English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

00:01

I don't follow .ru links

Not because of politics but because sketchy hacking possibilities.

alphabet

They've rebranded their views as "human biodiversity"

Which is just...cringe

Mitch

Or rather 20 years ago I visited one .ru site and all I got was cascading popups that I couldn't stop.

No doing that again

@alphabet people have to have something to occupy themselves after work

Cerberus

00:21

@Mitch What haven't you forgotten? I don't remember.

Mitch

@Cerberus your question about 'notes' (footnotes I think)

tchrist

Horror vacui (physics)

In physics, horror vacui, or plenism (), commonly stated as "nature abhors a vacuum", is a postulate attributed to Aristotle, who articulated a belief, later criticized by the atomism of Epicurus and Lucretius, that nature contains no vacuums because the denser surrounding material continuum would immediately fill the rarity of an incipient void. He also argued against the void in a more abstract sense (as "separable"), for example, that by definition a void (equivocally?) itself, is nothing, and following Plato, nothing cannot rightly be said to exist. Furthermore, insofar as it would be featureless...

Laurel

@alphabet Kinda ironic coming from people who would prefer everyone looked like them

Cerberus

@Mitch Ah.

Yeah, I have no idea either.

Just Binging GPT's output, then tacking on notes later seems...incredible.

Also because I read that some articles are made up, don't exist?

Then again, in the interface, you see it says searching for [string of search words], which suggests...something.

And I believe GPT doesn't have the notes via Open AI's website/interface?

Mitch

00:36

@Cerberus that's what I was trying to explain to you at first is that it is not plausible to create references (html links or bibliographic references internally to the LLM because the architecture is all about creating random sequences that match n-gram (and more complicated) probabilities, and finding a true reference for a random sequence that has no factual content (except by chance) is not likely.

There is no existing research I know of currently that can do that. (But I may not be well enough read)

Cerberus

@Mitch That is a fair point.

CowperKettle

Word of the day: epinetron (From ἐπι- (epi-) +‎ νῆτρον (nêtron, “distaff”). From νέω (néō, “to spin”) +‎ -τρον (-tron).

Cerberus

So maybe they use machine learning to find references ex post facto, based on the GPT reply?

@Mitch Or maybe, in the learning process, they can establish some sort of probability that a certain reference applies to a certain random sequence?

It would result in bad references, just as they are now.

Just like the ex post facto method.

alphabet

@Cerberus The issue is that it's pretty much impossible to calculate the extent to which one input into the training process has influenced a given result

The massive series transformations applied during the training process makes it effectively impossible to track a specific piece of information as it moves through the system

Cerberus

@alphabet Yes, that is impossible.

So it would need to be some sort of probabilistic guess of correspondence, just like the way it creates its sequences of words.

Consider a reference a special, final item in the sequence for each sentence.

Created much the same way each word in the sequence is created.

alphabet

00:47

Of course, ideally we'd have an LLM smart enough to look for references on its own that can confirm its outputs.

It doesn't matter if the references are sometimes bad, presumably, since (in an ideal world) you'd check them yourself first. Of course, the references could also have been something generated by an LLM...

Mitch

@Cerberus yes, that was what I suggested previously as the most likely way to do it (but machine learning as implemented by basic web search for the produced string.

Cerberus

@alphabet Yes, that may be what it is doing.

From what I read, Microsoft has some sort of special software/interface between GPT and the Bing search index.

The queries you see in Bing GPT chat are actually queries sent to this special software.

Which then uses the Bing index to find references.

Mitch

@Cerberus yes that was what I was just suggesting, that using the many probabilities in the LLM (large language model, a very deep neural network), would be implausible

Cerberus

So it is all more or less as we surmised.

By the way, how common would you say the word surmise is?

Mitch

@alphabet I wouldn't say (and I've been pointedly -not- saying) that it is impossible mostly because there very well might be a method, I just have a hard time imagining how (I could explain at length exactly -why- I think it is implausible and I've already explained very superficially why).

@alphabet that is the very start of this whole conversation, that if you ask ChatGPT for references or links, it will happily generate them for you, just like they do everything else by randomly putting link like things together Ina likely looking sequence, but it just doesn't exist.

CowperKettle

00:58

Dated slang of the day: whippersnapper

Mitch

@Cerberus I can never remember the OED tiers but for language learning scales it feels like a C2 word (top level fluency, college graduate

Cerberus

@Mitch Right, it seems uncommon to me.

Which is surprising, considering how common the need for it would seem to be.

The Dutch word, vermoeden, is much more common.

It's still not a word a young child might use.

Mitch

@CowperKettle yes, but commonly used as dated slang. So it is dated but well known

alphabet

@Cerberus I think phrases like "much as we surmised" are fairly common.

Mitch

@Cerberus one would surmise.

Cerberus

01:01

I just don't see it often.

Mitch

Haha

Total setup

Cerberus

@Mitch Hah.

So one would indeed.

Mitch

@Cerberus definitely not.

