site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2407 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 15, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How do you best verify Large language model output?

I hear lots of people say they use LLM's to search through documents or to get ideas for how something works, but my question is how do people verify the output? Is it as simple as copy-pasting keywords onto google to get the actual science textbooks? Or is there some better set of steps to take that I miss. I also wonder how you do that for looking through a document, is there some sort of method for getting the LLM to output page citations so you check those (maybe it's in settings or something)

An easy trick is to get another model to review/critique it. If both models disagree, get them to debate each other till a consensus is reached.

These days, outright hallucinations are quite rare, but it's still worth doing due diligence for anything mission-critical.

As George suggested, you can also ask for verbatim quotes or citations, though you'll need to manually check them.

These days, outright hallucinations are quite rare, but it's still worth doing due diligence for anything mission-critical.

I asked chatgpt what the 4 core exercises of the LIFTMOR routine were and it didn't get a single one correct. It's a simple question to google so I am not sure how it got it so wrong. When I changed the question to specify the LIFTMOR routine to help counteract osteoporosis, it got it right. Google doesn't require the additional context.

I asked it right now, and it got everything right. How long ago was this?

I even used the basic bitch 4o model. There are better ones that I have access to as a paid user.

https://github.com/vectara/hallucination-leaderboard

The current SOTA LLMs hallucinate as little as 0.8% of the time for well grounded tasks, text summarization in this particular case. Of course, the rate can vary for other tasks, and the results worsen when getting into obscure topics.

I asked it last week. My husband has a highly tuned llm (granted, he buys access) and we have an ongoing friendly argument about how useful (him) or useless (me) they are. So whenever it comes up I ask chatgpt some dead simple question to see if it gets in the right ballpark. In this case (and often) it didn't - it gave me bodyweight stuff like deadbug. Don't get me wrong, deadbug is useful! But the whole point of LIFTMOR is that us oldsters need to be lifting heavy (safely) to increase bone strength. Stretching and bodyweight is helpful but not enough.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats