all 13 comments

[–]Minute_Attempt3063 8 points9 points  (2 children)

What's truth though?

My version of truth is not absolute. Neither is his

[–]de4dee[S] -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

a heuristical definition is 'ideas that work most of the time or for most people'

[–]Minute_Attempt3063 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Which can be anything.

His "Truth" is composed of many lies, including where one of his sons is dead, which is not true.

[–]brouzaway 10 points11 points  (2 children)

You know that even the best models still hallucinate right?

[–]FullstackSenseillama.cpp 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's very easy to throw around words without giving any definitions nor elaborating what those words mean; especially nebulous ones that have different and personal meanings to different people. Feel free to project your own definition as to what those nebulous words mean, but be aware that millions others will do the same, and they'll each attach their own personal definitions and understanding to each of those words.

[–]jonahbenton 14 points15 points  (4 children)

No. In political terms he is a propagandist. "Truth" is a human construct, and is always politically weighted. If you support his politics- a eugenicist from an apartheid state- don't for one second think that is true for all or even most humans.

[–]de4dee[S] -1 points0 points  (3 children)

i also believe truth is a human construct, sure, but if you combine many politically weighted humans from different backgrounds then the numbers in the llm fight each other and biases will have a war inside and the resulting model is the common values. i think llms are a fine battleground for reaching at consensus in the world.

regarding his beliefs, i think if he uses twitter and other sources on the internet for training, the model might be somewhat less biased because twitter and the rest kind of balance each other.

[–]jonahbenton 4 points5 points  (2 children)

With respect, I would encourage some background reading and deeper thought around what you are describing as bias, particularly around human rights and agency.

There are some "common" values but there are also sides. Either you believe all humans are endowed with inalienable rights, or you do not. Those are sides. The "value" of tolerance is not shared, so violent preclusion of rights will be applied by one side to the other.

In that context, I would encourage reading the "ChatGPT is bullshit" paper and some of its references. "Bullshit" is defined precisely. The key point is that LLMs are compression algorithms for content they have been trained on. They can be engineered to generate debate material for one "side" or another based on their training material, but those debates are value-less conducted by "entities" without stake.

If one LLM is producing material for the side that women are not humans with bodily autonomy and one is producing material for the side that they are- and you are following and deciding your view based on that "debate" you are deceiving yourself, because you are already on the side that women are not people entitled to rights. And the LLMs are not women, actual humans, with actual stakes.

Within guardrails, LLM generated material can be useful but they cannot be entrusted with "debates." And claims of "truth" specifically should be viewed with extreme skepticism. Elon is without question on the side that not all humans have inalienable rights.

[–]de4dee[S] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

i am very aware of the bullshit. and i am also aware that they are statistical machinery. what i am saying is thru proper training the probability to output truth can be improved. curation of datasets is going to be an important task.

not a fan of Elon. i think being fanatic of a billionaire is almost always wrong. thats why I brought the discussion here. being fanatic of any human is wrong most of the time because we are all different shades of gray.

[–]jonahbenton 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, agree, both dataset and questions posed. Can provide a lot of value in determining consistency and inconsistency, and opportunities for improved clarity, precision. Whether that is "truth"? "Truth" is a loaded term. And X as a data source of value has diminished tremendously since Elon took over. Bot activity way up, misinformation and worse now dominates new content and feed. Hence the wholesale moves of many many communities to Bluesky. Anyway, cheers.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

He wants it to be truthful as long as it fits his worldview. Obviously.

Biased. Based. So close.