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0 pointsdqv20h ago0 comments

This is my read on how people react to LLM responses, especially about personal/social issues too - that many are fooled by the LLM. On occasion, someone has shown me LLM output, believing it to be a profound and illuminating response to their prompt.

Even being able to see the original prompt, the response just seemed kind of empty (blocking out the advertisingesque magnificent language leaves little substance behind), but somehow they were convinced that it was a coherent answer to their prompt and even peeved with me for not sharing their astonishment at how well it addressed their concerns.

It's a kind of symbiosis between the LLM and the prompter, where the prompter's own cognitive biases fill in what the LLM can not. Since I don't share their same biases, the response is nearly meaningless.

Very uncomfortable experience having to pretend to agree with how profound it is to not make their prompter upset.

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mewpmewp220h ago· 2 in thread

Why did you pretend to agree with them?

Would a person with such biases, seeking validation from an LLM having been anything else without an LLM?

If everyone in real life are trying to avoid upsetting such person, the humans in their real life would offer the same experience, no? Or alternatively said person would go into conflict with anyone pointing out issues in their views, ending up only surrounding themselves with people who will agree with them in order to not upset them.

I guess my concern is why did you agree with them instead of using the opportunity to showcase another point of view?

dqvOP18h ago

Emotional intelligence. These interactions aren't people sharing points of view, they are sharing something they see as meaningful, and no matter how politely I convey it, it's still going to come off as "that sounds stupid and meaningless". It's not like I have better advice to give. Not worth dying on that hill.

mewpmewp217h ago

What is your relation to those people? Because, what is the use of emotional intelligence if it doesn't help them to see their biases and instead confirms them. If presumably their biases are harmful for their lives?

I just see those excuses of "emotional intelligence" to stay dishonest in my life a lot, is that the right way to live though? In a way those LLMs are doing the same though, and in a lot of ways those people are then treated as some beings that can't handle the actual real world.

I guess, just in real life when talking to people, I would just not pretend and go along with something like this, so it's uncomfortable for me to also imagine that someone would go along just for the sake of not upsetting someone for some virtue called "emotional intelligence".

I can understand being polite for the sake of it to someone old and in their deathbed, but I just really don't like the idea of pretending or lying to people with their whole lives ahead and going counter to what you believe to be the truth for some social comfort or emotional intelligence aspect. If they can't handle whatever is the truth, it's their problem to deal with, but they better know alternative views to their malformed or harmful ideas of life.

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