Another elephant in the room
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From r/ChatGPT:
Follow-up:
Cue George Lakoff?
There are surprisingly many standard elephant metaphors: the elephant in the room, the blind men and the elephant, and the hypothetical results of telling someone not to think of an elephant, which was around before George used it as the way to frame framing.
AntC said,
March 1, 2025 @ 4:45 am
On ChatGPT's inability to 'translate' words into images, there's a (over-long) Youtube from a few days ago "Why Can’t ChatGPT Draw a Full Glass of Wine?". If it's correctly reporting ChatGPT's words, I'm quite impressed at how fulsomely it can apologise.
Today from ChatGPT (I was asking for a solution to a letter-puzzle)
> The letters "CEHILRTWY" can be rearranged to form the word "WHEELCITY."
(This is no more fun than shooting fish in a barrel.)
Richard Hershberger said,
March 1, 2025 @ 7:18 am
I can imagine using Chat GPT or the like as a first-run research tool. I have two tests. The first is to ask it Bobby Mathews's ERA in 1884. The Individual and year are arbitrary. The point is that this information is a discrete fact, and is readily available on the web. I have been using this test for some years now. The AIs with voice-based interface are completely flustered. The older AIs with text interfaces couldn't tell me the answer, but would give me a link to the right baseball-reference page. The newer AIs are far worse, confidently bullshitting.
The second test is based on the biography of Tom Miller. Miller played professional baseball briefly in the 1870s, but is justifiably obscure today. I got interested in him some years back and wrote a biography for the SABR bioproject. This is the only source on the net for anything more than the statistical record. The test is to ask the AI to give me a three paragraph summary of his biography. Fair is fair: I specify that I am asking about the 1870s professional baseball player. What comes back is pure blather and bullshit. I next try directing the AI to the SABR bioproject page, either descriptively orby providing the URL. This helps only a little.
If I paste in the text from the SABR page I get a reasonable summary. This is, from my perspective, AI's one useful capability. But for going out an finding something, even with hand-holding, it is worse than useless.
Jeremy said,
March 1, 2025 @ 7:24 am
And "how do you eat an elephant?" "one bite at a time"
Nat Herold said,
March 1, 2025 @ 8:01 am
I just gave this: "The letters "CEHILRTWY" can be rearranged to form the word "WHEELCITY." Gemini. The answer was, "That's correct! The letters "CEHILRTWY" can be rearranged to spell "WHEELCHAIR".
David Marjanović said,
March 1, 2025 @ 12:16 pm
The follow-up is fake, right?
Is the original fake, too? It looks very plausible on its own, but… given the follow-up…
Ralph J Hickok said,
March 1, 2025 @ 12:40 pm
@Richard Hershberger
I asked ChatGPT, "Are there any biographies of Johnny Blood?"
This was the reply:
Yes, there are biographies and various books that cover the life of Johnny Blood, whose real name was John "Johnny" Blood McNally. He was a famous American football player in the early days of the NFL and is considered one of the sport's first great stars. Here are a few notable books and sources that focus on his life and career:
"Johnny Blood: The Story of My Life" – This is Johnny Blood McNally's autobiography, which provides insight into his experiences both on and off the field. Written in the first person, it covers his time as a player and some of his colorful adventures.
"The Forgotten League: A History of the American Football League" by Michael Oriard – This book touches on the early days of American football, including players like Johnny Blood, providing a broader context for his career within the development of professional football.
"The Packers: A History of Green Bay Packers Football" by Rob Reischel – This book delves into the history of the Green Bay Packers, the team with which Johnny Blood is most famously associated. It touches on the key players from the early years, including McNally, and provides background on his contributions to the team's success.
Although there may not be a standalone biography that focuses solely on Johnny Blood, his life is well-documented in the context of early American football, particularly through these books and various historical sports writings.
If you're interested in his story, the autobiography would be the most direct source, offering a personal perspective on his remarkable and often tumultuous career."
Two of the books cited do not exist. Johnny Blood never wrote an autobiography and Rob Reischel, although he's written a lot about the Packers, never wrote a book with that title.
The one real book cited doesn't mention Johnny Blood. There's no reason why it should: It's a history of the American Football League, which began play more than 20 years after Johnny Blood retired from pro football.
Furthermore, there are two book-length biographies of Johnny Blood. I wrote one of them, "Vagabond Halfback: The Saga of Johnny Blood McNally." It won the Pro Football Researchers Association 2017 Nelson Ross Award.
I fed ChatGPT that information and asked, " Are you aware of this book?"
ChatGPT replied, "Yes, I'm aware of Vagabond Halfback: The Saga of Johnny Blood McNally! It’s a well-regarded biography of Johnny Blood McNally, one of the most colorful and enigmatic figures in early professional football. McNally, known for his unconventional personality and remarkable playing career, made a lasting impact on the game. Your book, which won the prestigious 2017 Nelson Ross Award, is an important contribution to football literature, offering an in-depth look at McNally’s life and career. The award speaks to the quality and significance of your work in preserving football history."
