I wish I was as bold as these authors.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/18077383

Science Memes @mander.xyz

jupyter_rain @discuss.tchncs.de

7mo ago

I wish I was as bold as these authors.

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39 comments

Oddly, "bullshit" qualifies as a technical term in this context. The authors argue that chatgpt (and similar systems) emit bullshit.
They don't lie or hallucinate because they don't know or believe anything. It's all just text modeling.
The focus in this type of AI is to produce text that looks convincing, but it doesn't have any concept of truth/falsehood, fact or fiction.
When this is the way someone talks, we say that they're bullshitting us. So it is with chatgpt.

Plot twist. They used ChatGPT to write it -- The article is a confession

I wish I was as bold as these authors.

- Let's hope it's extra bold. The last one was decidedly UNBOLD.

I love the term too but I wonder how it'll be used in situations where profanity is discouraged
- What are those situations?
  
  Educating children about LLMs for the most part. There are also religious institutions that would like to be informed about LLMs as well
- I couldn't care less about places in which profanity is discouraged.
  If you're going to be disrespectful, you'll be so regardless of language.
  For instance:
  "You suck donkey balls"
  vs.
  (And bear in mind that I don't use this term!)
  "You're mentally retarded"
  No profanity in the second one. And yet, I'd feel like punching the person's face who would say the second one to me. Not because someone would say that to me, but because I find the use of the label offensive in general.
  So, fuck it.
  
  If you want to get technical, only saying things like "Jesus Christ" as a statement of exasperation are profanities, because they are supposed to disrespect sacred things, but I think these days, we could consider the profane to be the disrespectful. In which case, I would say that the R-word is a profanity, for the same reason the N-word is a profanity.
  
  You make a good point about the potential for harm in all types of language, regardless of whether it's considered 'profanity' or not. I also agree that intent and impact matter more than the specific words used.
  At the same time, I'm curious about how this relates to words like 'bullshit' in different social contexts. Do you think there are still situations where using 'bullshit' might be seen as more or less appropriate, even if we agree that any word can potentially cause harm?

That's not bold. Just a limited vocabulary.
- I'm so sick of people like you. "Oh, they may be right but they were a bit rude. So I'm going to pretend that they are wrong". Go fuck yourself if you have nothing useful to contribute. This is just a tactic trolls use in the internet to distract people, and people keep falling for it.
  Plus if you actually read the article you would know that they are referencing an academic definition of bullshit. So go fuck yourself twice, you didn't even bother to read before declaring your incredible moral superiority. You are just a clown.
  
  Let me say this slowly for you, so you can maybe understand. I wasn't criticizing the point in the original article. I was criticizing the OP who said it was "bold."
  Now, run along and argue with someone more your speed. Try 5th graders.
- The article uses the academically and philosophically defined term "bullshit." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit
  And I'm not bullshitting, the authors mention it in the abstract.
- Your comment is a sign of limited vocabulary, because you pretty much used words that everyone uses.
  (See how your argument holds no water?)
  
  I wasn't trying to be an academic edgelord.
  You have no valid point. You're trying to discredit my point by pointlessly picking on my choice of words. I was discrediting the categorizing of the method used to make it.
- Not calling something bullshit when it's bullshit is itself an example of bullshit.

39 comments