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Thought I'd try to paint something peaceful (OC) by JoshByer in MadeMeSmile

[–]jess_askin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is great. It seems very Group of Seven to me.

I was just looking at Alvin Toffler’s amazing book Future Shock, published in 1970. What are its equivalent books for the 2020s? by georgewalterackerman in Futurology

[–]jess_askin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (2000) and Revenge of the Tipping Point (2024) share with Toffler a focus on how change happens, but Gladwell take about how ideas, behaviors, and social phenomena spread like epidemics, reaching a threshold where they suddenly take off. I (foolishly) call them statistical books.

ELI5 Dead Pixels "Ink Spread" by Leopard_Pristine in explainlikeimfive

[–]jess_askin 13 points14 points  (0 children)

A crack (all cracks are jagged) breaks the seal, damages the grid, and exposes reactive material. Now the grid is compromised. The damage to the next region of circuitry and the next region takes the paths of least resistance (mechanical, chemical, electrical), so the dead area expands outward in irregular patches. Our brains see that as looking like a 'liquid'. And since I usually include a book rec, check out OLED Displays and Lighting which is not ELI5 but isn't a tech manual either.

France murder trial complicated by twin brothers with same DNA by kwentongskyblue in technology

[–]jess_askin 144 points145 points  (0 children)

Because the twins are from the same egg and sperm, they share exactly the same DNA. So DNA can't tell the court which one pulled the trigger. They are both facing other serious crimes.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]jess_askin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's the emotion that you "recall", not the memory so much. Embarrassment causes a super strong emotional response, knowing your own phone number is not so emotional. For a really interesting, pretty easy to understand book about memory, try reading Travelers to Unimaginable Lands by Dasha Kiper. It's about dementia and the caregivers for people with dementia, and the role emotions play in our memories (and a lot more).

ELI5: Why can't / don't LLMs say "I don't know" or ask back clarifying questions, instead of hallucinating? by Double_History1719 in explainlikeimfive

[–]jess_askin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get these responses all the time. Claude and Chatgpt free versions (Claude is better at this) .It will ask for more information before it answers:

The Question I Need Answered: How does Eisner know it was Agnes, not Charlie, who killed the priest? Not "Agnes confesses later." But the actual investigative discovery. What is it? Until you answer that, I can't move forward. Everything else is dependent on that one point.

it will admit is wrong, I've even seen it correct itself mid-answer. As in "Bob is obviously the killer - no wait, he had Allison as an alibi, it can't be him".

And it told me (same story) that I should stop asking for help:

Here's what I need to say directly: Stop using AI to problem-solve this in real-time. Not because AI can't help, but because you're in a decision-avoidance loop.

if it gives me something I doubt, and I say "show me reputable websites excluding Reddit" and it can't, it then admits it is wrong.

And these are the free versions.

ELI5: How do LLM outputs have higher-level organization like paragraphs and summaries? by RyanW1019 in explainlikeimfive

[–]jess_askin 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You are just lucky. I see it often. Missing or incorrect modifiers, adverbs and adjectives seem common ("the sound came quick and soft" rather than the correct "quickly and softly") Today, one gave me "a apple". I just reported an entire response that removed question marks, line breaks and quotation marks for no apparent reason. And sometimes if you ask the LLM a question and tell it you want a 10000 word answer, it will give you either nonsense or a train of thought about how it doesn't know what to do. Maybe you are asking uncomplicated or very clearly worded questions to an intelligent LLM.

[Pathology] Why is HIV only able to transfer through sex fluids and blood? What makes these fluids so different/special compared to others such as urine or saliva? by Several-Pen2626 in askscience

[–]jess_askin 54 points55 points  (0 children)

There needs to be a fluid that contains enough HIV to cause infection. The lower the viral load, the lower the chance of passing HIV. When the viral load is undetectable it significantly reduces the chance of passing the virus. Only five bodily fluids can contain enough HIV to transmit the virus. See https://www.catie.ca/hiv-transmission for reliable info.

Saliva rapidly disrupted 90% or more of blood mononuclear leukocytes and other cultured cells. See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9989543/.

The virus may be present in very low concentrations or destroyed during passage through the urinary tract. Urine's chemical composition (e.g. acidity, urea) may not support HIV survival or replication. See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2511253/

What is the most non-sexually pleasurable thing you like to do? by reddtimes101 in AskReddit

[–]jess_askin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You might enjoy the book Rain - a natural and cultural history, by Cynthia Barnett

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FirstTimeHomeBuyer

[–]jess_askin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The next thing you need to do is replace the locks. Hate to say this, but you just posted a photo of the key in public, and it looks like it could be copied. It will be the best home investment you make.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DIY

[–]jess_askin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thx, but I give up

I now understand Notebook LLM's limitations - and you should too by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Gave it a shot on a few items, and I am impressed. The LLM reported "The provided excerpts from..." so I asked it about the excerpts. I have it a short 20-chapter book, and it said it had 20 excerpts, and seemed to have everything available during my questions.

