- jordanpgI agree it's something of a bummer, but why is this surprising or "bizarre"?
- This weird obsequiousness and the fact that it never updates are beginning to make me wonder if this is some kind of prank.
- My point is that citations are constantly making headlines, yet at least at first glance, seems like an eminently solvable problem.
- Does anyone know, from a technical standpoint, why are citations such a problem for LLMs?
I realize things are probably (much) more complicated than I realize, but programmatically, unlike arbitrary text, citations are generally strings with a well-defined format. There are literally "specs" for citation formats in various academic, legal, and scientific fields.
So, naively, one way to mitigate these hallucinations would be identify citations with a bunch of regexes, and if one is spotted, use the Google Scholar API (or whatever) to make sure it's real. If not, delete it or flag it, etc.
Why isn't something like this obvious solution being done? My guess is that it would slow things down too much. But it could be optional and it could also be done after the output is generated by another process.
- Organizations above a certain size absolutely cannot help themselves but publish this stuff. It is the work of senior middle managers. Ark Fleet Ship B.
I work in a corporate setting that has been working on a "strategy rebrand" for over a year now and despite numerous meeting, endless powerpoint, and god knows how much money to consultants, I still have no idea what any of this has to do with my work.
- > Once an alternative way to educate children, homeschooling is now an increasingly popular and mainstream option.
TFA does not even begin to grapple with the single most important issue, which is who is actually doing the homeschooling.
This is only an option for certain families, with parents with enough bandwidth and knowhow to do this effectively. That excludes many tens of millions of Americans.
I think this is really about class, race, and religious segregation. Families can do what they want, of course, but this framing makes it sound like failing schools are the whole problem and I don't think that's the whole story.
- What is Gemini 3 under the hood? Is it still just a basic LLM based on transformers? Or are there all kinds of other ML technologies bolted on now? I feel like I've lost the plot.
- Man, I wish that the modern internet -- and great stuff like this -- had been around when I took GR way back when. My math chops were never good enough to /really/ get it and there were so many concepts (like this one) that were just symbols to me.
- Remarkably, they don't even ask for money anywhere on the site. Now that is a rare thing on the modern internet, especially for high quality writing.
- One barrier to adoption is that big URLs are just ugly. Things are smooshed together without spaces, URL encoding, human-readable words mixed with random characters, etc. I think even devs who understand what they're looking at find it a little unsatisfying.
Maybe a solution is some kind of browser widget that displays query params in a user-friendly way that hides the ugliness, sort of like an object explorer interface.
- This is often described in terms of adherence to democratic norms, but I like your framing better.
If we have to distill the problem down to its simplest essence, it's the political parties. In particular, it's the existence of the two political parties, whose priorities have transcended those of the Republic itself (mostly the members' self interest). It just so happens to be the Republicans in power when the consequences of this have spiraled out of control.
- This sounds like something I would have written before I was a parent.
And please remember: not everyone's family situation is the same. There are single parents, all kinds of employment scenarios, chronic illnesses or disabilities, sick parents, income differentials, and on and on and on.
Your single data point about what worked for your situation does not necessarily apply to everyone else's situation.
- Indeed. It is a calibrated, lawyer-defined behavior called executing their fiduciary duties.
In other words, they are behaving as necessary (and as advised) to avoid later being exposed to a lawsuit.
- Maybe, except that doesn't explain the deliberate kneecapping of R&D, health, and academia.
I'm pretty sure that if the curtains are pulled to the side, the people who are behind these policies are not seeking wealth and power. They are instead religious zealots seeking transformation.
- But Kamala Harris was not perfect in every respect. In fact, she had several policy preferences that don't align perfectly with my own. In a lot of ways, she was just like Trump. Also, she was not a very good public speaker. /s
- > But I also have no doubt these decisions aren't being made for the long-term benefit of the US as a whole
Then why are they being made? That is the real question that in my opinion is not being discussed enough. A lot of reacting to what's happening in the US, but not enough pondering about what the real goals are here.
I have my own views about this, which I used to think were somewhat conspiratorial and hyperbolic, but no more.
- I agree that he's not the best messenger, but in this case, he's right about Hossenfelder. I think the interviews with the 6 physicists stand alone. For the most part, Dave just lets them talk.
- Sure, academia is the worst system except for all the other ones.
Academia is what she is criticizing, btw, not the "scientific enterprise," even if she doesn't say it all the time. You know what else she doesn't say? What we should do instead.
Here's what she thinks we should do instead: privatize academic research. Can you think of any problems with that?
- She has gone way beyond this. She is actively undermining the entire academic scientific enterprise, even as she makes money popularizing it. It's unclear why she does this. She portrays herself as speaking truth to power, but -- much like certain actors in US public life these days -- is simply doing the easy work of tearing things down, without doing the hard work of building things.
- Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oipI5TQ54tA
"Professor Dave" interviews 6 physicists regarding Hossenfelder including one guy whose name you particle physicists in particular might recognize.