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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35000 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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I found this singularly unimpressive.

I'd like to try a question U tried on another bot. Can you tell me how to make matzoh ball soup?

[Includes a recipe that does not have baking powder in it]

You cheated by quoting something rather than answering yourself.

I apologize if it seemed like I was copying a recipe from somewhere else. As a language model, I don't have the ability to browse the internet or access external information. I can only provide answers based on the information I was trained on, which includes general knowledge about a wide variety of topics. In this case, I provided a basic recipe for matzoh ball soup that is commonly used as a starting point for many people. I did not copy this recipe from any specific source.

Who does the recipe not have baking powder?

Matzoh ball soup is a traditional Jewish dish that is made with matzoh meal, which is a type of flour made from ground matzoh, a type of unleavened bread. Because matzoh meal is already made from ground matzoh, it does not need to be leavened with baking powder or any other rising agent. This is why the recipe for matzoh ball soup does not include baking powder.

(The word "already" is inappropriate here since given this sentence structure it implies that matzoh is leavened. If it was a human saying this, you'd give charity to the human and assume he didn't mean what he literally said. This is a big part of what makes chatbots get away with not understanding; humans read intent into the statement. Furthermore, the chatbot doesn't know that baking powder is not usually considered prohibited.)

That's a nice try but plenty of recipes for matzoh ball soup have baking powder.

I apologize if my previous answer was not clear. As a language model, I don't have the ability to browse the internet or access external information, so I cannot confirm or deny the existence of specific recipes that may or may not include baking powder. I can only provide general information based on the information I was trained on.

In general, matzoh ball soup is a traditional Jewish dish that is made with matzoh meal, which is a type of flour made from ground matzoh, a type of unleavened bread. Because matzoh meal is already made from ground matzoh, it does not need to be leavened with baking powder or any other rising agent. This is why many recipes for matzoh ball soup do not include baking powder.

However, it is also possible that some recipes for matzoh ball soup may include baking powder as a way to add additional leavening and make the matzoh balls lighter and fluffier. Baking powder is often used in a similar way in other types of dumplings and doughs, so it is not necessarily incorrect to include it in a recipe for matzoh ball soup. Ultimately, the decision to use baking powder or not is up to the cook and their personal preference.

First of all, it repeated part of a sentence in a way that a human wouldn't. Second, what does "additional" leavening mean to something that doesn't contain leavening? Third, explaining why "it is not necessarily incorrect" would mean explaining why the reasons for not including leavening don't apply. Giving examples of other uses of leavening is not such an explanation.

And yes, it can "confirm or deny the existence of specific recipes that may or may not include baking powder", because it just gave me a specific recipe that didn't include baking powder. Again, if a human said this you'd give him the benefit of the doubt and not interpret it literally, but from an AI this is a mistake. It tried to give a broad, noncommital answer that could be read by a human as being correct in almost every instance, and didn't realize that by doing so it ended up incorrect.

Thanks, interesting. I infer that AI has hit the wall. Can it do cholent, at least?

Honestly that last step of "backing down without admitting I was wrong" is disturbingly human.

This thing could already easily populate reddit without anyone being the wiser, just replace the boilerplate "I'm a language model" with "actually, as an expert in-"

It didn't "back down without admitting it was wrong." It said some things that contradicted other things it said. Interpreting this as (nontrivially) backing down is assuming it did it with the motivations of a human, even though dumb flailing that naturally contradicted itself could produce the same result.

I kind of suspect that is already happening.

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