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Alistair K

@jonny so ... how did one become a code debugger, yet somehow come under the impression that ChatGPT isn't a LLM?

There seems to be an interesting story to uncover there. It genuinely intrigues me that a programmer would think that an LLM evaluates code for you, or that it isn't a LLM.

If we could figure out why a programmer thinks like that, maybe we could find a clue that'll help to rescue the rest of us.

31 Oct 2023 at 3:46 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mastodon.nz
6 comments
jonny (good kind)
Alistair K

@jonny It is indeed reasonable! But somehow the illusion is outweighing the facts about how LLMs work internally.

I've been concerned that much of the debunking is also targetted not at the LLM, but at the anthromorphism – I have colleagues who warn about how it "hallucinates" and "fabricates" and "lies", for instance. But it's not capable of any of that in the usual meanings of those words. And thus I worry that their language choices are making the problem worse.

31 Oct 2023 at 3:59 | Open on mastodon.nz
jonny (good kind)

@libroraptor
I asked them about this! They do indeed see it as a tool, and thought it was doing a semantic code analysis, not running it per se, but something like static code analysis. Which again is I think reasonable because their IDE was showing tooltips with the value of the variable, at least the initial assignment, so why wouldnt the chatbot be able to do that?

31 Oct 2023 at 4:07 | Open on neuromatch.social
Alistair K

@jonny I think that it's a brilliant tool. (And my colleagues do not like me to say this.)

But what does your programmer think LLMs do?

I offered a different conceptualisation to my colleagues by giving them Markov chains to play with, but they seemed to think even random prose generators were still creative, thinking agents, albeit of a less intelligent form.

I've been finding also that hardly anyone who complains about AI knows what a huge class of things it is. Language is troubling.

31 Oct 2023 at 4:13 | Open on mastodon.nz
Bornach
David Gerard

@libroraptor @jonny the term "artificial intelligence" has been marketing jargon since it was coined in 1954, it's never referred to any specific technology - it's selling the dream of your plastic pal who's fun to be with, especially when you don't have to pay him

31 Oct 2023 at 9:09 | Open on circumstances.run
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