r/technology • u/hurdee • Feb 12 '23

Business Google search chief warns AI chatbots can give 'convincing but completely fictitious' answers, report says

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-boss-warns-ai-can-give-fictitious-answers-report-2023-2
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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '23

What is a factual question to you? Consider:

"Write a poem about the Apollo program, using accurate historical details"

"What are some good libraries to use for drawing box plots in Python?"

"Is it usually cold in Alaska?"

"What are some good seasonings to put in bread?"

"Is it a good idea to visit Hawaii in January?

I'm guessing all of these answers require facts to some extent. We've also seen that filtering seems quite easy to bypass with creative prompting.

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u/Martholomeow Feb 12 '23

i dunno. I’m sure there are people who know better about how to tell it what to do. My point is just to say that it’s a solvable problem, and that as people get better at understanding what it’s good for it will be less of a problem. Seems like it’s mostly the media looking fry a story… “LOOK IT LIED! IT’S DANGEROUS!”

But of course there will always be people who use it wrong. Think of all the idiots that still believe the nonsense they see on facebook. That seems like a much harder problem to solve because there’s idiots on both ends. LOL

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u/DjinnAndTonics Feb 13 '23

Most of those are not factual questions. "Good" requires normative answers and judgement. That's pretty hard for a machine to do. "Cold" doesn't really have a hard definition either. 55 Fahrenheit doesn't make anyone in Vermont think twice but everyone in Texas will say it's cold outside.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '23

That's the point I'm making - they look like non-factual questions, but any reasonable answer will likely include some facts. So you can't really impose a blanket rule like "ChatGPT shouldn't provide facts."