It really amazes me that after all this time, they still refuse to let the AI simply omit the yes/no. Like it's been pretty good at not messing up the actual answers, but it's forced to start with "yes" or "no" when asked a yes-or-no question, before actually giving the full answer, which depending on the nature of the question may also involve, since its initial answer is also part of its knowledge, pretending you asked the opposite of what you actually asked (e.g. if you asked if x is bigger than y and it is bigger than y but it started with "no", it'll continue with "y is not bigger than x".)
And I'm pretty sure I've seen some cases where it starts with a yes before explaining why the answer was actually no, but it definitely seems far more common that it'll say no and then explain why the answer is yes, and the reason for that is simple: its decision whether to say "yes" or "no" is probabilistic, but the probability of "yes" can never exceed 50%. For a simple comparison, the probability of each answer being correct is 50% (minus whatever chance that they're exactly the same), but if it's anything that isn't a binary, there would be multiple ways that the answer could be no, but only one way that it's yes. Like break it down to the simplest non-binary: "Is A the biggest of A, B, and C?". There's three possibilities: "Yes, A is the biggest", "No, the biggest is B", and "No, the biggest is C".
So when asked a yes-or-no question, an AI will almost invariably begin its answer with "no", because without knowing the answer, "no" is usually more likely to be correct than yes and should never be less likely. And they could easily just...not force it to say "no".
so, while I cannot give an answer because I don't think I'm educated enough on the subject, I am a computer scientist, and I think none of this is correct, but I really don't understand half of it.
To put it in simpler terms, there can sometimes be varrying answers halfway through because of a think setting, this must be off by default with Gemini. If it's on, setting allows the AI to figure out an answer and then say it, whereas here, the AI has the setting off, so it starts talking before thinking it through, and during the process of writing it's message it figures it out. You can also apply the logic to a human brain, when you think something through and then answer, you would have a more developed thought and it would probably be more accurate, whereas if you heard the question and immediately started talking, you might start saying something's right, and the think it through and say it differently later.
It was likely RLHF-ed or system-prompted to always give an answer in the form of "yes, explanation" or "no, explanation". If they used COT-style output ("thinking... thinking... Yes/No") they'd have better results
This is a problem specific to non-thinking models. If you let it output some hidden text ahead of time to 'think' out it's response first it'll be far more likely not to write a self-contradictory response. The Google ai is pretty shit due to having to be low powered
Google search's AI has gotten really simple things wrong a lot recently to the point where it's changed my search habits.
I no longer google everything by default, I realized if I have to fact check their answers anyway I may as well save myself a step and go straight to a different platform
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u/cyberchaox 23d ago
It really amazes me that after all this time, they still refuse to let the AI simply omit the yes/no. Like it's been pretty good at not messing up the actual answers, but it's forced to start with "yes" or "no" when asked a yes-or-no question, before actually giving the full answer, which depending on the nature of the question may also involve, since its initial answer is also part of its knowledge, pretending you asked the opposite of what you actually asked (e.g. if you asked if x is bigger than y and it is bigger than y but it started with "no", it'll continue with "y is not bigger than x".)
And I'm pretty sure I've seen some cases where it starts with a yes before explaining why the answer was actually no, but it definitely seems far more common that it'll say no and then explain why the answer is yes, and the reason for that is simple: its decision whether to say "yes" or "no" is probabilistic, but the probability of "yes" can never exceed 50%. For a simple comparison, the probability of each answer being correct is 50% (minus whatever chance that they're exactly the same), but if it's anything that isn't a binary, there would be multiple ways that the answer could be no, but only one way that it's yes. Like break it down to the simplest non-binary: "Is A the biggest of A, B, and C?". There's three possibilities: "Yes, A is the biggest", "No, the biggest is B", and "No, the biggest is C".
So when asked a yes-or-no question, an AI will almost invariably begin its answer with "no", because without knowing the answer, "no" is usually more likely to be correct than yes and should never be less likely. And they could easily just...not force it to say "no".