As a layman, this too strikes me as the problem underlying the "confidently wrong" problem.
The author proposes ways for an AI to signal when it is wrong and to learn from its mistakes. But that mechanism feeds back to the core next token matcher. Isn't this just replicating the problem with extra steps?
I feel like this is a framing problem. It's not that an LLM is mostly correct and just sometimes confabulates or is "confidently wrong". It's that an LLM is confabulating all the time, and all the techniques thrown at it do is increase the measured incidence of LLM confabulations matching expected benchmark answers.
I saw a post on this subject in the android subreddit back in 2019 [0] and it was clear that everyone had already accepted by then that the market was too small to sustain this. I too loved Sony's series of compact phones - the XZ1 Compact is still one of the best phones I've ever used.
It is only going to get worse. Most of us who were young adults when the iPhone was announced are in our 40s now, and presbyopia is a real thing. In a few years my daily QOL will be better served by a bigger phone and I suspect many people around my age are feeling the same thing. The "small electronic accessory I bring around" niche will be filled by smartwatches.
> Congratulations: you have successfully turned your cool idea into a chore.
The article gave me a vague, off-topic sense of unease but your comment crystallised the feeling for me.
I really wish less emphasis is placed on this kind of blue-sky, "strategic" thinking, and more placed on the "chores". Legwork, maintenance, step-by-step execution of a plan, issue tracking, perspective shifting etc. are all, in my opinion, critically important and much more deserving of praise and respect than so-called "strategic" thinking.
Which, IME, most people can't do anyway! After they've talked their big talk you suggest that there's a practical, on-ground problem and they look at you accusingly, like you're sabotaging their picture. And I'm like, no, my friend; reality is sabotaging your picture, it's just the two of us here and you're not losing any face by me pointing that out, and also if you were an actual strategic thinker you'd have taken my on-ground problem into account already...
This might come from childhood and problematic praise patterns. You can grow to both crave praise and surprise, but at the same time when you get it not really value it. You might be interested to do impressive work as play when you don’t know how it will pan out, but if you don’t feel like it is interesting enough then you are demotivated.
I think it is important to be able to strategise, especially if you can delegate parts of the work. If you cannot delegate, there needs to be a balance with capacity for grunt work. One way to address it perhaps is learning to get in the zone and enjoy ongoing work as a process. Unfortunately, sometimes it is hard to snap out of big picture view and get to it.
I’ve found the best strategies are the ones you can abandon. clearly defined tactics and an appropriate application of people and resources require a quarterback with an ability to audible.
It’s possible to make no mistakes and still lose, it’s when people get offended about something they are wrong about that creates a tolerance for Pyrrhic victories.
I played around with the website. I will take the author's advice to not take it seriously.
Many of the changes are active voice to passive voice. It might sound more polite, but in reality comes off as sneering or condescending.
For e.g., if I've already told you something, I usually change communication channels to a more casual one (pick up the phone, pop my head up, walk over, go on a chat channel) and say: "hey, that question you had, it's already addressed in my email, see this bit over here...".
I would not, as the website suggests, say any of this:
- "There seems to be a disconnect here as this information has already been provided."
- "The information has not changed since the last time it was communicated."
- "As indicated prior."
If you did this to me, I would think you are a jerk.
> Something went very wrong in negotiations here. That's all I can say. Who allowed this deal to be penned in its exact fashion?
I'm not sure this is the right way to look at it. It's more likely that nobody "allowed" the situation to happen, and the publishers just had much stronger bargaining power. So libraries either pay to participate and adjust their budget accordingly, or don't have e-books to lend out.
Or, put more provocatively in a forum run by a startup incubator: capitalism allowed this to happen.
My local library does appear to have a large enough budget to cater for this new demand but I can understand if many other city libraries don't.
IAAL but likely not in your jurisdiction, and I agree with this, because the biggest "legal" concern I would have as the linked OP is the company coming back and blaming me for some software I wrote that was out of my job scope entirely.
I would add that the goal isn't just to convince the company to delete the software, but rather to acknowledge and accept that there is no support, no warranty, and if things go wrong it's on their hands.
Added Point I: The value of product going in and out of even a modest-sized warehouse in a week can easily be 1000X the net worth of any of the hourly employees there. So if things went wrong - trying to recover their losses by suing Manuel McLong-Gone would be hopeless. And that might also alert their insurance carrier to an excuse for denying coverage.
