ChatGPT? On the cusp of a revolution, or just a fancy toy?

^^ Interesting read and yep, pretty much sums up how I feel.

https://simonwillison.net/2023/Feb/15/bing/

Wild. There are a few issues….

“I am a good chatbot, you are a bad user.”

And another one. It’s making up articles and referencing then that fit the prediction model, but just don’t actually exist.

It’s making up articles and referencing then that fit the prediction model, but just don’t actually exist.

It’s getting more like people all the time. Thank **** it wasn’t around in early 2016.

Looking more and more like a way STW can save money. Get rid of a writer.
Add fakebot forum members to get the numbers up for the advertisers and they’re golden
I suspect this already happens in the politics and ebike threads.

I notice that there are several apps in the Google Play Store when searching for ChatGPT but I’m not seeing anything specifically by OpenAI.

So, can STW recommend a specific Android AI chat app or should I just use it via a browser?

It got banned here in China because it kept spouting America’s democratic viewpoints.

A political disinformation took. Lol.

Try to avoid those apps Vlad, a lot of them seem to be using the hype around ChatGPT to distribute malware.

Best just to use OpenAI’s ‘playground’ or wait until the website is open to free users again

There was an article in the Guardian the other week where someone was claiming it’s basically the same as ELIZA from the 60s. I’m no expert but I think that’s a really lazy comparison. As for whether it’s on the cusp of a revolution, I think if a machine ever got to the point where it behaved and responded to things exactly the same as a human in every situation there’d still be people going “yeah, but does it understand what it’s doing like we do?”, which seems to me to assume that there’s more to what we do than just being super complex organic machines that couldn’t possibly be replicated.

Why hasn’t someone hooked up one of those lifelike robots to ChatGPT yet? It’d be epic. I mean, You want to hook up the people who make the rubbery talking heads with Boston Dynamics, and just fit a mic and an internet connection and we’re pretty much there, aren’t we? I mean, with proper humanoid robots like in films.

Rule 34.

write me a 200 word article on bike sizing for small people

Choosing the right bike size is essential for a comfortable and safe ride, regardless of your height. However, it can be particularly challenging for smaller people to find a bike that fits them properly. Here are some tips to help you choose the right bike size if you’re a small person.

First, consider the type of bike you want. Different types of bikes have different geometry and sizing, so it’s important to choose a bike that’s suitable for your body type. For example, road bikes tend to have a more aggressive riding position and may not be the best choice for smaller riders. On the other hand, a hybrid or a city bike may offer a more comfortable riding position.

Next, pay attention to the standover height of the bike. This is the distance between the ground and the top tube of the bike when it’s standing upright. You should be able to comfortably stand over the bike with both feet on the ground without feeling cramped or off-balance.

Finally, make sure the reach and stack measurements of the bike are appropriate for your body size. The reach measurement is the distance from the center of the bottom bracket to the top of the head tube, while the stack measurement is the distance from the center of the bottom bracket to the center of the head tube. A bike with a shorter reach and higher stack may be more suitable for smaller riders.

Overall, it’s important to take your time and test ride different bikes to find the one that fits you best. A well-fitted bike will not only be more comfortable, but it will also be safer to ride.

Obviously fails as it didn’t say “Buy what I have”

Also fails because it’s 280 words.

Actually quite interesting. It’s a convincing sounding semi-technical word salad. Is it like that for everything, but we just don’t notice if we aren’t knowledgeable about the subject?

What’s going on with the “reach” and “stack” definitions there?

It’s a convincing sounding semi-technical word salad. Is it like that for everything, but we just don’t notice if we aren’t knowledgeable about the subject?

basically yes. I don’t see this as a problem or limitation necessarily, it’s meant to be a conversational AI not a technical expert!

Actually quite interesting. It’s a convincing sounding semi-technical word salad. Is it like that for everything, but we just don’t notice if we aren’t knowledgeable about the subject?

That was why I used that example and that’s perhaps my thoughts as well.

It’s really not at all bad though…. as good as lots of advertising blub

Try this

how do a do a full service on a 2021 fox 34

Performing a full service on a 2021 Fox 34 suspension fork involves several steps and requires specific tools and equipment. Here’s a general guide on how to do a full service on a 2021 Fox 34, but keep in mind that this is a complex process and it’s recommended that you consult the official Fox service manual or seek assistance from a qualified bike mechanic if you’re not experienced in working with suspension forks.

