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dataviz1000today at 2:34 AM3 repliesview on HN

Oh, so the word 'gate' is probably in the documentation also!

I see. So this isn't as scary. Claude is helping me understand how to use it properly.


Replies

perching_aixtoday at 2:12 PM

If this was more than just a gut reaction [0], I have a tough time navigating what swings this topic between scary and not scary for you.

Unless you're a true and invested believer of souls, free will, and other spiritualistic nonsense (or have a vested political affiliation to pretend so), it should be tautological that everything you read and experience biases you. LLM output then is no different.

If you are a believer, then either nothing ever did, or LLMs are special in some way, or everything else is. Which just doesn't make sense to me.

[0] It's jarring to observe the boundaries of one's agency, sure, but LLMs are really nothing special in this way. For example, I somewhat frequently catch myself using words and phrases I saw earlier during the day elsewhere, even if I did not process them consciously.

nerdsnipertoday at 1:23 PM

I have noticed similar phenomena with Claude, where its vocabulary subtly shifts how I think/frame/write about things or points me to subtle gaps in my own understanding. And I also usually come around to understand that it's often not arbitrary. But I do think some confirmation bias is at play: when it tries to shift me into the wrong directions repeatedly, I learn how to make it stop doing that.

It definitely adds a layer of cognitive load, in wrangling/shepherding/accomodating/accepting the unpredictable personalities and stochastic behaviors of the agents. It has strong default behaviors for certain small tasks, and where humans would eventually habituate prescribed procedures/requirements, the LLM's never really internalize my preferences. In that way, they are more like contractors than employees.

airstriketoday at 2:59 AM

Why would it be scary? Claude is just parroting other human knowledge. It has no goal or agency.

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