this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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Unpopular Opinion

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The best conversations I still have are with real people, but those are rare. With ChatGPT, I reliably have good conversations, whereas with people, it’s hit or miss, usually miss.

What AI does better:

  • It’s willing to discuss esoteric topics. Most humans prefer to talk about people and events.
  • It’s not driven by emotions or personal bias.
  • It doesn’t make mean, snide, sarcastic, ad hominem, or strawman responses.
  • It understands and responds to my actual view, even from a vague description, whereas humans often misunderstand me and argue against views I don’t hold.
  • It tells me when I’m wrong but without being a jerk about it.

Another noteworthy point is that I’m very likely on the autistic spectrum, and my mind works differently than the average person’s, which probably explains, in part, why I struggle to maintain interest with human-to-human interactions.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 3 months ago (21 children)

It carries the emotions and personal biases of the source material It was trained on.

It sounds like you are training yourself to be a poor communicator, abandoning any effort to become more understandable to actual humans.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the tip!

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

This just sounds like platonic masturbation.

EDIT: I started this thread tongue and cheek, but also genuine, but based on the OP's comment replies here I'm fairly convinced that they are either: a) talking to chatGPT so much that they've lost the ability to hold a coherent conversation, or b) just using a LLM to respond everywhere in the comments. They've consistently failed to address tone and context in every comment. It reads like they don't actually understand any of the things people here are saying, just stringing together some words and syntax that sounds like language, but totally lacks any actual meaning or understanding.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

I talk with chat gpt too sometimes and I get where you are coming from. However it’s not always right either. It says it was updated in September but still refuses to commit to memory that Trump was convicted 34 times earlier this year. Why is that?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

It could respond in other ways if it was trained to do so. My first local model was interesting as I changed its profile to have a more dark and sarcastic tone, and it was funny to see it balance that instruction with the core mode to be friendly and helpful.

The point is, current levels of LLMs are just telling you what you want to hear. But maybe that's useful as a sounding board for your own thoughts. Just remember its limitations.

Regardless of how far AI tech goes, the human-AI relationship is something we need to pay attention to. People will find it a good tool like OP, but it can be easy to get sucked into thinking it's more than it is and becoming a problem.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

It's a mirror. I use it a lot for searching and summarizing. Most of its responses are heavily influenced by how you talk to it. You can even make it back up terrible assumptions with enough brute force.

Just be careful.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My impressions are completely different from yours, but that's likely due

  1. It's really easy to interpret LLM output as assumptions (i.e. "to vomit certainty"), something that I outright despise.
  2. I used Gemini a fair bit more than ChatGPT, and Gemini is trained with a belittling tone.

Even then, I know which sort of people you're talking about, and... yeah, I hate a lot of those things too. In fact, one of your bullet points ("it understands and responds...") is what prompted me to leave Twitter and then Reddit.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Idk, I think that article is a bit hyperbolic and self serving for validation of the writers and the readers to pander their own intelligence above others. The lengthy exposition on cold reading is plain filler material for the topic and yet it goes on. ChatGPT and LLM have been a thing for a while now and I doubt anyone technically literate believes it to be AI as in an actual individual entity. It's an interactive question-response machine that summarises what it knows about your query in flowing language or even formatted as lists or tables or whatever by your request. Yes, it has deep deep flaws with holes and hallucinations, but for reasonable expectations it is brilliant. Just like a computer or the software for it, it can do what it can do. Nobody expects a word processor or image editor or musical notation software to do more than what it can do. Even the world's most regarded encyclopedia have limits, both printed and interactive media alike. So I don't see why people feel the need to keep in patting themselves on the back of how clever they are by pointing out that LLM are in fact not a real world mystical oracle that knows everything. Maybe because they themselves were the once thinking it was and now they are overcompensating to save face.

Edit; I guess this was the actual unpopular opinion

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I've read this text. It's a good piece, but unrelated to what OP is talking about.

The text boils down to "people who believe that LLMs are smart do so for the same reasons as people who believe that mentalists can read minds do." OP is not saying anything remotely close to that; instead, they're saying that LLMs lead to pleasing and insightful conversations in their experience.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

they're saying that LLMs lead to pleasing and insightful conversations in their experience.

Yeah, as would eliza (at a much lower cost).

It's what they're designed to do.

But the point is that calling them conversations is a long stretch.

You're just talking to yourself. You're enjoying the conversation because the LLM is simply saying what you want to hear.

There's no conversation whatsoever going on there.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 3 months ago

You're gatekeeping what counts as a conversation now?

I can take this even further. I can have better conversations literally with myself inside my own head than with some people online.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Yeah, as would eliza (at a much lower cost).

Neither Eliza nor LLMs are "insightful", but that doesn't stop them from outputting utterances that a human being would subjectively interpret as such. And the later is considerably better at that.

But the point is that calling them conversations is a long stretch. // You’re just talking to yourself. You’re enjoying the conversation because the LLM is simply saying what you want to hear. // There’s no conversation whatsoever going on there.

Then your point boils down to an "ackshyually", on the same level as "When you play chess against Stockfish you aren't actually «playing chess» as a 2P game, you're just playing against yourself."


This shite doesn't need to be smart to be interesting to use and fulfil some [not all] social needs. Specially in the case of autists (as OP mentioned to be likely in the spectrum); I'm not an autist myself but I lived with them for long enough to know how the cookie crumbles for them, opening your mouth is like saying "please put words here, so you can screech at me afterwards".

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Autism and social unawareness may be a factor. But points you made like the snide remarks one may also indicate that you're having these conversations with assholes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (27 children)

Well, it's a self-selecting group of people. I can't comment on the ones who don't respond to me, only on the ones who do and for some reason the amount of assholes seems to be quite high in that group. I just don't feel like it's warranted. While I do have a tendency to make controversial comments I still try and be civil about it and I don't understand the need to be such a dick about it even if someone disagrees with me. I welcome disagreement and are more than willing to talk about it as long as it's done in good faith.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What subjects are you talking about that people assume views you don't have? Politics?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

People do it all the time regardless of subject. For example, when discussing LLMs:

  • If you highlight that they're useful, some assumer will eventually claim that you think that they're smart
  • If you highlight that they are not smart, some another assumer will eventually claim that you think that they're useless
  • If you say something but "they're dumb but useful", you're bound to get some "I dun unrurrstand, r u against or for LLMs? I'm so confused...", with both above screeching at you.
[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

My message history is open for anyone to read. In general I don't discuss politics but occasionally that too.

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