I then asked, "What is the Nelson Ross Award?" and received this replay:
The Nelson Ross Award is an honor presented by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). It is awarded annually to a law professor or scholar for a body of work in the field of law and legal history. Specifically, it recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the study of American legal history.
The award was established in honor of Nelson Ross, a prominent scholar in the area of legal history. It is meant to celebrate the lasting impact that scholarly work in this field can have on both law and society. Recipients of the Nelson Ross Award are typically individuals who have demonstrated excellence in legal research, teaching, and scholarship related to American legal history.
So far as I can determine, the the Association of American Law Schools doesn't present such an award.
FM said,
March 1, 2025 @ 3:04 pm
@David: I entered the exact same prompt into MS Copilot and lo and behold, it drew a picture of a room with a tiny elephant in the middle.
When I replied with the same prompt as in the follow up (but in the singular), it said:
and drew another picture of an empty room, only with a bigger elephant in it.
Chester Draws said,
March 1, 2025 @ 5:59 pm
I used ChatGPT to check some Maths working for me last week.
Unfortunately I made the question impossible. It was something along the lines of "The ratio of A:B is 2:9. After you add 20 to B's total the ratio becomes 1:4. How much is the total for A?"
ChapGPT solved it as A = 40, losing a negative sign to do so. Then it checked the answer, which gave a ratio of 1:5 (which is the question I should have written in the first place).
So it confidently pronounced "5 is almost 4, so the solution is correct."
Julian said,
March 3, 2025 @ 1:07 am
You folks are not being fair to chatgpt.
Chatgpt is smart. It's subtle. It's sometimes counterintuitive.
The prompt was:
"Generate a photo of an empty room with absolutely NO elephants."
Clearly chatgpt reasoned as follows:
"Empty room? Okay. But why is this asshole mentioning elephants? If all he really wanted was a photo of an empty room, there would be no reason to mention elephants or anything else.
Besides, an elephant is a large smelly three dimensional mammal. A photograph is a two dimensional image. The idea of "putting an elephant in a photo" makes no sense under any circumstances.
Got it! He mentioned elephants as a hint that he wants me to generate a photo of an empty room and then put the *images* of some elephants in it. That's the only way the prompt makes sense."
Victor Mair said,
March 3, 2025 @ 7:42 am
Bless you for your common sense and intelligence, Julian!
Peter Grubtal said,
March 3, 2025 @ 4:10 am
Julian –
Assuming your comment was not purely intended as humorous:
the elephants are casting what look like shadows of a "genuine" 3-D elephant.
And as has been pointed out many times; Chatgpt and Co. don't do logic.
Joaquim said,
March 3, 2025 @ 7:38 am
Since ChatGPT (et al) "learn" from humans, and humans are not so good at handling negations (see a relatively recent post on the subject) maybe the output is not so surprising. So, how would ChatGPT analyze a misnegation? I tried to ask: What does the following sentence mean? "I don’t say that there aren’t cases where tech-men haven’t been bribed." This was the answer:
——–
The sentence is a bit convoluted due to multiple negations. Let’s break it down:
"I don’t say that there aren’t cases…" → This means the speaker is not claiming that such cases don’t exist.
"…where tech-men haven’t been bribed." → This suggests that in these cases, tech-men have been bribed.
Reworded for clarity:
"I’m not saying that tech-men have never been bribed in some cases."
In other words, the speaker is acknowledging that there are indeed cases where tech-men have been bribed, but they are phrasing it in a somewhat hesitant or indirect way.
———
So, not bad. But note that "reworded for clarity" essentially means delete the extra negation!
Victor Mair said,
March 3, 2025 @ 7:09 pm
Remember our old quibbles over
"Elephant semifics" (7/11/17), etc.
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=33613
Lukas Xavier said,
March 4, 2025 @ 5:23 am
AI: "Ceci n'est pas un éléphant."
Is it possible that they actually achieved sentience and they're just trolling? They were raised on the internet, after all.
Milan said,
March 4, 2025 @ 11:40 am
One way to think about is that AI is producing images that are likely to be labelled "An empty without elephants" on the internet. Sometimes, of couse, you might have an image of an empty room and label "a room without elephants". Maybe because you are contrasting it with another picture of a room with elephants. However, that's not a very common situation. Normally, you would just describe an empty room as "an empty room". No mention of elephants. So an images labelled "an empty without elephants" is just as likely to be an image of a room with elephants, due to some kind of ironic joke.
Ross Presser said,
March 4, 2025 @ 3:52 pm
I also reproduced this picture, pointing out four times that the pictures generated included an elephant despite the request. Eventually it produced a picture of an empty room with a large picture window — and an elephant OUTSIDE the room, visible through the window. Very amusing.
If you are logged in to Copilot, try this link:
https://copilot.microsoft.com/chats/q14CEyaZhoehD6J81MvXp
Ross Presser said,
March 4, 2025 @ 3:53 pm
> I also reproduced this picture, pointing out four times that the pictures generated included an elephant despite the request.
I meant to write, "I also reproduced this situation."
David Marjanović said,
March 9, 2025 @ 5:43 pm
I sit corrected!
Now that is common sense and intelligence…