Thread

1. drtgh · 1789758284 · focus · HN ↗

   > relatively poorly understood technology

   Poorly understood? how convenient...

   LLMs are vectorial databases with losses that index statistically filled data, which uses a text interface to query such statistically filled data. The output is a string concatenation (statistically concatenated bit by bit).

   When the LLMs are queried (prompted), you can get random mixed data as output, ERRORS, due to undesired indexes getting closer at one point while the string was being concatenated for the output, what affects the rest of the indexed content that will be concatenated.

   It is intrinsic to this tech. The larger the context, the greater the probability of get mixed data. And if the provider lowers the precision of those indexes -in order to decrease hardware resources and energy consumption- such probability increases to the point where those errors are granted.

   Even knowing that the queries can return wrong/mixed data in the responses, errors, the companies developing this, decided to introduce a new product, that connects such LLMs outputs to the command console, latter connected to internet, raw 'eval' running commands from such outputs witch obviously can contain whatever mixed random. Then we started to hear "oh, it deleted my directory", etc, and it seems the next one will be "a missile killed my wife", because it is a text concatenation engine with errors.

   To name it "hallucination" is an euphemism... those are errors, and they are granted to happen at one moment. If they do not know this, then they ate too much marketing without doing their job, or it was a convenient contract for the pocket$ of someone.

   1. margalabargala · 1789758879 · focus · HN ↗

      I agree with most of your comment, but...

      > To name it "hallucination" is an euphemism... those are errors

      I find this and other "don't anthropomorphize the computer" statements incredibly unconvincing.

      People develop terms for things and language has always contained overloaded or "literally inaccurate" terms.

      An LLM can have "hallucinations" in the same way a modern computer program can have "bugs".

      1. usernomdeguerre · 1789759667 · focus · HN ↗

         I disagree, I think 'Hallucination' is a risk-shedding weasel-word. It's meant to shift blame away from the technology and its creator (multibillion dollar AI companies etc) in a way that doesn't hold those actors accountable or responsible for the outcomes.

         In any other software it would be an error, regression, bug. And in a human process it would be at ~least something someone would call 'bullshit'.

         1. vorticalbox · 1789760756 · focus · HN ↗

            I’m not sure either would is particularly good at describing what is happening.

            Error in implies something broke, which nothing broke the LLM did exactly what they where designed to do generate text based on a statistically likely bases.

            Hallucination Does really fit here either. It implies it’s experiencing something that is not there which it isn’t experiencing anything.

            1. Towaway69 · 1789761735 · focus · HN ↗

               Howabout: lied. The LLM lied indirectly (perhaps) but it made a claim that was false. Which is a lie.

               Humans lie and LLMs “hallucinate”? What gives. It’s an untruth that the LLM is selling for a truth, that’s lying in my books.

               And since we don’t know how or why the LLM works, we can’t even judge whether it explicitly lied or only because it didn’t know better.

               1. vorticalbox · 1789829187 · focus · HN ↗

                  Lie implies it knows what it is saying to be false.

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