[andrei_says_]

In the Catch me if you Can movie, Leo diCaprio’s character wears a surgeon’s gown and confidently says “I concur”.

What I’m hearing here is that you are willing to get your surgery done by him and not by one of the real doctors - if he is capable of pronouncing enough doctor-sounding phrases.

[bsenftner]

If that's what you're hearing, then you're not thinking it through. Of course one would not want an AI acting as a doctor as one's real doctor, but a medical or law school graduate studying for a license sure would appreciate a Socratic tutor in their specialization. Likewise, on the job in a technical specialization, a sounding board is of more value when it follows along, potentially with a virtual board of debate, and questions when logical drifts occur. It's not AI thinking for one, it is AI critically assisting their exploration through Socratic debate. Do not place AI in charge of critical decisions, but do place them in the assistance of people figuring out such situations.

[amlib]

The doctors analogy still applies, that "socratic tutor" LLM is actually a charlatan that sounds, to the untrained mind, like a competent person, but in actuality is a complete farce. I still wouldn't trust that.

[scrubs]

The doctor example is good because it puts the consumer at risk. Now, it's not a parlor game. Now can llm do the same?

[DiogenesKynikos]

Leo diCaprio's character says nothing of substance in that scene. If you ask an LLM a question about most subjects, it will give you a highly intelligent, substantive answer.

[RugnirViking]

No. It will give you a long answer with correct grammar, punctuation, use of wide vocabulary, and persuasive sounding arguments. What we are learning nowadays is that among humans, that is highly correlated with highly intelligent, substantive answers from intelligent, practiced subject matter experts.

Among AIs, such text is merely correlated with having read a lot of literature. It's sometimes right. It's sometimes wrong. But you don't know, and any attempt to defer to "oh well it sounds persuasive", which may have served you okay with smart humans, will end up failing in spectacular and unpredictable ways.

I do not say this because I don't find AI's interesting, or even useful. They are, for tasks they are suited too. But there are so many people essentially arguing they are suited to all tasks, which they clearly aren't

[DiogenesKynikos]

You are seriously underselling what LLMs do nowadays. It's not just that the grammar is correct. In most cases, the answers are substantive and factually correct.

You can ask fairly complicated questions, and it will usually reason correctly and give you a high-quality answer. I ask about programming, physics and math, and it usually answers on the level of someone with a high level of training in those fields.

It sometimes fails in strange ways, but you can't just write off all of the high-quality answers LLMs give as nothing more than plausible-sounding English.

[andrei_says_]

Maybe. Or will make something up. Whether the answer is highly intelligent or a confident fabrication only an expert will know. The LLM will not know.

How is this not a showstopper?

Are we OK with the LLM taking actions in any situation where the outcome matters in any way?

[vrighter]

it gives you an answer. Not a highly intelligent one. Just an answer. And if it doesn't know what it's talking about, it'll still give an answer.