[caconym_]

This isn't incorrect, it's just ambiguous. The JWST did indeed "take the first pictures" of a planet outside our solar system (https://www.npr.org/2023/01/12/1148626359/nasa-webb-telescop...). However, we have previously directly imaged other exoplanets using different instruments—it's just that this exoplanet in particular (LHS 475 b) has never been directly imaged before Webb.

It's the sort of question where you would expect an expert (or a thoughtful layperson with access to a search engine and a few minutes of spare time) to give a better, less ambiguous answer. However, since it is technically correct, I think it's a fairly minor sin in the grand scheme of popular science education, which commonly propagates actual falsehoods without the help of generative ML—e.g. iodine always sublimes rather than melting, aerodynamic lift relies on equal travel time of air on both sides of a curved airfoil, etc.

re: this particular ambiguity, one does wonder what the model was "thinking", but I suppose it doesn't matter because we'll never know.

---

I'm not sure if I think this technology is good or bad, because I don't really understand how most people use search engines. When I use them myself, I think I am fairly sensitive to ambiguities and logical contradictions, cross-checking multiple sources to extract a high-confidence answer or walking away if I'm not satisfied that I've found one. Most folks on HN are probably the same way, and I don't think generative ML can do better than us, yet.

On the other hand, will Bard's results be better or worse than e.g. taking the first Quora result as gospel? I would honestly guess that, on average, Bard (and ChatGPT, etc.) will do better. So, less critical users may get better results from these systems.

How many people are in the former camp, and how many in the latter? Of course, changing the dominant search paradigm will have an effect on all users. It also remains to be seen how the search vs. spammers arms race will evolve with the advent of generative ML search tools.

[hedora]

Yet, for some reason, people still get bent out of shape when I point out that I was the first person to implement a hashtable, host a web page, run an experiment to measure the force of gravity, stare out a telescope at the moon, post a comment on Hacker News, etc, etc...

[caconym_]

If you really think these are semantically comparable^[1] to the statement under examination then we are not speaking the same language, despite appearances to the contrary, and therefore have nothing to discuss.

I get it: hating on AI is very trendy today and it feels good to publicly agree with a righteous cause. I'm generally not a fan of this technology myself---most of these models incorporate stolen work of mine in their training sets, unattributed and uncompensated, and I think they are likely to be a disaster for the human species. I have not implemented any of them in my creative workflows or other aspects of my life, and I don't plan to.

However, I think it is important to see one's enemy clearly, and the vast majority of people participating in the anti-AI discourse are abjectly failing to do so as in this case. This can only hurt their cause, and by extension mine.

^[1] Exoplanets is a category of unique non-fungible objects which can be meaningfully discovered and measured on an individual basis. Hash tables are an abstract concept, as is hosting a web page (and creating a web page to host it fundamentally precludes discovering it, except in the sense of discovery within the creative process). Gravity, similarly, is a single 'thing' that, once discovered, cannot be discovered again.

One might easily and correctly say, however, that X person was the first to measure the force of gravity to a certain precision, or that Y person was the first to develop a particular implementation of the hash table concept, e.g. cuckoo hashing. These achievements are meaningfully distinct from the discovery of the broader concepts they extend. Discovery of a particular exoplanet is similar; however, it may surprise you to learn that the English language treats different kinds of 'things' differently, and in this case those varied, underspecified conventions of language have produced an ambiguity.

[Dylan16807]

Nobody is going to interpret "a" as "some particular". The fact is incorrect.

[caconym_]

I am glad you were able to offer your opinion here.

[richardjam73]

If JWST took a picture of LHS 475b then where is the picture? Isn't exoplanet HIP 65426b the first that JWST took a picture of?

[caconym_]

HIP 65426b is the first exoplanet JWST imaged, but it was previously discovered by VLT-SPHERE, which I believe is also a direct imaging instrument. So it would not be correct to say that JWST took the first pictures of HIP 65426b.

However, JWST was the first instrument to directly observe LHS 475b, also confirming its existence for the first time. As to "where are the pictures?", IIUC these observations were made using a spectrograph instrument that does not produce a picture as such. The results are easy to find on the web with a search engine.

One might say Bard's result is wrong in the sense I have proposed because a spectrograph result isn't a picture. However, given that the prompt explicitly specified that the results should be tailored to a 9 year old, I think that would be pretty disingenuous.