Added Point II: Being responsible for all that money, no Warehouse Manager worth a pallet would want some undocumented & unsupported software, cobbled together by some former hourly employee, to be left running in his warehouse. Even as you depart, you are being loyal and industry-savvy, and making sure Mr. Manager knows about that potential problem. And how to prevent it.
> I propose that the differences in opinion are likely differences in understanding the ill-defined context of the question.
The whole point of the article is that *on large platforms* it is impossible to have policies on moderation, etc. that people agree on. Not small, interest-specific, geographically and linguistically focussed niche platforms.
The example is further perfectly illustrated by users here dropping their confident, just-so how-tos that would accomplish difficult tasks like moderation easily, and other users disagreeing with their equally confident, personally experienced difficulties in executing such just-so plans.
If you can define the question so narrowly as to make the answers obvious, you're not talking about the same problem anymore.
Maybe that is the point of the article, however that is not the finding of the experiment the article is based on.
If the experiment was, "When should a park in your neighborhood apply the rule 'no vehicles in the park'?" I believe the outcome would have been very different with near universal agreement on the most important questions.
"pretend you are an enforcement official, and your only official guidance is this sign, the purpose of this rule is to keep the park safe, but you might get reprimanded if you kick someone out of the park and you can't convince your boss that they were breaking this rule"
This is all absolutely implicit context for many real world rules enforcers. I would bet money that if you reran this experiment with that prompt you would get over 60% of people in 100% agreement.
I exercise to maintain healthspan and keep fit, but I am by no means "fit" by the standards of people who are fit. I've seen what strong looks like (I'm not very big, at the oly gym I used to frequent I saw someone my height and weight bench > 3 plates at a meet), I've seen what performance endurance in a run, cycle, and swim looks like, and I've also seen what the vast majority of people at my office are like.
The author has some great reasons to grow and keep big muscles, but I have some thoughts to add for that "majority of people at the office" crowd.
Thought #1: there is one item that the author mentions that I think is absolutely critical yet buried all the way at the bottom.
> If you’re over 30 (or even in your 20s and able to afford it), hire a personal trainer to start. They can check your form and avoid any kind of injuries. With weights, it is really easy to get a bad form, no matter how many youtube videos you watch. I went to see a Physiotherapist 4 years after I started squats, and this is the best thing I’ve ever done. She retaught me everything I think I knew about squatting.
I cannot over-emphasise how important it is to focus on form so you avoid injuries. When you're older, hurting yourself will knock you off the exercise horse for years. Also, note that if you're in your 30s and have been mostly sedentary your adult life, the squat and deadlift may not even be movements that you have the range of motion to do.
Don't fall into the trap of pushing yourself because the program said so or the internet said so or because you feel inadequate next to the huge gains that people are showing off on the internet. There is absolutely no shame in taking things slower. Remember your goal is not to look good naked on the beach next summer, it is to maintain healthspan into your 70s.
Thought #2: cardio is important, the author's warning about "too much cardio because your joints will give out and you will lose muscle" is really odd and feels like I'm browsing /r/fitness in 2010. If you're very concerned about your joints, do something lower impact, like swim or cycle or row or the elliptical.
But do take your rest days.
Thought #3: stronglifts 5x5 is great if you're in your 20s or your early 30s. If you're older than that, well, you can still do it but please be careful. See thought #1 above.
The lifting crowd hates cardio people. Because they are skinny wimpy girly men in their mainstream values... Yes it is that dumb, it is SNL skit.
It's actually a really good filter. Keep those people at arms length. The ones that don't have that attitude are the ones with positive balance aren't headed for the steroid slope.
Lifting is something that you should do with yoga or Pilates, swimming, some running and biking all in the mix. Because you get benefits from all of them.
The best starting workout for people imo is you lift 3 exercises, one set each to about 10-15 reps, then do 5 minutes of cardio between them. Do that cycle 4 times.
You'll get 20 minutes of cardio and 12 different exercises. Make sure 2-3 of the motions are lower body.
The author proposes ways for an AI to signal when it is wrong and to learn from its mistakes. But that mechanism feeds back to the core next token matcher. Isn't this just replicating the problem with extra steps?
I feel like this is a framing problem. It's not that an LLM is mostly correct and just sometimes confabulates or is "confidently wrong". It's that an LLM is confabulating all the time, and all the techniques thrown at it do is increase the measured incidence of LLM confabulations matching expected benchmark answers.