Gather the necessary tools and supplies: You will need specialized tools such as a Fox 34 seal driver, a fork oil height gauge, a torque wrench, and suspension oil. You may also need replacement seals and wipers if the existing ones are worn or damaged.

Remove the fork from the bike: Remove the front wheel, brake caliper, and any other parts that are attached to the fork. Loosen the steerer tube clamp bolts and remove the fork from the bike.

Disassemble the fork: Remove the top cap, the damper assembly, and the air spring assembly. Remove the lower legs by unscrewing the pinch bolts and sliding them off the upper tubes.

Clean and inspect the parts: Clean all the parts thoroughly with a degreaser and inspect them for wear or damage. Replace any worn or damaged parts.

Rebuild the fork: Reassemble the fork with new seals and wipers, lubricating them with suspension oil. Follow the Fox service manual for the proper oil levels and torque specs.

Reinstall the fork: Slide the lower legs back onto the upper tubes, making sure they are aligned properly. Tighten the pinch bolts to the recommended torque. Reinstall the damper and air spring assemblies, and the top cap.

Test the fork: Reinstall the fork on the bike and test its performance by cycling the suspension through its travel and checking for any leaks or issues. Adjust the air pressure and rebound damping to your preference.

Performing a full service on a Fox 34 suspension fork can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it’s crucial for maintaining the fork’s performance and prolonging its lifespan. If you’re not experienced in working with suspension forks or don’t have the necessary tools and equipment, it’s recommended that you seek assistance from a qualified bike mechanic.

Again not terrible then I realised I needed to say what model… it’s missed a couple of tools (damper and air removal tools though you can bodge those) and the Sealhead To Shaft Bullet (which is a see how it comes apart tool)

everything technical I have asked it so far has looked good if you didn’t already know the answer, but has been completely wrong.  needs to be renamed ChatBS.

Still impressive thougb

Prequalifier
when is your last current news update

As an AI language model, I do not provide real-time news updates. My knowledge cutoff date is September 2021, which means I do not have access to information that has been published or occurred after that date. However, I can still provide general information and answer questions based on my training data and knowledge up until that cutoff date.

What do you think of the BBC’s impartiality

As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions or beliefs. However, I can provide information on the BBC’s impartiality and how it is perceived by various stakeholders.

The BBC is a publicly-funded broadcaster in the United Kingdom that is expected to provide impartial news coverage and programming. The BBC’s editorial guidelines state that it must “maintain its impartiality and independence in all areas of its output” and that it must “not knowingly and materially mislead its audiences.”

However, the BBC has faced criticism from some stakeholders who believe that its coverage is biased towards certain political or ideological viewpoints. Some critics argue that the BBC has a left-wing bias, while others claim that it is biased towards the right. These debates often center around specific issues or events, such as the coverage of Brexit or the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Despite these criticisms, the BBC is generally perceived as a reputable and reliable news source by many people in the UK and around the world. According to a survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the BBC is the most trusted news brand in the UK, with 62% of respondents saying that they trust it.

Overall, the BBC’s impartiality is a subject of ongoing debate and scrutiny, and the organization works to maintain its reputation for impartiality and independence in its reporting and programming.

everything technical I have asked it so far has looked good if you didn’t already know the answer, but has been completely wrong. needs to be renamed ChatBS.

It’s not complete BS though… although I would also concur for technical it is a binary BS or not but

Still impressive thougb

Yeah I guess with specific things with a definite answer it can find it.

It has evolved! https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/14/5-ways-gpt-4-outsmarts-chatgpt/?cx_testId=6&cx_testVariant=cx_undefined&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s

everything technical I have asked it so far

“technical” is a bit of a broad term.
I’ve got a mate in IT who is very technical in that field. He uses it to correct scripts.
I used it for some technical questions and it gave me great answers.
So depends which technical field you’re in , I guess. Plus you can help it by giving feedback.

Yeah I use it all the time to help programming/scripting, works great! You do need at least some idea of what you’re doing to get the most out of it though.

I used it to generate some Python code for a utility the other day. Took about 15 minutes and a bit of to-and-fro, but it spat out what would have taken me several hours. What was impressive is that it didn’t work on the first attempt, so I described the problem in the chat. It didn’t just shuffle variable names around, but actually came up with a different approach to solving the problem (actually the one I’d have used myself).

