1340 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coyote_Cosmico 4 Jan \ on: LLMs and SN, redux meta
This topic bums me out, because the kneejerk reaction to a firehouse of quasi-information is reverting to a model of "trusted sources." Which usually means: sources which other people seem to trust.
The information nodes become centralized, DYOR becomes a potential hazard, and the climb is steep for fresh contributors to gain enough clout to break through the filter.
It at least feels easy to spot llm content now, so most people aren't retreating into closed circles just yet - but it seems like the direction we're headed.
I wonder if llm's could produce content that doesn't have those "crucially wrong" bits, how comfortable would people be knowingly consuming it then? Is it truly the potential errors, presented with certainty, that creep people out? Or something deeper?
Humans are still the most abundant and confident source of "mostly right, but crucially wrong" information. So to me, llm's have just further surfaced some of the challenges which arise when everyone has a printing press and distribution.
I don't see the dust settling on this issue in my lifetime.
The information nodes become centralized, DYOR becomes a potential hazard, and the climb is steep for fresh contributors to gain enough clout to break through the filter.
It's a good point, but, as others have pointed out, I don't think it's a reversion to centralization so much as a more manifest expression of a truth that was there already. Who, realistically, can possibly do their own research on virtually any topic in modern life? Such "research" amounts, almost invariably, to appeals to some social authority. Which sounds bad, but there's really no other solution. The meta-skill of figuring out who to trust is an exercise in doing your own research. But it's a weaker exercise than people imply with their chest-thumping.
Humans are still the most abundant and confident source of "mostly right, but crucially wrong" information.
I think you're right, at the time of this writing. I think you will be extremely wrong before the year is out. The fact that the bullshit asymmetry principle has just blown up by several orders of magnitude should fill us all with fresh horror and philosophical unease; but I don't know what more productive action it should prompt.
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