this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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If scientists made AI, then it wouldn't be an issue for AI to say "I don't know".
But capitalists are making it, and the last thing you want is it to tell an investor "I don't know". So you tell it to make up bullshit instead, and hope the investor believes it.
It's a terrible fucking way to go about things, but this is America...
Uh, I understand the sentiment, but the model doesn't know anything. And it's legit really hard to differentiate between factual things and random bullshit it made up.
It "knows" as in it has access to the information and the ability to provide the right info for the right context.
Any part of that process the AI can just "bullshit" and fills in the gaps with random stuff.
Which is what you want when it's "learning". You want it to try so it's attempt can be rated, and the relevant info added to its "knowledge".
But when consumers are using it, you want it to say "I can't answer that". But consumers are usually stupid and will buy/use the one that says "I can't answer that" the least.
Which is why AI should tell end users "I don't know" more often.
It doesn't, though, any more than you have access to the information in a pile of 10 million shredded documents.
Right, in this case that we're talking about...
Do you not understand how "answer unavailable" is a better answer than taking a small percent of strips of paper at random and filling in the rest with words that sound relevant?
It's like a mad libs
Right. They're text generators. That's the technology. It can't do what you're demanding because that's not how it works. LLMs aren't magic answer machines. They don't know when to say "answer not available". They don't know what they're being asked. They don't know anything.
That is what LLMs do in EVERY conversation. Most of the time you don't notice it, because it fits your expectations.
You know that answer unavailable is better because you have real intelligence, an LLM is just some mathematical functions so it can't do that. If it could it would be getting much closer to actually being AI.