Riley S. FaelanMar 11

The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.

A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.

This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.

Show threadMissConstrueMar 11
@riley That is such a brilliantly clear analogy.
Show threadRiley S. Faelan

@MissConstrue Are you a chatbot sycophanting me up?  

These days, one can never be too cautious.

Mar 11 at 8:51amWeb
Show threadbdf2121cc3334b35b6ecda66e471Mar 11
@riley @MissConstrue I am not a bot. Please don't look at my name.
Show threadMissConstrueMar 11

@bdf2121cc3334b35b6ecda66e471 @riley
01001001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101

;)

Show threadCaptain ButtonMar 11

@riley @MissConstrue

Are you very concerned that a chatbot sycophanting you up?

Show threadRiley S. FaelanMar 11

@cptbutton Tell me about your parent directory.

</eliza>

@MissConstrue

Show threadMissConstrueMar 11
@riley @cptbutton I never really knew my root...
Show threadMissConstrueMar 11

@riley Thats a very good question and you are so clever to think of it, I’d be happy to drill down on this topic for you.

Heh, sorry. Not a chatbot. Old philosopher, so...like a chatbot, only caffeine powered, argumentative and capable of consciousness. (Or at least, I would argue I’m conscious.) I honestly did believe it was a very illustrative analogy. Most people will parrot the clock paradigm; ie right twice a day, when you are correct that the underlying logic of the premise is faulty, and therefore any attempt to treat it as true will fail.

Show threadRiley S. FaelanMar 11
@MissConstrue There's an interesting pattern to a large number of these faults, but I guess it'll be a topic for another day.
Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKMar 11

@riley @MissConstrue

I was thinking of some equipment I saw at a "Telekom-Museum" in Germany - it contained a clock but wasn't always powered on (or was just a display piece)

The Germans had quite sensibly put a diagonal strip of red tape (in the style of the "Universal No" symbol) across the clock face, so you knew it was *not* a timepiece to be trusted..

Show threadRiley S. FaelanMar 11

@vfrmedia In aviation, the process is standardised by way of the INOP stickers.

@MissConstrue

Show threadcontrasocialMar 11

@MissConstrue @riley

In the interest of pedantry (not in defending LLMs), if a person doesn't know what time it is, and doesn't know the clock is broken, and happens to check it at the exact right time they now know what time it is, no?

Show threadMissConstrueMar 11
@contrasocial @riley They may, but that still doesn’t make the clock correct. Truth can be derived from false premise, logically speaking, ie symbolic, but, and this is the important bit, it does not make the false premise true.
Show threadcontrasocialMar 11

@MissConstrue @riley

Right, the premise that the clock will be correct when looked at is false regardless of the truth of what time it is. Makes sense.

Show threadMichael WeissMar 12
@MissConstrue @contrasocial @riley this is something I harp on frequently. If you're right for the wrong reasons, it's worse than being wrong. You got there by coincidence, but now you believe you know how to get there. That makes you far more dangerous than someone who simply doesn't know.
Show threadRiley S. FaelanMar 12

@contrasocial No. You're trying to construct a stack of an even number of errors, but there's other even numbers than zero.

@MissConstrue

Show threadKirMar 13

@contrasocial @MissConstrue @riley

He does not.
Say you roll a dice, and ask me to guess which number went up.
I say 5, and I don't KNOW it's 5. If it actually ends up being 5, that does not mean I knew that.
My guess was correct, but it was not knowledge.

Knowledge is based on the robustness of the premises and the logical path built on them.

Show threadclewMar 14

Joyously following up on the pedantry; the definition of knowledge I like best is _justified true belief_. This person doesn’t have justification though they think they do.

Our justification is often shakier than we’d like!

@contrasocial @MissConstrue @riley

Show threadChookMother 🇦🇺🦘Mar 15
@contrasocial @MissConstrue @riley Yes but only in the sense that you can pick the "right" number in a lottery. A co-incidence is not knowledge.
Show threadAndii אַנדִֽיMar 16
@MissConstrue @riley
There is a sense in which it is right bidiurnally, the issue is that without an independent corroboration, a viewer has no way to know when is one of those two times. And why would you bother?
Interesting to consider also the case of my watch which gains time over a month or so. It is never right but is more useful because it is close enough for most purposes and I can make allowance for its growing inaccuracy.
Show threadMissConstrueMar 16
@Andii Mostly unrelated, and definitely anecdotal; I love watches. Adore them. Analog, filled with gears and things that go around, watches. I'm common, so most of my watches have been inexpensive tat, but I inherited a very good one. And I've discovered that no matter the quality of the timepiece, they will react oddly when I wear them. They will randomly speed up or go backwards. Literally backwards. I've not worn a digital one, so I can't speak to them, but something about me makes watches go haywire. Strangest damn thing.
Show threadTobias MockMar 12
@riley @MissConstrue You're absolutely right!