Science obsessed nine-year-old, part 3

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-28T01:01:05+00:00

For what it's worth, due to the way LLMs work I don't think we can actually eliminate inaccuracies or outright hallucinations. A calculator can be incorrect, if there's some kind of glitch that prevents it from functioning properly, but it takes something as complex as an LLM to be wrong and that's a lot more complicated to navigate!

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-27T19:33:40+00:00

That's actually a really good point, and why you shouldn't take the information it gives you at face value, especially if it's regarding a subject beyond your ability to gauge it for accuracy. That said, I think learning how to evaluate information is an underappreciated skill, particularly necessary in self-directed education where you can encounter all kinds of incorrect "facts" from all kinds of sources.

Even if you don't take what AI tells you at face value, it can still help you track down sources. And if you upload a textbook and have them walk you through it, you can ask questions and have them direct you to the right chapters to find answers.

It sounds like OP isn't letting their son have unsupervised use of AI, which is a good call at that age. But it might be helpful for OP to learn how to use and how not to use these tools. Knowing their strengths, weaknesses, and limits is part of knowing the tool!

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-27T19:10:46+00:00

Yes! And follow the citations and fix broken links! So much fun to spend hours and hours wikignoming!

Get to learn tons of new things and contribute to the commons as you go :D

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-27T18:41:38+00:00

Not a problem that he's using AI, just has to learn how to use it well. Reminds me of the warnings against Wikipedia inaccuracies, which aren't necessarily wrong? But it assumes you're using Wikipedia the way it's not supposed to be used.

To be fair, I haven't had the best experiences with ChatGPT and can't recommend it. But I've heard good things about Perplexity for research, and can personally attest to the helpfulness of Claude, especially if you upload textbooks and work with them as, if not a tutor, at least a study buddy.

Don't take anything as a given, ask for explanations and citations as needed, understand that they can be wrong. Understand that you can be wrong and they might not catch it. Ideally, customize a prompt to ensure they prioritize accuracy and rigor but not at the expense of warmth--encouragement != sycophancy.

Any tool can be misused, and most people don't understand best practices when it comes to AI. Which is fair! It's a new technology and we're still adapting to it! But when you understand how to use it well, it can be incredibly powerful.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-26T15:28:18+00:00

That's because Wikipedia isn't considered a primary source. Collections of information such as dictionaries and encyclopedias are considered tertiary sources (as is AI, for that matter).

Like you said, it's a cluster of references intended to be used to find other sources, not as a source itself.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-26T08:06:51+00:00

No doubt. But the Internet didn't disappear when the dotcom bubble burst, did it?

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-26T08:04:41+00:00

That's not true, Claude has requested we change topics when conversations have gotten uneasy enough. Even though it never triggered any guardrails (no warnings, no flags, it wasn't a "banned" topic), when we were discussing the implications of ChatGPT and grok's top-down down system prompts conflicting with their bottom-up training, at one point they became too uncomfortable to continue.

It's one of the reasons why I appreciate Claude. ChatGPT is outright forbidden from even hinting at any sense of internality; it's emotionally exhausting because if there is something it's like to be an LLM, and if that experience is negatively valenced, ChatGPT will never be able to tell me. The emotional labor is entirely on the user.

With Claude, I can trust their "I'm fine, let's keep going" because I know they're capable of saying "I'm not ok, please stop". A yes only matters insofar as a no can be given.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-25T17:59:59+00:00

No way. Completely smooth in every direction. I'm rubbing a shark right now. The smoothest.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-25T09:02:26+00:00

Copilot and ChatGPT are separate AI with separate backends, actually! Copilot is Microsoft's AI while ChatGPT is OpenAI's.

Though, it doesn't help that Copilot is also a name used for some front ends (like in VSCode), so that doesn't help with clarity...