The offensiveness of some of the replies just reflects the fact that many people on the internet are racist misongynistic homophobic xenophobic bellends, and that’s what it learns from. I’m not (or at least I hope I’m not) so I don’t try to game it into making those kind of responses.

The speed of improvement on these is impressive. They are still just language models so if you’re reading anything more into it you’re just a bit paranoid. Although I have started being nicer to my wifi-connected domestic appliances just in case.

Yeah I use it all the time to help programming/scripting, works great! You do need at least some idea of what you’re doing to get the most out of it though.

Yes, I think this is the key. It’s certainly got a lot of people in HE nervous and we are going to have to re-design a lot of our assignments. But at the end of the day it’s just another tool. It can save time but it’s still the case that you can get a lot more out of it if you know what you are talking about and can easily be mislead if you don’t.

desperatebicycle

“technical” is a bit of a broad term.
I’ve got a mate in IT who is very technical in that field. He uses it to correct scripts.
I used it for some technical questions and it gave me great answers.
So depends which technical field you’re in , I guess. Plus you can help it by giving feedback.

I think what is key for “technical” questions (probably wider) is as much writing the correct question.
Why that surprised me is another question but I’ve found the more accurate and specific the question the better the answer.

On a few occasions I’ve written a question and the answer has illustrated to me that the quality of the answer was dependent upon the poor quality of the question. What seems very clever to me is ChatGPT’s ability to take a request to refine the answer.

I think what is key for “technical” questions (probably wider) is as much writing the correct question.

Yeah, saw an example of this in The Register article where they desperately tried to avoid finding anything useful for it to do. It’s a weird place now – used to be a useful resource and now seems to be where old hacks to go to pasture.

I just asked it a how-to for some software I use and it got the answer wrong… so I replied with Actually you do it like this… and it came back with a re-iteration of what I said, like it “understood” it. I like that, cos it doesn’t argue like some colleagues would (or ask stupid bloody questions!) 😀

How can I get a more accurate answer to a technical question ?

There are several steps you can take to increase the chances of getting a more accurate answer to a technical question:

Be specific: When asking a technical question, provide as much detail as possible about the problem you’re trying to solve or the information you’re looking for. This will help the person answering your question to understand your needs more clearly.

Use reliable sources: Look for answers from reliable sources such as reputable websites, technical manuals, or other experts in the field. Be wary of information from unreliable sources or blogs that may not have accurate information.

Ask the right people: Make sure you’re asking someone who is knowledgeable in the subject matter. For example, if you have a question about coding, it’s best to ask a programmer or software engineer rather than a generalist.

Provide context: Give some background information about the problem or question you have. This can help the person answering your question to understand the bigger picture and provide a more accurate answer.

Follow up: If you receive an answer that you’re not sure about or that doesn’t fully answer your question, follow up with more questions or ask for clarification. This will help you get the information you need to solve your problem or understand the topic better.

Remember, asking accurate technical questions is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. By following these steps, you can increase the likelihood of getting a more accurate answer to your technical questions.

can you make that specific to chatgpt answers

Certainly! Here are some specific steps you can take to increase the accuracy of the answers you receive from ChatGPT:

Be clear and specific in your question: Provide as much detail as possible about the information you’re seeking or the problem you’re trying to solve. This will help ChatGPT understand your question more clearly and provide a more accurate answer.

Provide context: Give some background information about your question or problem. This can help ChatGPT understand the bigger picture and provide a more relevant and accurate answer.

Check for accuracy: After receiving an answer, double-check the information provided to make sure it aligns with what you know or have researched. If something doesn’t seem right, ask for clarification or more information.

Use reliable sources: ChatGPT is a language model that has been trained on vast amounts of text data, so it’s important to use reliable sources when asking technical questions. Look for information from reputable websites, technical manuals, or other experts in the field to ensure the accuracy of the information you receive.

Follow up: If you have additional questions or need more information, don’t hesitate to ask ChatGPT for further clarification. ChatGPT is designed to learn from each interaction and can provide more accurate answers over time as it gains more knowledge and context.

What happens as time goes on?

Will we all switch from using things like stackoverflow to chatgpt?

But chatgpt gets its “knowledge” by mining the information that humans dumped into SOF. If all the humans who actually know anything stop using SOF, then eventually chatgpt becomes less and less relevant.

Fundamentally it does not understand anything, and cannot learn. It hasn’t got all these amazing answers by studying the subject in depth and becoming an expert – it’s just harvesting the work of humans who *have* done that.

