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The LLMentalist Effect (2023)

235 points · 309 comments · jalev

  1. rahidz · · focus · HN ↗
    Man I remember back when a psychic conned me by solving the Navier-Stokes problem.

    Also >July 4th, 2023

    1. inopinatus · · focus · HN ↗
      The more compelling inversion is whether the likes of John Nash, Richard Feynman, John Conway etc could’ve had a lucrative second career as conmen.
      1. mistercow · · focus · HN ↗
        Feynman for sure could have. In fact, I think he sort of did, although I'm not sure he meant to. Multiple generations of nerds now have taken books of his anecdotes varying in plausibility and obvious exaggeration as some sort of weird physics cult of personality gospel. But I don't think he was really setting out to curate his legacy so much as he was a good storyteller and he liked to entertain.

        But could he have conned people on purpose? Absolutely.

        1. krupan · · focus · HN ↗
          Right. And what this article is pointing out is, we probably have created an automated Richard Feynman. But maybe worse because LLMs (and their creators?) don't care if they are conning people or creating faithful followers. In fact the humans behind OpenAI and Anthropic seem to have that as their goal!
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