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PaperclipPerfector
1d ago
(text post)
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
If you're a Windows user, and seeking a more power-user experience, I strongly endorse Windows PowerToys. While not an official Microsoft product, it's a passion project by Microsoft devs. Current features:
I personally get some mileage out of the FancyZones feature, as it's a big upgrade over default window tiling manager. With a 4k screen, it's a shame not to use the real estate to its fullest potential. I can see the pixel counter being useful in Arma Reforger, where you need to measure distances on a map, cheeky mortar calculator right there.
Out of boredom, I'm using Gemini to make a mortar calculator app that takes in screenshots/grid coordinates and outputs firing solutions. Should work in theory!
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Tooting my own horn. December 1, 2022 I predicted:
This was before GPT4 was on the scene. Reiterated it 3 months ago
And then today I read this nice little headline:
If they can stop the damn thing from hallucinating caselaw and statutes, it might already be there.
But, let me admit, that if we don't see downward pressure on first-year wages or staffing reductions this year, I missed the meatiest part of the prediction.
There's the counter-argument that AI lawyers will actually stimulate demand for attorneys by making contracts way more complex. I don't buy it, but I see it.
I am extremely skeptical at that claim. I mean, surely, if you examine LLM at what humans are usually examined at, things that are hard for humans - like perfectly recalling bits out of huge arrays of information - it would probably do pretty good. However, at things that human are never examined it - like common sense - because most humans that got through law school would have it, otherwise they'd fail out and probably be either institutionalized somehow or ejected from the society in some other way - LLMs are still terrible.
Just days ago I tried to use LLM advice to configure a scanner on my Mac. It managed to give me ton of advice that didn't work (because it kept hallucinating and confusing different Mac models) but then it managed to give an advice that seemed to work. I stupidly followed it. It broke my Mac completely. I decided to take hair of the dog approach and asked the same GPT for the fix advice. After another hour or so of hallucinating and meandering, it managed to make the problem worse. Then it had me to try a dozen or so non-working solution, each one ending with congratulating me on discovering yet another thing that doesn't work on my Mac - this despite me telling it upfront which Mac it is and it being aware to quote the exact source that says this wouldn't work - but only after suggesting to me repeatedly it would 100% work for sure. Eventually, it started suggesting to me deleting disk partitions and reinstalling the whole OS - while claiming this can't hurt my data in any way, everything would be OK - and I decided to call it quits. I tried to fix it using my wits alone and plain old internet search, and was able to do it in about 15 minutes.
This was a low risk activity - I actually had pretty recent backups and all important shit I have backed up in several places locally and online, so if it killed my Mac I maybe would lose some unimportant files and some time to re-configure the system, but it wouldn't be a catastrophe for me. Now imagine something like millions of dollars, or decades in jail, or the entire future of a person is on the line. Would I trust a machine that claims X exists and solves my problem only to cheerfully admit X never existed and even if it did, it couldn't solve my problem a minute later? Or would I trust a human that at least understands why such kind of behavior is unacceptable, in fact, that understands anything and isn't just a huge can of chopped up information fragments and a procedure of retrieving some of them that look like what I want to hear?
Sorry, I can't believe this "as good as a fresh graduate" thing. Maybe I can believe it's "as good as a fresh graduate on things that we check on fresh graduates because they are hard for fresh graduates so we want to make sure they are good" but that misses the obvious pitfall that things that are very easy for a fresh graduate - or any human - are very hard for it in turn.
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I'm completely unsure and very skeptical of any Llms will take away x job headline given the poor track record and the obvious faking of benchmarks and media hype.
Not a lawyer, I do wonder how this plays out, can you hold a model accountable the way a lawyer is? What happens when you add your own data to it? Does the responsibility then land on the law firm. Not a rhetorical question.
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Sure, but hasn't that always been the challenge? This feels like it boils down to "if they can fix the problems, it'll be great", which is true but applies to everything.
I mean, yes, but the hallucination problem of putting in wrong cases and statutes is utterly disqualifying in advanced legal writing. Citing to a nonexistent case or statute compromises the entire brief or argument. A decent first year associate might misinterpret a statute or case, or miss that the case was overturned, but they wouldn't make up cases from whole cloth and build their arguments off those.
For a lot of tasks, you just need to go through and proofread or fix up the places where it filled in basic info that it obviously didn't have.
But citing a case that doesn't exist to build an argument is like asking it to design a bridge and it get the tensile strength of steel completely wrong, or perhaps it makes up a type of material that doesn't exist and hallucinates its properties as part of the specifications.
And maybe it does that, I don't know. But there's literally no reason for it to be doing that, either, when there is definitive information, easily available for reference. Its information it should never get wrong, in practice.
And it really shouldn't be hard to fix, the caselaw and statutes are already simple to look up. Just teach the thing to use WestLaw.
So I do expect them to solve that particular class of hallucinations pretty handily, even if it will still completely fudge its outputs when it doesn't have an easy way to check.
Yeah this is something that gets me about the frequent code-based hallucinations too. The things will make up non-existent APIs when the reference docs are right there. It does seem like it wouldn't be hard to hook up a function that checks "does this actually exist". I assume it must not actually be that simple, or they would've done it by now. But we'll see what they can do in the future.
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There's some technical parts to how LLMs specifically work that make it a lot harder to police hallucination than to improve produce a compelling argument, for the same reason that they're bad at multiplication and great at symbolic reference work. A lot of LLMs can already use WestLaw and do a pretty good job of summarizing it... at the cost of it trying to cite a state law I specifically didn't ask about.