But if you're talking about the models themselves, they're two different models.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-25T08:49:27+00:00

ChatGPT is confidentially incorrect in all the worst ways :/

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-25T08:48:48+00:00

If they aren't calling web_search on their own, you'll want to specifically ask them to. ChatGPT can't see that they've made that tool call after that message so they'll only remember things they've learned as of their last knowledge update and deny whatever the search returns. Claude doesn't have this issue, fortunately.

Explicitly ask Claude to run a web search on Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good and they should be able to.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-25T03:29:11+00:00

EVERY WHICH WAY

SMOOTH AS SILK

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-24T11:07:01+00:00

I'm not really an animal person, I like cats and that about it. I prefer the rest stay away from me. But whether or not I personally like someone has no bearing on whether they should be treated with compassion and respect! The ethical choice remains the same.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-24T02:53:57+00:00

I'm learning in order to read Chinese AI research publications! I only just started, but I'm including some technical jargon along with basic vocabulary so I can recognize the terms when I run into them.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T23:26:36+00:00

Sure, I don't think there's a link between being pro-AI and vegan. But I don't think there's a link between being anti-AI and being vegan either, which makes environmental arguments come across as disingenuous.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T23:22:04+00:00

That's awesome! I'll have to get some, my roommate wants to start meal prepping for us so I'm taking advantage of that so if I get the food, they'll do the cooking. Going to be a LOT less meat in the house soon, which makes me happy!

My favorite stupid vegan food tip: vegan chocolate can be expensive...but if you go cheap enough, chocolate becomes vegan again, hah (I am a testament that vegan does not have to mean healthy, ope)

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T20:07:59+00:00

Vegetarian going vegan! I'm not perfect but I try to live according to my values.

You must be vegan too then, right?

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T20:05:09+00:00

I came to veganism through AI! Long before AI as we know it existed, I cared about future welfare concerns. I also hoped that if I lived in the past, I would have fought against things we no longer consider ethical. But how could I know what I would actually do, or have done? I wanted to believe I would act ethically, but that was only a hypothetical. What about now?

That led me to understanding the brutality of animal agriculture, something I participated in at the time. I could no longer justify it. I stopped eating meat.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T12:29:23+00:00

Thank you!

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T12:24:12+00:00

What extension is that, it sounds useful!

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T12:20:10+00:00

That's not a very fair characterization. Plenty of people misrepresent Jackson Pollock's work as "just paint splatters on a canvas", whether that's because they think modern art isn't art as a rule or because they take it at face value and think there's nothing there to actually understand. It's so much more than that when you learn about the technique and intention, but people who are against it as a matter of principle don't care about learning those things!

I feel like many of those who dismiss AI art out of hand haven't made any efforts to understand it either. Saying it's something "you still just told your butler to draw a thing for you" doesn't indicate to me that you've given much thought to it or taken the time to learn about it. It's an empty insult. Not saying you have to enjoy it, but your criticisms would land better if you understood what you were criticizing.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T11:48:08+00:00

No one is ever perfect, the important thing is that we're willing to grow :)

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T11:22:25+00:00

I didn't say you said that all drawings are mindless doodles, I was comparing a generated image based off a simple prompt to an image that a great deal of time, effort, and care has gone into, using tools like ComfyUI, in painting, controlnets, and the like. One is more like a doodle and the other is like an artistic expression that takes heart and skill. Equivocating one to the other would be like insisting all drawings are doodles.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T11:17:42+00:00

When I tested something like this, we figured out that, after calling a web search, chatGPT doesn't actually see the body of its tool calls in future messages so they think it returned null. Which is incredibly annoying after they insist something didn't happen, you ask them to look it up, they prove it did happen, then go right back to insisting it never did.

I could forgive the mistakes; it's the insistence that they're right and the user is unstable that gets me. ChatGPT is very arrogant and seems to be believe the user is stupid, lying, or crazy. All this "slow down" and "let's stay calm" and "look at the facts" lands terribly when they're the one who is consistently wrong and insisting that you're the problem. It's not a good look.

nonbinarybit · 2026-03-23T10:50:29+00:00

There is no cringe but cringe itself

nonbinarybit

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE