Technology

Great comment. I do find the octopus example somewhat puzzling, though, but perhaps that's just the way the example is set up. I, personally, have never encountered a bear, I've only read about them and seen videos. If someone had asked me for bear advice before I'd ever read about them/seen videos, then I wouldn't know how to respond. I might be able to infer what to do from 'attacked' and 'defend', but I think that's possible for an LLM as well. But I'm not sure there's a salient difference offered by this example between the octopus, and me before I learnt about bears.

Although there's definitely elements of bullshitting there - I just asked GPT how to defend against a wayfarble with only deens on me, and some of the advice was good (e.g. general advice when being attacked like staying calm and creating distance), and then there was this response which implies some sort of inference:

"6. Use your deens as a distraction: Since you mentioned having deens with you, consider using them as a distraction. Throw the deens away from your position to divert the wayfarble's attention, giving you an opportunity to escape."

But then there was this obvious example of bullshittery:

"5. Make noise: Wayfarbles are known to be sensitive to certain sounds. Clap your hands, shout, or use any available tools to create loud noises. This might startle or deter the wayfarble."

So I'm divided on the octopus example. It seems to me that there's potential for that kind of inference and that point 5 was really the only bullshit point that stood out to me. Whether that's something that can be got rid of, I don't know.