Post ASqe745OcsQ1oLEska by scott_bot@hcommons.social
 (DIR) More posts by scott_bot@hcommons.social
 (DIR) Post #ASqVI3mJDC2sSDTlYW by benmschmidt@vis.social
       2023-02-19T18:33:30Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       Post trying to think through how chat bots may be smart, but (so?) it’s hard to remember they’re not the LLM—they’re just fictional characters it writes. https://benschmidt.org/post/2023-02-19-sydney/
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqValBCaJcCH32VlY by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
       2023-02-19T18:40:33Z
       
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       @benmschmidt This image is not making precisely your point (if it were, there would be more than one face) but I can't resist adding anthrupad's Shoggoth as an illustration.
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqVx1OMzK7UvVoVsm by benmschmidt@vis.social
       2023-02-19T18:44:34Z
       
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       @TedUnderwood yeah I thought about including that one. Although RTing it dimmed its appeal. Also Part of the issue tbh is I don’t love the organic blob or the orientation it implies… bc these things are  *really* machines and the human facing part is off to the side… more like a garbage truck with something bolted on to geartrain that makes a mouth move.
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqW6AdXzAA6CmH8l6 by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
       2023-02-19T18:46:14Z
       
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       @benmschmidt Hmm, I'll have to see if Midjourney can produce that. I love the "models as fictional universes" line of thought, and find it very very annoying that William Gibson somehow got there in 1984.
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqXWgWY9VREaJD2mG by elotroalex@hcommons.social
       2023-02-19T19:02:13Z
       
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       @TedUnderwood @benmschmidt y'all convincing me of the "fictional universe" tack. I've been insisting on the no feelings, desires, thought tack to help my side of the house not go down the ghost-in-the-machine path. At first, I thought explaining as a lit person would not work because... [check's notes] no one pays attention to lit persons. It's growing on me though because it's closer to what's happening than screaming it's just a machine that can read and write based on math.
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqe73d2KJjYONyEXw by elotroalex@hcommons.social
       2023-02-19T19:06:41Z
       
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       @TedUnderwood @benmschmidt but also, can someone explain to me why we have grown ass people thinking they're talking to something? We need a massive time-out after this episode 🤣
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqe745OcsQ1oLEska by scott_bot@hcommons.social
       2023-02-19T19:16:21Z
       
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       @elotroalex @TedUnderwood @benmschmidt I haven't read a single pop/news piece on anything about LLMs starting from the release of GPT and it's a strategy I highly recommend.
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqe74YSsnffGUq63k by benmschmidt@vis.social
       2023-02-19T19:28:19Z
       
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       @scott_bot @elotroalex @TedUnderwood “I haven’t read any of the air pump articles because I already know how to strangle a pigeon with my bare hands… who cares what the Londoners make of it?”
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqe754MyBBwrRlZmy by scott_bot@hcommons.social
       2023-02-19T19:32:47Z
       
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       @benmschmidt @elotroalex @TedUnderwood Listen, I'm terminally online and hopelessly embedded in the communities that talk about these articles. I hear what the Londoners think already, I just don't need to get an aneurysm reading the first-hand account of some random tech journo convinced they've found God in the machine.
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqe75c2wy88XtWTHU by benmschmidt@vis.social
       2023-02-19T20:04:36Z
       
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       @scott_bot @elotroalex @TedUnderwood you haven’t read my third side note, I see…
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqe769Mx4mkDF75Dk by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
       2023-02-19T20:16:00Z
       
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       @benmschmidt @scott_bot @elotroalex make that "random tech journo convinced he can gain an audience by pretending to be afraid of the machine."
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqe76FkZLtCX26BAO by benmschmidt@vis.social
       2023-02-19T19:31:13Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @scott_bot @elotroalex @TedUnderwood it’s also clear that pop culture focusing on the Turing test for decades (now I wonder when!) really set people to profoundly misunderstand what’s happening.
       
 (DIR) Post #ASqgqhsHjvXi9VzvZw by benmschmidt@vis.social
       2023-02-19T20:46:40Z
       
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       @TedUnderwood @scott_bot @elotroalex it is true that Sydney may not have been the *only* fictional character in that play.
       
 (DIR) Post #AStbImV07h94LuzT4S by benmschmidt@vis.social
       2023-02-19T18:50:41Z
       
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       Here’s one good way to think about how chatGPT and Sydney work: