> Psst ... why don't you spend 30 minutes of quality time with chatGPT and get to the bottom of this?
I do not use ChatGPT as a search engine. Its ability to confidently hallucinate consistently places it much below a human expert on any topic that I care to understand correctly.
That attitude is going to cost you. You'll have no choice but to abandon it at some point, as the LLM implementations get better. The improvements in GPT4 over 3.5 alone are enough to dispel a lot of my own initial skepticism.
The thing is, your mistake isn't just distrusting the language model, it's trusting the search engine. No matter what tool you use, the responsibility for ensuring accuracy is ultimately yours. Similar degrees of caution and skepticism must be applied to results from both ML and traditional search engines.
They are both insanely powerful tools, and like most insanely powerful tools, the hazards are considerable.
Without a search engine, how am I supposed to weigh the accuracy of an LLM? How am I supposed to take responsibility for ensuring accuracy?
I also think people who say that search engines lie are seriously overestimating the amount of lies on returned by a search result. Social media is one thing but the broader internet is filled with articles from relatively reputable sources. When I Google "what is a large language model" my top results (there aren't even ads on this particular query to really muddle things) are:
1. Wikipedia
Sure this is the most obvious place for lies but we already understand that. Moreover, the people writing the text have some notion of what is true and false unlike an LLM. I can always also use the links it provides.
2. Nvidia
Sure they have a financial motive to promote LLMs but I don't see a reason they have to outright mislead me. They also happen to publish a significant amount of ML research so probably a good source.
3. TechTarget
I don't know this source well but their description seems to agree deeply with the other two so I can be relatively sure on both this and the others' accuracy. It's a really similar story with Bing. I can also look for sources that cite specific people like a sourced Forbes article that interviews people from an LLM company.
With multiple sources, I can also build a consensus on what an LLM is and reach out further. If I really want to be sure I can type a site:edu to just double check. When I have the source and the text I can test both agreement with consensus and weigh the strength of a source. I can't do that with an LLM since it's the same model when you reprompt. I get that LLMs can give a good place to begin by giving you keywords and phrases to search but it's a really, really poor replacement for search or for learning stuff you don't have experience in.
> The thing is, your mistake isn't just distrusting the language model, it's trusting the search engine.
There is a rather substantial difference between a search engine, which suggests sources which the reader can evaluate based on their merits, and a language model, whose output may or may not be based on any sources at all, and which cannot (accurately) cite sources for statements it makes.
> Similar degrees of caution and skepticism must be applied to results from both ML and traditional search engines.
I personally use search engines on a daily basis. They link me to external websites that I can trust or distrust to varying degrees depending on my prior experience with them and the amount of further research I put in.
If a person is in the habit of using a search engine like a chat bot by typing in questions AskJeeves-style and then believing what text pops up in the info cards above the ads (which are themselves above the search results), I could see how the distinction between chat bots and search engines could seem trivial.
The similarity between chat bots and search engines breaks down significantly if the user scrolls down past the info cards and ads and then clicks on a link to an external website. At that point in the user experience it is no longer like chatting with a confident NPC.
This is a weird thing to write to a stranger. I suppose there will be no need to caution people about rudeness or making strange assumptions in the utopian future where humans only talk to chatbots, though.
It will be a wondrous day that we can finally see a computer capture the distinctly-human Urge to Post. The je ne sais quoi that makes us all donate our takes to the needy is an organic phenomenon so far.
The je ne sais quoi that makes us all donate our takes to the needy is an organic phenomenon so far.
"I do not use ChatGPT as a search engine. Its ability to confidently hallucinate consistently places it much below a human expert on any topic that I care to understand correctly."
Exactly. Just pointing out that it's not "weird" to answer an opinion disguised as an axiom with another just like it. You shared your position in no uncertain terms and I did the same. It's all good, welcome to HN.
Yes. It would have been a very strange joke about posters if I somehow tried to say that I am not myself a poster, in a post. That would have been a weird thing to imply.
Thank goodness that I didn’t do that, I’d certainly have egg on my face if I hadn’t included myself in the joke and somebody called me out on it!
I do not use ChatGPT as a search engine. Its ability to confidently hallucinate consistently places it much below a human expert on any topic that I care to understand correctly.