[m3047]

I think you are correct, and incorrect. However: set and setting. Another of Lanier's observations, which he relates to LLMs, is the Boeing "smart" stall preventer which crashed two <strike>Dreamliners</strike> [correction:] 737 MAXes.

Who can argue with a stall preventer, right? What one can, and has been exposed / argued with, is the observation that information about the operation of the stall preventer, training, and even the ability to effectively control it depended on how much the airline was willing to pay for this necessary feature.

So in reality, what matters is studying the methodology of set and setting, not how the pieces of the crashed airship ended up where they did.

[colinmorelli]

I'm not exactly sure how this relates to my comment above. An analysis of an airline crash and a study are not the same thing.

As it relates to study design, controlling for set and setting are part of the methodology. For example, most drug studies are double-blinded so that neither patients nor clinicians are aware of whether the patient is getting the drug or not, to reduce or eliminate any placebo effect (i.e. to control for the "set"/mental state of those involved in the study).

There are certainly some cases in which it's effectively impossible to control for these factors (i.e. psychedelics). That's not what's really being discussed here, though.

An airline crash is an n of 1 incident, and not the same as a designed study.