Hmm, why is this news? We know that GPT is liable to hallucinate things, why are we supposed to be outraged that it hallucinated this?
If you replace this guy with my name I'd be upset. In my non-software networks the hallucination part isn't common knowledge. It's just a cool Google replacement.
I think that's one of the main issues around these new LLM's, the fact that most users will take what the bot tells them as gospel. OpenAI really should be more upfront about that. Because what happens when regulations and policies start getting put forth without the understanding of LLM hallucination, we could very well end up in a situation where regulators want something that is not technically feasible.
I mean they are quite upfront. When you load the page it displays the following disclaimers with quite large font:
"Limitations
May occasionally generate incorrect information
May occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content
Limited knowledge of world and events after 2021"
2 out of the 3 disclaimers are about the fact that the software lies.
And then in the bottom of the page, right below the input box they say: "Free Research Preview. ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts"
Sure they could make them even larger and reword it to "This software will lie to you", and add small animated exclamation marks around the message. But it is not like they hide the fact.
A better way, like the sibling comment says, is to force people to type a sentence so they consciously acknowledge it. It's similar to college exams which ask you to specifically write out something like "I have not cheated on this assignment or test."
I've seen that sort of thing used to enforce people to read the rules on discord servers, this is higher stakes IMO.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/technology/ai-chatbots-di...
It's not about the capability, it's about the irresponsibility of these parties who reasonably know about this stuff and these possibilities, and yet push/sell their tech anyway without taking into account the harm.
On the one hand I'd hope that this would encourage higher accuracy in these tools, better sourcing, and a more useful product. But, I expect we'll just weirdo litigation, click through warnings, and a lot more garbage on the internet.
Maybe all of this will create a push for accuracy, scientific method, and a quest for truth over narrative, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
A complete nobody who’s applying for a job at a car wash or for a rental apartment and whose lazy employer/landlord “background checks” (ie Googles) via these tools would also be upset about this outcome. Justifiably. It has nothing to do with whatever culture war grievance you’re airing out here.
This is a very good argument not to use these tools for any such use case, and it should absolutely be publicized as such.
I'm responding to a comment/question of "why is this news" since of course there are negative externalities. I guess a charitable reading is, wow this also affects me and my powerful friends... so now you should care?
Perhaps cultural grievance is living rent free in your head, since I didn't actually mention names (only the most recent and outrageous examples of using the legal/business/political system to make a profit spreading lies) and as far as I know the article author and "libeled" professor are on the other side of that cultural war. The entire article reads like a trope devoid of useful information. I'm just saddened by the quality of content from respected well heeled human generators. It's the kind of narrative garbage LLMs will spit out tons of in the next few years.
Gosh I don't know -- the clear and present danger of people having their lives utterly ruined by what is arguably the most surprising technical revolution any of has seen (while its creators collect their accolades, and get filthy rich) -- how is anything less newsworthy than that?
Whether it bothers you or not is a personal matter, entirely up to you.
Without complete certainty about this, then it’s absolutely a less fantastical claim than ChatGPT’s malfunctions.
I would bet that some people will use an extremely accessible [apparent] information retrieval tool for information retrieval and they’ll largely trust the information retrieved by it. That’s why it’s a tool and not a toy.
this is probably another good legal attack against LLMs actually
if you can massage it into making a defamatory statement you have an instant cast-iron lawsuit against a company with tens of billions in funding
and the only way to stop it making statements like these would be to restrict its output so much it would be effectively unusable