Charlie StrossJan 16

LLMs are spam generators. That is all.

They're designed to generate plausibly human-like text well enough to pass a generic Turing Test. That's why people believe they're "intelligent".

But really, all they are is spam generators.

We have hit the spamularity.

Show threadTalinJan 16
@cstross LLMs are replacing every aspect of civilization - institutions, process knowledge, organizational competence - with civilization fan-fiction.
Show threadTalin
@cstross Put another way: LLMs have revealed a zero-day exploit in human consciousness and culture: if you can manufacture plausibility at scale, you can bypass all of the accumulated wisdom of centuries of skepticism and critical thinking. Any fact-using profession is potentially vulnerable to this attack.
Jan 16 at 8:22pmWeb
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️Jan 16

@talin @cstross

we already had that, with the so-called "gish gallop"; this is, however, a way to automate bad-faith horseshit at scale.

this requires new patterns by those of us trying to uphold reality; reactionary argumentation doesn't work when the other side is able to out-scale your ability to respond.

I've found that taking control of the conversation by saying their arguments are based on faulty premises and reaffirming some aspect of reality that undermines their class of arguments is reasonably successful.

Show threadOlivier Roux (moose)Jan 16
@talin @cstross not a first for LLMs/AI, seems like the MAGA movement achieved the same ages ago. With no trace of Intelligence, artificial or not.
Show threadKerr Avonsen (she/her)Jan 17
@otolithe @talin @cstross
IMHO, the reason why MAGA are so gullible is because they already believed conspiracy theories about Democrats. Once someone believes a conspiracy theory, they will believe ANYTHING (so long as it confirms their bias).
Show threadLandurologe 🔬🚲Jan 16
@talin 🏆
Show threaddr_barnowlJan 16

@talin @cstross

Another thing that Douglas Adams invented but we don't actually want (along with GPP : Genuine People Personalities™)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/dirkgently/gordon_way.shtml

BBC Radio 4 - Comedy - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Gordon Way

Douglas Adams' comic criminologist comes to Radio 4 in this six part series, starting 3rd October 2007.

Show threadCarl MuckenhouptJan 16
@dr_barnowl @talin @cstross That was a quite confusing thing to read, knowing about the real WayForward Technologies, a video game company best known for the Shantae series. I wonder if the real company was named after the fictional one? They both seem to have had founders named Way.