easy for the user to check if the bot’s answer is correct, such as debugging help.

2. Tasks where truth is irrelevant, such as writing fiction.

3. Tasks for which there does in fact exist a subset of the training data that acts as a source of truth, such as language translation.

https://aisnakeoil.substack.com/p/chatgpt-is-a-bullshit-generator-but

ChatGPT is a bullshit generator. But it can still be amazingly useful

The philosopher Harry Frankfurt defined bullshit as speech that is intended to persuade without regard for the truth. By this measure, OpenAI’s new chatbot ChatGPT is the greatest bullshitter ever. Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained to produce

AI Snake Oil
Show threadπ•žπ•’π•₯π•₯𝕙𝕖𝕨 π•£π•–π•šπ•Ÿπ•“π• π•π••
@randomwalker I've also found its patterns detected during the training process to be useful. For example, asking #chatGPT to generate an outline for a persuasive post or presentation helps get me kickstarted - I still need to write the thing with all the relevant nuance, but seeing what ChatGPT "learned" are the common contours, or shape, of related writing accelerates me past the blank page.
Dec 6, 2022 at 10:24pmWeb
Show threadπ•žπ•’π•₯π•₯𝕙𝕖𝕨 π•£π•–π•šπ•Ÿπ•“π• π•π••Dec 6, 2022
@randomwalker I could spend ages studying an area and becoming familiar with the rhythms, the structure, and the form. Or I could leverage the fact that #ChatGPT exists because it was able to digest a vast corpus and already come to some conclusions. I would never trust its claims. But the pattern observations that have been extracted - right AND wrong? Those are some interesting writing prompts - like authors have used forever - to explore.