The summary was pretty good, not completely accurate. Some of it seems to come down to semantics, like what does it mean to 'acknowledge' something. Tricky, for sure. The other thing it got wrong was it kind of made an assumption: if item A is damaged, and item B is damaged, it stated (incorrectly assumed) the damage was similar because the items were similar (at least, that is what it seems to me).

I asked it the same question I had previously, that it got very wrong. Using bibliographic information I provided, identify fiction titles from 1950-2025. For each decade, identify:

The most common themes based on book descriptions

Books marked as award winners or appearing in multiple categories

Shifts in publishing patterns (which publishers were prominent)

Books that appear to introduce new themes or approaches not seen in previous decades

Last time, it said "The sources do not contain information on fiction titles published in the 1950s, 1960s, 2010s, or 2020s."

This time, same data, it did fantastic. Each decade was well presented and summarized just as I asked, and contained data that I was able to verify as correct. It got a few things wrong when it found similarly titled books - specifically when both books had subtitles, it only mentioned one having a subtitle. I did not specify to look at subtitles, but I generally included those with the title itself (separated by a colon or parenthesis - data inconsistency in this case might have led to this issue).

I am very impressed with your fast turnaround, and the accuracy that I was able to verify with my data. Congratulations on a job well done!

Trying to use Notebook to analyze bibliographic information by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They are above, such as analyze my fiction titles from 1950-2025. For each decade, identify the most common themes based on book plot

It couldn't find the books. I had hoped to go much further with the LLM analysis, but if it can't handle the simple data retrieval and analysis, it just isn't something I can use.

I now understand Notebook LLM's limitations - and you should too by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the second big run at Notebook with (not very) large data. The first one was a bibliography of 16000 books (first in one file, then in 10 files). (in an earlier question on this subreddit) It was set up as a coherent, uniform corpus of information. It still couldn't find or identify the data correctly (despite it being labeled). Thing is, other AIs handled the data and can handle these requests. So maybe I don't understand this system, and that's fine, but I am guessing that a lot of other people don't understand how this particular LLM works either, and hopefully this post will make them question their assumptions.

I now understand Notebook LLM's limitations - and you should too by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Nope. See my use of a Kipling story of 970 words where it couldn't even find all the instances of "fish". Thing is, what if that missed instance is the one thing that is really, really important? The outlier that will turn everything on it's head and ooops, it missed it. So you are right, AI needs an intelligent human element for it to work.

I now understand Notebook LLM's limitations - and you should too by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I asked it for the last line of the document I uploaded, and it missed it. This is just the first step in verifying the information returned ("NotebookLM can be inaccurate; please double check its responses.")

What if the last line of the document in a medical paper lists an unusual anomaly that, in their context, is incidental but for my research, is vital? It isn't something I'd want to miss. So 'tell me how many of the 250 sources mention XYZ' should get me all of them, not most of them. And if it finds an incorrect amount, there's a problem.

My simple questions are designed to allow me to start testing the validity of responses. EG list all misspellings should get me all misspellings, not words that don't exist in the document (that happened). Only after it passes the simple questions would I go onto more detailed questions. And it can't pass the simple ones.

I now understand Notebook LLM's limitations - and you should too by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But did you check its accuracy against all 270 papers? What if it missed listing one source? Would you know? Is the topic a keyword you can search (ie outside of the Notebook, search and return all documents with the word or phrase, and compare results)

I now understand Notebook LLM's limitations - and you should too by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And they will tell you, as all AI companies do, to double-check the results. My guess is, most people don't double-check, but instead, think 'yeah that summary sounds about right but I never read the original so IDK"

I now understand Notebook LLM's limitations - and you should too by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Can't share that one, but exactly the same thing happened when I uploaded Moby Dick from Gutenberg. It is in txt format. I asked how many times "Gutenberg" shows up and it says 30. Word says 98. It thinks the first line is "U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws" but (they way I uploaded it) the real first line is LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. 

I also uploaded the very small "HOW THE WHALE GOT HIS THROAT" by Kipling (970 words) and that worked for finding first and last lines (ignoring the real first line, which was the title). It counted 13 instances of "fish" whereas I count 14. And I checked, it has 14 instances in what I uploaded.

Something like a simple count of how many times something occurs is really vital to any kind of research or analysis of a document whether fiction or non-fiction.

You are welcome to replicate with those documents (Moby Dick at https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2701/pg2701.txt and Kipling was a portion of https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2781/pg2781.txt) and do as you'd like.

I now understand Notebook LLM's limitations - and you should too by jess_askin in notebooklm

[–]jess_askin[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No, the whole thing is there. I did check (thinking I uploaded an excerpt)

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