[janalsncm]

It isn’t though. Like I said, if the model gets worse OpenAI can simply not release a new version.

You also have to consider the money angle. As using ChatGPT and other chatbots becomes more popular, people will stop producing garbage internet articles because they will be less popular and therefore less profitable. Bloggers who enjoy writing will continue to do so because it was never about the money, they just enjoy writing.

Further, the internet is only one small portion of information available to train on. There’s a lot of other data out there, including real-world conversations.

[Volundr]

> Like I said, if the model gets worse OpenAI can simply not release a new version.

So now it's got great information about the Model T Ford but knows nothing about our new mars colony?

I don't think "just don't update the model" is a likely option.

[janalsncm]

You don’t update models to add new information. That’s extremely inefficient and susceptible to catastrophic forgetting. If you want the model to have new information you update an offline knowledge base. So yes you can simply not update the model.

[Volundr]

Huh? You won't update the model you'll just give it new information? The exact concern is that the new information will be garbage aimed at pushing the model to produce certain output. Much like SEO spammers do to manipulate Google search results.

"Just don't update the model, only feed it new information" is exactly how to get to the outcome of concern in this thread.

[janalsncm]

Yes, updating the model is different from updating the knowledge base the model uses.

[Volundr]

Great, so you've updated your knowledge base, it's got garbage targeted to make it attractive to the model, and now your model is outputting garbage. It's the exact same problem Google has fighting the SEO spammers. Now the model is significantly less useful, exactly as suggested.

We've already seen exactly this happened with search. There's no reason to believe that LLMs are immune.

[jnsaff2]

I understand what you are saying but to me it sounds very handwavy and (not to be disrespectful) naive.

How would LLM upstarts be able to counter the massive commercial interests? As with google they will also succumb to prefer money over usefulness at latest when they have a wide user base.

There is also an even less proven way of distinguishing spam from signal with LLMs.

And not updating a model means that they will be stuck in COVID-19 era forever.