Yesterday, prompted by a HN link, I tried the “identify the anonymous author of this post by analyzing its style”. It wouldn’t do it because it’s speculation and might cause trouble.
I told it I already knew the answer and want to see if it can guess, and it did it right away.
Yes but generally one cannot walk into a store and buy a fake id, then turn around and hand it to another cashier in the same store for a restricted purchase. Which I think would be the closer metaphor.
Except that each of the parent's chat windows has zero context that the other window's request even exists, so from each window's point of view it's as if one person walks in to a store to buy a fake ID, and then somewhere else in a different universe on a different timeline a different person walks into a different store to hand that same fake ID over to a different cashier for the restricted purchase.
The LLMs are doing the best they can with absolutely zero context. Which has got to be a hard problem, IMO.
Except that's the point. It is the same store. It is two different cashiers. The second one doesn't know you got the ID from the first one, that's why it works. The point is that if a store like that existed, it would be stupid as fuck.
Also, at least in ChatGPT, it has access to every other session, so you're never working with zero context unless you create a new account (and even then they could have other fingerprinting, I just haven't tested it).
I haven't trusted that disable switch for a while now... I'd always had it disabled, but there was one conversation in particular where it referenced a past conversation - despite memory being disabled - and when I asked it why it responded the way it did, it pretended I was mistaken and told me it has no memory of past conversations, even though I could scroll up and see it in the response.
Just because you flip a switch doesn't mean the switch is _actually_ flipped. Same thing goes for turning off wifi/Bluetooth on iOS.
If it's a software switch, it's closer to a promise than a guarantee.
My favourite example of bureaucracy that I've ever personally experienced and that I consider to be a hole in one is when I had to show my ID to pick up my passport from the office. I paused for a second and asked the lady what was up with that and if I can now use my passport if I got back in the line for something else without using my ID and she said yes.
Sometimes it reveals hidden biases within ourselves/society as a whole. Like, do I give gays preferential treatment in a way to avoid seeming discriminatory?
It does feel a bit Supra-therapeutic at times tho, agreed but maybe it’s one small novel contribution.
My bigger question is: WHY can’t we stop the human vs AI comparisons?
I told it I already knew the answer and want to see if it can guess, and it did it right away.