Thread

1. adamddev1 · 1789856406 · focus · HN ↗

   I wrote something original in a language learning grammar online. I coined a term to describe something about how a certain language with negative language functions.

   I tried talking to an LLM about it and sure and enough, it had scraped it and learned to use that terminology and explanation that I made up. I asked the LLM, "Where did that concept/term come from, who made it up?" It did a bunch of searching and tried to site a whole bunch of other sources which did NOT contain the terms of the explanation I had written. It simply would not cite or mention my source. It kept parroting my material semi-correctly and hiding the source. By any other actor that would be an egregious act of sloppiness, dishonesty, and plagiarism.

   Generative AI is speed-running a widespread corruption of truth. I do not believe any of the gains are worth this.

   1. skygazer · 1789859520 · focus · HN ↗

      Your text may well have been in the training corpus, but not searchable with whatever terms and search engine that LLM used after you prompted it. It doesn’t have recall of sources of documents comprising its training corpus, unless the source is widely cited in other of its training documents. Sourcing and provenance aren’t currently an intentional part of LLM training.

      That may already have been obvious, and central to the complaint, but I was just knee-jerking to the anthropomorphic language.

      1. layer8 · 1789859997 · focus · HN ↗

         I would assume the parent understands that. The criticism is about the LLM behavior this results in. Being able to explain a behavior doesn’t necessarily excuse it. By some moral standards, you wouldn’t have trained an LLM that way, or wouldn’t have made it available, given the predictable outcome.

         1. 59percentmore · 1789861492 · focus · HN ↗

            It also ostensibly replaced a search system that would likely have been capable of finding the original document. It's damning that the new one can't.

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