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Comment by vladms | Hacker News Reader

I have seen many people not saying "don't know" when appropriate. If you believe whomever without some double-checking you will have (bad) surprises.

To make another parallel: that's why we have automated testing in software (long before LLMs). Because you can't trust without checking.

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And what's you opinion of people that never say "don't know"?

Unless you are in sales or marketing, getting caught lying is really detrimental to your career.

Too many don't knows, when they should they are stupid

Too little don't knows and end up being wrong, an idiot.

Or politics, where confidently lying is an essential skill.

Is it? Seems like a lost art these days. Modern politicians hardly put in any effort making up convincing and subtle lies anymore..

and it still works. And problem seems to be related to the unconditional trust of LLM output.

There is lying and there is being incompetent.

Then the optimal strategy is to never say "don't know" and never get caught lying.

Seems to work for many people. I suspect my career has been hampered by a higher-than-average willingness to say "I don't know"...

I think you are discounting the fact that you can weed out people who make a habit of that, but you can't do that with LLMs if they are all doing that.

Some people trust Alex Jones, while the vast majority realize that he just fabricates untruths constantly. Far fewer people realize that LLMs do the same.

People know that computers are deterministic, but most don't realize that determinism and accuracy are orthogonal. Most non-IT people give computers authoritative deference they do not deserve. This has been a huge issue with things like Shot Spotter, facial recognition, etc.

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