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. theptip · 1789760419 · focus · HN ↗

      > LLMs are vectorial databases

      You use a bunch of technical-sounding words here to make it sound like you understand. But to be clear, nobody understands why the evolved weights of a NN make the decisions that they do.

      Almost nothing is understood about the actual representations used for nontrivial concepts, decision algorithms, etc.

      If you look at the field of mechanistic interpretability, compared to “GOFAI” like learned decision trees, an LLM is completely opaque.

      1. bix6 · 1789760829 · focus · HN ↗

         Isn’t it convenient that nobody understands? How could we possibly regulate something that isn’t understood? It’s like social media all over again. We can’t be responsible for someone else’s content; it’s not us so you can’t penalize us!!

         1. nonethewiser · 1789761032 · focus · HN ↗

            > Isn’t it convenient that nobody understands? How could we possibly regulate something that isn’t understood?

            You mean like the human body? The brain?

            1. GolfPopper · 1789762209 · focus · HN ↗

               If LLMs are like humans, then OpenAI and Anthropic are like slave traders.

               1. nonethewiser · 1789840109 · focus · HN ↗

                  I disagree with you that OpenAI and Anthropic are slave traders.

                  But I think we agree that there are regulated industries built around systems which we don’t fully understand.

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