[RandomLensman]

Not a technicality. It's like inventing a proper head of government that wasn't there.

Also, knowing German chancellors was always easy, so that fact that a machine falls behind any normal dictionary or the German Chancellor's website is poor form.

It's like a calculator getting basic addition wrong. I don't want a future full of poorly performing machines.

[Kiro]

He was acting Chancellor. It's like saying a red apple is not an apple. It's a technicality. The fact that we have a completely reasonable explanation to why GPT-4 includes him in the list and you guys still make it sound like the AI is a complete moron is just hilarious to me.

[dllthomas]

A "red apple" is an apple that is red. An "acting officeholder" is not an officeholder who is acting, but a person who is acting as if they have the office (... with institutional support - Norton was not acting Emperor).

It's a technicality, but a valid technically and it's a technical question. I agree that it's wrong in a relatively small and surprisingly human way, but it's wrong in a way that including a red apple amongst apples is not.

[RandomLensman]

There is no "Acting Chancellor", that is a poor translation of what the job is. There is only a Chancellor, not an "Acting Chancellor" - you have to trust that the Germans and their institutions kind of know who was Chancellor and who was not.

The machine is a complete moron for not being able to get basic data from basic sources right.

[Kiro]

> Scheel became acting Chancellor

> Chancellor of Germany, Acting, 7 May 1974 – 16 May 1974

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel

[RandomLensman]

I know, but the German wikipedia gets it right: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scheel

(And so does the German Chancellor: https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-de/kanzleramt/bundeskanzler-...)

There is zero ambiguity about who was Chancellor and who was not.

[Kiro]

It says "geschäftsführender Bundeskanzler".

Even on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_Germany he's listed as "Vice Chancellor Walter Scheel served as acting Chancellor from 7 May to 16 May 1974" between 4 and 5.

There's obviously some ambiguity to it considering we are two humans discussing this with a claimed discrepancy between English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia, but your conclusion is still that the AI is spitting nonsense.

[RandomLensman]

There is zero ambiguity under German as law as to who was a Chancellor and who was not. Not a matter of wikipedia etc.

The way to be Chancellor is through article 63 of the Grundgesetz, while Scheel was put into the caretaker role via article 69. This explains it a bit https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizekanzler_(Deutschland) - Scheel was only taking on the function, not the office.

This kind of giving some machine the benefit of the doubt when in fact there is zero ambiguity is really a path that makes me think we will have mostly machines designed for marketing and other non-critical things.

[fnordpiglet]

So the English Wikipedia author is a moron, or is there ambiguity when describing the role in English?

[RandomLensman]

No. I think the problem starts with that the role Scheel had isn't given a name in the article of the basic law that creates it.

So either need to be fully descriptive (e.g., something like fulfilling the functions of the Chancellor, while not ever having the office) or it will be also open to being misunderstood.

The issue here really is that the German succession doesn't ever transfer the office, but only the function (which is different to the US, for example). So here Scheel followed Brandt, but not into the office. Only someone having the office is a Chancellor and there is a specific way to that office.

[naasking]

> The machine is a complete moron for not being able to get basic data from basic sources right.

I'm just going to point out that you're calling an AI moronic for not getting this right when a bunch of humans are also disagreeing with you. Frankly, this really undermines your case that this is an AI failure.

[RandomLensman]

What is wrong with me wanting my machines to stick to the actual definitions?