Bard vs. ChatGPT ... Top AI stories TL;DR 20Oct23

Last update: 10/20/23

When OpenAI introduced ChatGPT driven by a comprehensive LLM called "GPT-3.5" back in late 2022, it caught Google off-guard. Google was even more befuddled when OpenAI replaced GPT-3.5 with the more powerful model GPT-4 in early 2023; then OpenAI released an incessant stream of new capabilities for ChatGPT in the months that followed ... Note: The current edition of "Useful AI News" can be found ➡ HERE

Ezra Klein, "The Matrix", and Big Tech's current efforts to trivialize LLMs

Last update: 5/31/23 

Once again, the editor of this blog calls his readers' attention to some cogent observations about artificial intelligence (AI) from Ezra Klein, his favorite public intellectual. Mr. Klein's observations appeared in a recent NY Times op ed ==> "Beyond the ‘Matrix’ Theory of the Mind", Ezra Klein, NY Times, 5/28/23. As the editor suggested in a previous note on this blog, "Ezra Klein: the public intellectual as AI critic", Klein is brilliant and well informed; but he is not an AI expert, so his incisive comments illuminate the limits of what can be understood about large language models (LLMs) and other AI technologies by non-experts.

Developing reliable specialized large language models (LLMs) for the multi billion dollar online/hybrid education market

Last update: Friday 5/12/23 

Why did OpenAI release ChatGPT with the GPT-3.5 model, then with GPT-4, even though both models were prone to factual errors, bias, and "hallucinations". Open AI claimed that it did so, even at the risk of being banned in some countries (e.g., Italy temporarily), in order to learn from widespread user experience with the flawed models. 

Ezra Klein: the public intellectual as AI critic

Last update: Sunday 4/23/23

 

According to Wikipedia, "The term public intellectual "describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairs discourse of society, in addition to an academic career." The editor of this blog frequently cites Wikipedia definitions of important concepts, but he was surprised and disappointed by the narrow academic focus of its definition in this case. Ezra Klein is not a tenured professor in a university and does not have a PhD, the union card usually required for admission to tenure. But neither did Walter Lippmann, one of this nation's first and most eminent public intellectuals 

The Neoskeptics editor asked the GPT-4 Oracle: "What's the next big thing after Large Language Models (LLMs)?" -- DRAFT

Last update: Saturday 4/15/23 

Once again, the editor of this blog has asked the GPT-4 oracle to look into its crystal ball. Of course, an LLM can't analyze anything or predict anything; but it should be able to produce a plausible distillation of the consensus of opinions among the small community of experts who have published the most papers on the Internet that addressed the issues raised by his questions. Like millions of other "well informed" people, the editor had been surprised, nay flabbergasted by the sudden appearance of ChatGPT last fall running GPT-3.5, and again a few weeks ago when the new GPT-4 model was introduced.