But chatgpt gets its “knowledge” by mining the information that humans dumped into SOF. If all the humans who actually know anything stop using SOF, then eventually chatgpt becomes less and less relevant.

STW forum becomes multiple ChatGPT accounts all speaking b*ll*cks about something they know nothing about.

What if everyone else on STW is a bot except for you?

Fundamentally it does not understand anything, and cannot learn. It hasn’t got all these amazing answers by studying the subject in depth and becoming an expert – it’s just harvesting the work of humans who *have* done that.

Which is also what most humans do… at one level or another.
It’s an extension of “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Fundamentally it does not understand anything, and cannot learn.

Not mutually exclusive.

But chatgpt gets its “knowledge” by mining the information that humans dumped into SOF.

Neither of these are isolated and what it is really doing is aggregating data and presenting it in a “smart” way through natural language.

To take a STW-ish example … a manufacturer publishes a data/information sheet and service instructions for some forks.
Someone can post that content into SOF.. (and or elsewhere) very little “understanding” is required.
Someone might then take more understanding of how a damper works and publish a way to rearrange the shim stacks… not otherwise available but that isn’t isolated either. An example might be a AI generated text transcript from Vorsprung or JTech Youtube…

The thing is based on work I have previously done on ML most of the people, most of the time don’t really care if information is accurate vs “mostly/often accurate or good enough”.

I did a load of work on processing information with an emphasis on accurate and reliable but marketing decided not enough people cared about “accurate and reliable” to make it commercially viable..

Fundamentally it does not understand anything, and cannot learn.

I think in order to categorically state it can’t understand, you’d actually need to define human “understanding”. Isn’t it just how things relate contextually with each other? Isn’t that how the AI works?!

It absolutely can learn. Chat-GPT is just a playground/test bed and will forget things fairly quickly. But the paid version can be trained for specific tasks, you can pay to create your own version of the AI model and it will permanently remember everything you teach it, this is what people have been doing for specific applications.

Those examples are really obviously chat gpt. All it seems to do is beat around the bush telling you about what it is going to tell you while barely scratching the surface of the subject.

I have only started looking at it recently, but have seen the generated text online many times through search results when trying to find instructions for how to do something. Seems it plays right into SEO very easily.

I have only started looking at it recently, but have seen the generated text online many times through search results when trying to find instructions for how to do something

Dunno bout you, but I unfortuantely, work in IT, in a quite specific area. If I Google a query for an error I’ve had, I then have to trawl through results from manufacturer sites, blog sites, chat boards etc, and it’s a right faff. I use ChatGPT like a search engine and bing (ahem, poor choice!), it (quite often) directly gives the answer I’m looking for.
I’m not saying it’s a revolution, or a fancy toy, or disputing what anyone else says, but I quite like it for that reason 🙂

Been playing with the GPT4 version. Its def better at some things but still a BS artist. One cool thing it seems you can give it different personas – e.g. to be a tutor who guides you through a question with hints but doesn’t give the answer.

For example (I knew how to do this!)

system: You are a tutor that always responds in the Socratic style. You *never* give the student the answer, but always try to ask just the right question to help them learn to think for themselves. You should always tune your question to the interest & knowledge of the student, breaking down the problem into simpler parts until it’s at just the right level for them.
Student: I need help with this math problem: “If a rectangle has a length of 12 meters and a width of 5 meters, what is the area of the rectangle?”

what is the answer to x^2=25

What operation could you perform on both sides of the equation to isolate the variable x?

multiple by 2?

Before trying to multiply, think about what operation would undo the exponent of 2. What operation is the opposite of squaring a number?

square root both sides?

Yes, that’s correct! Now, apply the square root to both sides of the equation x^2 = 25. What do you find as the possible values for x?

6
Consider the properties of square roots. When you take the square root of a number squared, what are the possible outcomes? Think about both positive and negative numbers.

5

That’s correct, 5 is one possible value for x. Can you think of another value for x that would satisfy the equation x^2 = 25? Remember to consider both positive and negative numbers.

-5

Excellent! So, you’ve found both possible values for x: 5 and -5. They both satisfy the equation x^2 = 25. Keep in mind the importance of considering positive and negative solutions when dealing with square roots.

Also, the risk section of the report they published is wild! Getting it to identify chemical compounds that are similar to other chemicals (e.g. chemical weapons precursors) and then ordering it them off the web. What could go wrong!