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. FaelanMar 11

@MissConstrue Are you a chatbot sycophanting me up?  

These days, one can never be too cautious.

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 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 threadclew

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

Mar 14 at 6:07pmWeb