I have many conversations with people about Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Copilot. The idea that “it makes convincing sentences, but it doesn’t know what it’s talking about” is a difficult concept to convey or wrap your head around. Because the sentences are so convincing.
Any good examples on how to explain this in simple terms?
Edit:some good answers already! I find especially that the emotional barrier is difficult to break. If an AI says something malicious, our brain immediatly jumps to “it has intent”. How can we explain this away?
Harry Frankfurt’s influential 2005 book (based on his influential 1986 essay), On Bullshit, offered a description of what bullshit is.
When we say a speaker tells the truth, that speaker says something true that they know is true.
When we say a speaker tells a lie, that speaker says something false that they know is false.
But bullshit is when the speaker says something to persuade, not caring whether the underlying statement is true or false. The goal is to persuade the listener of that underlying fact.
The current generation of AI chat bots are basically optimized for bullshit. The underlying algorithms reward the models for sounding convincing, not necessarily for being right.