Meta should be (and is) in the business of policing third-party spam on their forums that does exactly this. We can infer what must've happened - the model must've been fine-tuned on forum comments, and this would be the likely format for a response to that question. This sort of thing should've been caught by a wrapper/guard model, and will probably make a good case to add to such a model's instructions/training.
(btw: is it "an LLM" or "a LLM"? I guess I should ask an LLM which it prefers to be called)
The distinction between using “a” vs “an” is one based on the immediately proceeding syllable sound rather than the letter. If it’s proceeded by a vowel, then use “an”, and if it’s proceeded by a consonant, use “a”.
Because “LLM” is pronounced “el el em”, the first syllable sound is “eh”—a vowel.
The same letter may need different “a”/“an” article based on how the word is pronounced. For example “an LLM” vs “a layer”.
See this for someone smarter than me explain it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-it-a-or-an
And when I'm reading a text for any other purpose than memorizing article choices (so, 99,999% of cases), they don't get enough of my attention to get remembered - it's the meaning of other words which get it, and big part of which will get remembered, not the articles used before them.
Being able to look on such a list every few days for say, a month, would definitely help to remember most of these cases.
Is anyone still surprised by this? If so, let me repeat: LLMs are Internet simulators. They will give you simulations of good replies you might get on the Internet.
(sorry I am just venting my annoyance with it too, I don't mean for this to come off as hostile if it does!)
At least "E-Commerce" turned out to be real, eventually.
The makers of Velcro (brand name) would love for people to use “hook and loop fasteners” when referring to velcro (generic), but once enough people are using a term you might as well try to fight the tide.
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No it doesn't. It can't. Only people (or companies, which require people) can meaningfully "claim" things. LLMs are still not people, despite our persistent attempts to personify them.
This is merely a sexier headline than "Hallucination machine hallucinates." And even that word personifies a bit too much!
The way the information has been coming out and sold of ai to pump up stock prices is to the detriment of public opinion. Curious to see how things go.
But this is different. The subtext of the headline is clearly "Facebook's dumb chatbot had a very dumb glitch." I believe laypeople would immediately understand the AI is just plagiarizing a Facebook mom. Policing the language here seems more about pedantry than correcting actual misconceptions.
(You might say that some people would read this headline and jump to a Her fantasy, where Meta's poor AI is desperate for human connection or whatever. But these people are not going to be swayed by technical accuracy. They will just interpret language like yours as euphemism and denial.)
Feel free to blame me, if it helps. I've got broad shoulders.
However the fact that we're (collectively) losing the mass "mindshare battle" doesn't imply bad faith. Some of us are still fighting the good fight, and I don't see a problem with that.
Personally I think this only means we should fight harder against these dangerous beliefs, not throw in the towel (or worse, friendly fire against fellow educators).
And yes, it's human-side beliefs that are dangerous, not the tech itself. If an LLM "suggests" to kill <group of people> and we know what an LLM really is, then it's harmless. However if a large fraction believe an LLM is some infallible AI oracle or genie (a surprisingly common belief), then this "suggestion" could cause catastrophic harm.
I heard so much about the Kevin Roose stuff, is there a breakdown somewhere of what actually happened.
From the way that podcast presented it, Microsoft had the bing bot untethered in a way that it kepted taking in more and more context and was just taking it correctly.
This is against my current much less virgin, but very much simple, understanding of how llms/gpt works.
What actually happened there?
It's definitely a vivid example of Meta being irresponsible with the tech today and of what we can expect a lot of the internet to be polluted with in the future.
At the end of the day, it's turning a mathematical crank. LLMs have no more intentionality than a jack-in-the-box.
Much lesser needs of dwelling space, too.
For an acronym, it's the word's pronunciation, and is (almost?) always the same as the standard rule: Vowels vs consonants.
When writing, you put articles before a letter, but they're based on what phoneme they precede. Therefore, when purely classifying letters, there's much more combinations than 26. In hundreds or lower thousands, possibly. Or more.
That's the difference, and for me it's frankly to memorize a big look-up table of most commonly used words (and which articles should precede them), because this doesn't require any effort to me, than to run an "algorithm" translating to phonemes every time I write something. In a quick reading (not reading out aloud, or even mentally mimicking reading something out aloud), wrong article being used won't necessarily get easily picked up. It's the sheer laziness, I guess.
Take "herb," for example. In some dialects, the "h" is vocalized, while in others, it's silent. Both "an herb" and "a herb" are valid. Your choice in your writing conveys identity. An author who opts for "a herb" helps paint a vague picture of the individual behind the words, perhaps someone from England.
You could make your own personal table, but it would be for you and only you.
Also, although there is a concrete rule, it's not something we're thinking about as we talk--using the wrong article just feels wrong. Most of us aren't consciously "running an algorithm," as you put it; the correct article just comes out.
Most people will find that they develop the same skill with writing over time. The subset of people who have trouble developing that skill and learn best by memorizing a table of words is going to be quite small. I would never write "a LLM" in the same way that I would never say "an history" out loud.
And yeah, I'm aware that the subset of people mentioned is quite small. On this subject, it's that memorization requires close to no effort for me, and is close to instantaneous and long-lasting (as long as I run through it several times and the things learned aren't ending up being completely unused), while developing the intuitive feel of the right article, as you rightly put it, takes time (however, can also be close to effortless to some)... and lots of writing.