This, via @emilymbender, is so good: a paper opposing " gratuitous anthropomorphic features." I've been arguing that LLMs should not use first-person human but first-person machine and not use brain verbs but machine verbs (i.e., instead of "I write," "the program assembled).
Conversation
Notices
-
Embed this notice
Jeff Jarvis (jeffjarvis@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 29-May-2023 22:44:21 JST 
Jeff Jarvis
-
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Monday, 29-May-2023 22:44:20 JST 
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@kotaro @jeffjarvis @emilymbender
Not sure where the example featured a passive verb, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure that "the program assembled" is third person, not first -- and I agree that this is preferrable to first person here.
-
Embed this notice
kotaro (kotaro@mastodon.online)'s status on Monday, 29-May-2023 22:44:21 JST 
kotaro
@jeffjarvis @emilymbender You said the passive voice is a machine verb? That's quite an interesting philosophy. We Japanese are a people who use the passive voice too much.
-
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Monday, 29-May-2023 23:24:58 JST
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@emilymbender @jeffjarvis @kotaro I *think* I get where the confusion may arise: the "first person" here is semantic, not grammatical, as in "my old self isn't able to run that fast"; grammatically third person, semantically first.
-
Embed this notice
Jeff Jarvis (jeffjarvis@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 29-May-2023 23:25:00 JST
Jeff Jarvis
@aaribaud @kotaro @emilymbender
Yes, in this context "the machine assembled" could be seen as either third or first person. -
Embed this notice
Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her) (emilymbender@dair-community.social)'s status on Monday, 29-May-2023 23:25:00 JST 
Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her)
@jeffjarvis @aaribaud @kotaro no, that's third person, unambiguously.
-
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 00:33:32 JST
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@mybarkingdogs @goodthinking @pjakobs @jeffjarvis @emilymbender @kotaro This one I tend to read less as "we, your computer, are..." and more as "We, MS, are..." (not that I *like* it any better, mind you).
-
Embed this notice
mybarkingdogs (mybarkingdogs@universeodon.com)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 00:33:33 JST 
mybarkingdogs
@goodthinking @pjakobs @jeffjarvis @emilymbender @aaribaud @kotaro
Windows still does stuff like that. the "We're getting things ready for you" and such. Seriously it annoyed me for a long time though I didn't have a specific reason beyond "what is this forced brand intimacy I do not have nor want"
-
Embed this notice
Sal De Gusto (goodthinking@beige.party)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 00:33:34 JST 
Sal De Gusto
@pjakobs @jeffjarvis @emilymbender @aaribaud @kotaro It’s gone now, but for a period of years, if you chose “Play Next” in the iOS Music app it would respond “We’ll play this next”. Dafuq? No you won’t. I will. Who is this we and how did you get in here?
-
Embed this notice
Peter Jakobs ⛵ (pjakobs@mastodon.green)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 00:33:35 JST 
Peter Jakobs ⛵
@emilymbender @aaribaud @jeffjarvis @kotaro yes! So much yes!
No programmed system should ever self refer as "I" -
Embed this notice
Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her) (emilymbender@dair-community.social)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 00:33:37 JST
Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her)
Professor of linguistics here (with a PhD in syntax). Yes, people sometimes use third person expressions to describe themselves. But that doesn't make them first person expressions. The whole point of that article is that machines shouldn't be programmed to use first person expressions (among other anthropomorphizing choices).
-
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 00:56:33 JST
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@icastico @emilymbender @jeffjarvis @kotaro While I agree about the reflex we have to anthropomorphize who- or whatever we talk to, "AI"s are a special case, as -- contrary to animals -- *we* make them talk, so *we* can decide wether to help with the anthropomorphization or work against it. And we have ample means -- for instance, when an "AI" produces information about itself, we could make it third person and *literally frame it* away from the rest of the production -- as a warning label.
-
Embed this notice
icastico (icastico@c.im)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 00:56:34 JST 
icastico
@emilymbender @aaribaud @jeffjarvis @kotaro
This person is skeptical that we can avoid the anthropomorphizing reaction that will happen in any discourse that uses language. There is just too strong an instinct- it’s strong even when interacting with animals that don’t have language and can’t use pronouns.
-
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 01:21:18 JST
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@jdeseo @emilymbender @jeffjarvis @kotaro
Several points here: however sad that make the the science fiction fan in me (*),
1/3) the machine *does not learn* to speak etc, it is *made* to speak etc.
2/3) Nor can it categorize (its "training" consists in categorizing things for it, precisely because it can't)
3/3) As it lacks anything remotely close to conscience, let alone self-conscience, it does not identify self-references.
(*) The occasional writer remains optimistic though.
-
Embed this notice
Jennifer Deseo (jdeseo@toot.io)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 01:21:20 JST 
Jennifer Deseo
@emilymbender @aaribaud @jeffjarvis @kotaro Even if the machine learns to speak of itself in the third person, might it eventually categorize “the machine” as a self-referential (ie, first-person) pronoun?
-
Embed this notice
Osma A (osma@mas.to)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 01:45:07 JST 
Osma A
@emilymbender
I've been thinking that languages may need a new "animate object" pronoun class. Finnish uses the equivalence of "it" for both objects and animals - and when learning English, it takes us a while to adapt to using third person pronouns for pets (though the practice has been leaking into Finnish as well).Would it be acceptable for an LLM to generate first person text if it also identified the subject as the user identity?
@aaribaud @jeffjarvis @kotaro -
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 01:45:07 JST
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@osma @emilymbender @jeffjarvis @kotaro If by "the user identity" you mean "I", that would reinforce anthropomorphization as well as reinforce the false idea that an "AI" might be sentient -- I personally think that would be a bad move. Way too many people already believe that "AI"s are sentient.
-
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 01:56:28 JST
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@osma @emilymbender @jeffjarvis @kotaro ("sentient" might be too strong a word here. Let me amend that: many people believe that what happens inside "AI"s qualifies as "thinking". That's a much weaker term, albeit still [almost] entirely wrong.)
-
Embed this notice
Osma A (osma@mas.to)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 03:39:31 JST
Osma A
@aaribaud
I mean there is a difference between the LLM referring to itself as "I", and generating text on behalf of its operator, referring to him/her as "I". But is that difference clear enough?
@emilymbender @jeffjarvis @kotaro -
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 03:39:31 JST
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@osma @emilymbender @jeffjarvis @kotaro
Argh, "operator" is ambiguous to me: it could refer to the person *providing* the "AI" or to the person *using* it.
But having the "AI" use "I" to refer to its user would make little sense, so I guess you mean "I" to refer to the "AI" provider.
If so: I suspect that would not be acceptable, even and especially to the "AI" provider. I don't see any of them wanting to be *represented* by the "AI" they provide. They all want it to have a distinct identity.
-
Embed this notice
Albert ARIBAUD ✎ (aaribaud@mastodon.art)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 13:44:32 JST
Albert ARIBAUD ✎
@osma
Apologie for that. Could you expand on it? -
Embed this notice
Osma A (osma@mas.to)'s status on Tuesday, 30-May-2023 13:44:33 JST
Osma A
@aaribaud
well, you read that completely wrong.
-
Embed this notice
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the