Embed Notice

@clacke

Re. Not anthropomorphizing LLMs

I'm a sucker for this. I'll apologise to an inanimate object if I walk into it.

I find useful practical tips for myself in following this to be:
1. Use the verb "I prompted" rather than I told or I asked.
2. State that the program "output" rather than it replied.
3. I don't discuss "confabulation" because it's an anthropomorphization (the reality is that the computer program is doing exactly what it is instructed to do by the user), but if I was compelled to anthropomorphize, I would use "confabulation" rather than hallucination.

I would be curious to know if you or any other readers had any more tips!

The following cartoon is from:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/precise

#LLM #AI #GAN #programming #language #linguistics #metacognition #philosophy #computers #anthropomorphization #maths #mathematics #math