But then not extremely rare

A bit academic

alphabet

@Cerberus There are a number of related words that are more common; "suppose" and "suspect" can often replace it

Mitch

Yes

Cerberus

01:03

@Mitch Yeah: surmise sounds academic, whereas vermoeden merely sounds...adult.

@alphabet True. But Dutch also has those.

So the answers in Bing chat not only use GPT, but also Bing's own search results directly.

alphabet

"Surmise" is an odd word. It seems somehow both too formal and too informal

Cerberus

It probably uses some sort of algorism to extract info from its search results, and it can display that info in the chat. And then of course it can add where it found it.

@alphabet Too informal for what or whom?

tchrist

> Fix undefined behavior with overflow related OPTIMIZE_INFTY and delta in regcomp.c.

Mitch

@alphabet how does it sound informal?

alphabet

@Cerberus I wouldn't expect it in, say, an academic paper; I would expect "conjecture" or "hypothesize"

CowperKettle

01:08

@alphabet "Surmisal" is quainter: ell.stackexchange.com/q/107042/2127

Cerberus

@alphabet Hmm perhaps because it suggests a kind of subjective judgement of probability?

alphabet

Or "predict," in some contexts

Cerberus

Subjective, not rigorous nor based on procedure.

So it's baaaad in scientific language.

alphabet

@Cerberus Yeah, it's imprecise and seems to describe a person's mental state more than a considered judgment

Cerberus

Yeah that's what I meant.

alphabet

01:09

I'm not sure how bad it is. But I would avoid it.

That may just be my own personal opinion.

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Yeah it sounds super American, probably based on the typical style of those texts.

Mitch

@alphabet you mean you would surmise that?

alphabet

@Mitch No, I would opine it.

CowperKettle

No opining in chat, please.

Mitch

@alphabet it may have been an opinion based in inferring something, and then ergo, hence and it follows that you would have surmised it.

tchrist

01:24

> 5. a. To form a notion that the thing in question may be so, on slight grounds or without proof; to infer conjecturally. Const. object clause. or simple object.

alphabet

Can you use it in the passive? "He was surmised to be evil"

Mitch

Your statement was not surmised by you appropriately

alphabet

"It has often been surmised that they were responsible" sounds OK to me.

Cerberus

The impersonal construction would seem common enough.

And the personal passive also seems OK to me.

Mitch

Now do it with an ablative absolute

alphabet

01:35

"He was surmised to be evil" sounds wrong

I surmise it irksome

Mitch

@alphabet there's lots of ways to be infelicitous. Agrammaticality is only one of them

Infrequency is one of them

Semantic incongruity is another.

Cerberus

@Mitch No nominative absolute?

Mitch

@Cerberus well sure if you want to do the whole paradigm

Cerberus

His health surmised to be declining, the generals prepared for a new era.

Not something I would write.

alphabet

What about a deverbal noun? "Many of his surmisings were inaccurate"

Cerberus

01:39

But wrong?

Mitch

@Cerberus good point, the generals might be upset at that surmission

Cerberus

Cha!

alphabet

(I think "surmisal" is more correcter.)

Mitch

@Cerberus Tiens!

alphabet

"Bad is how he surmised them"

Mitch

01:41

And how!

alphabet

That sentence would come as a big surmise

Mitch

+1

Cerberus

Surmise me, baby.

alphabet

Let's organize a surmise party

What about "He couldn't surmise what to do"

H&P's example sentences can get downright mean:

> However well-meaning, the very act of helping old people may reduce their ability to look after themselves.

Mitch

Memorable

Robusto

01:53

There's a good use of surmise, for all those who cast shade on the word.

Words are tools. Skillful people use them skillfully.

3

alphabet

Bah. John Keats is overrated. I only care about America's greatest poet, Bhad Bhabie

Robusto

You seem like more of a Bad Bunny follower.

alphabet

I have no clue how the "Cash me Outside" girl became a pop star. Also where did her accent come from?

She seems to speak in some sort of strange affected pseudo-AAVE

Robusto

Who cares?

tchrist

> O, let me entreat thee cease. Give me thy hand,
That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place,
To wash away my woful monuments.
O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,
That thou mightst think upon these by the seal,
Through whom a thousand sighs are breathed for thee!
So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;
'Tis but surmised whiles thou art standing by,
As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
I will repeal thee, or, be well assured,
Adventure to be banished myself:

Robusto

02:07

Gotta be Shakespeare.

tchrist

Henry VI, Pt. 2 (1623) III. ii. 351.

> Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he’s mad, ’tis true; ’tis true ’tis pity,
And pity ’tis ’tis true—a foolish figure,
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him then, and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or, rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend.
I have a daughter (have while she is mine)
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this. Now gather and surmise.

alphabet

> All y'all look like you still fly Spirit
All y'all must not've looked in the mirror
All y'all lookin' but the windows tinted, like (Hi b—)
I don't know what made all y'all haters (Hi b—)

Mitch

02:32

@Robusto blorp

Robusto

04:08

Nov 14, 2018 at 22:12, by Robusto

Phrasemaker.

user 85795