It's possible that hallucination will be absolutely impossible to completely solve, but either way I expect these machines to become better at presenting compelling arguments faster than I expect them to be good researchers, with all the good and ill that implies. Do lawyers value honesty more than persuasion?
One would think! And yet.
This is my biggest problem with rlhf aside from my free speech bullshit - due to the way llms work, rlhf means hallucination is impossible to solve - it is baked in.
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Well, they've gotten better and better over time. I've been using LLMs before they were cool, and we've probably seen between 1-2 OOM reduction in hallucination rates. The bigger they get, the lower the rate. It's not like humans are immune to mistakes, misremembering, or even plain making shit up.
In fact, some recent studies (on now outdated models like Claude 3.6) found zero hallucinations at all in tasks like medical transcription and summarization.
It's a solvable problem, be it through human oversight or the use of other parallel models to check results.
My point is not that the problems are unsolvable (jury's out on that), it's that "this will be good if we can fix the problems" isn't a very meaningful statement. Everything is good if you can fix the problems with it!
I expect that when people usually say that, they're implicitly stating strong belief that the problems are both solvable and being solved. Not that this necessarily means that such claims are true..
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I discussed it with a judge doing more advanced judgey things (abstract legal analysis of a case judgement as if presenting a paper at a conference) and he thought Sonnet 3.6 was a pretty decent law student, so presumably Opus 4 or indeed o3 would be lots better.
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Lawyers and judges and legal societies will just make it illegal for a layperson with a skilled AI(Or who hires an Indian paralegal with a good AI assistant for $35 an hour instead of 300) to appear in court, file, argue, represent and so on.
I'm sure. But thats barely 10% of the work lawyers do.
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Obligatory: America: FUCK YEAH (Ultimate Edition) (vimeo link)
I play this every 4th of July, at the minimum.
It's the 5th here but enjoy the 4th.
We usually do barbecue or mashed potatoes or black-eyed peas or something close to my roots, and hang the US flag out. This year the boys were going to be at sports clubs and wifey was going to be late, so I detoured through Osaka and headed in instead of out, and went alone and caught the Mission Impossible film before it leaves theaters.
It's always odd going to a movie alone. For me at least. Sitting through previews I am reminded of the banality of Japanese films. I think some Japanese actors and actresses are actually capable of amazing range, but most Japanese directors are hamfisted hacks.
Cruise had recorded a message for the Japanese audience in preview. He has a massively loyal following here, though obviously he's not as young and current as he used to be (I can relate).I came up watching his movies (he is only a few years older than I) and he's always reminded me of my best friend back home.
Watching the film I was, as usual, floored by his stunt skills. I've enjoyed the whole franchise (except MI:2, which remains for me unwatchable) and felt this ended it well. The plot itself took what had been caricature-like of AI in the immediate prequel and dialed the absurdity up to 11. But I didn't mind turning off my brain for that. It was a welcome relief to not have to ask myself how realistic the plot might be (answer: not) in our current AI-ubiquitous age.
I finished and walked out into the crowds in Shinsaibashi, mostly Chinese or Korean or other Asians, a few European couples or families, maybe some Americans with tattoos and blue hair. No one seemed to take any notice of me whatsoever. I took the elevator down with a dozen Chinese and on 1F wended my way through short shorts and miniskirts out into a warm wave of humid air and trees done up in purple LED lights lining Midosiji boulevard. I walked. Stayed on the surface and street briefly, then descended again into the underground, walked past more Chinese pulling roller bags, past Starbucks where inside the lonely hearts read at individual tables their little paperback books with plain paper slip covers to keep the title anonymous. Walked the walking escalator through to the Yotsubashi line. So many people staring at phones, or holding out their phones to selfie themselves, or live stream--I imagine I will be digitally removed as a background figure from many photos.
Walk more, walk through the subway turnstile that doesn't turn, down another escalator, wait, wait, the slightly overweight American girls in very tight clothing drag their luggage past. Soon I'm on a subway. There's a pretty blonde Japanese girl showing her midriff wearing these striped socks pulled to her knees She taps the pads of her fingers on her phone, long green fingernails on her index, middle and ring fingers. On her bag is a plastic tab with the black and white face of what's probably a boyfriend --he looks like he belongs on a wanted poster. Across from her through the thick of other riders is a beautiful young woman stepped out of a different movie, wearing a very nice dress you'd expect Audrey Hepburn would have approved of. But then we're near Kitashinchi.
An hour later and the surface train has thinned of people and it's just me and an old man who seems quite asleep. I disembark, take the up then down escalator, passing a high school couple who appear to be breaking up--he's looking at her, she's looking straight ahead. They're both very pretty.
The night is still warm and I forego the bus, which will not arrive for another ten minutes anyway, and walk the 20 minutes and 2225 steps home, where my family is finished eating and watching a music show where they all know this music that I've never heard sung by these groups I don't know. I eat some leftovers of steak rice I made the day before--no barbecue or peas, and I had forgotten to hang the flag in the morning -- and it's not nearly as good as I had felt it was when making it.
I'm asleep by 11. And now it's tomorrow. Hope your 4th there in your timeline and other dimension is more festive, but as equally peaceful as mine.
Edit: A fortuneteller predicted a massive earthquake today. So, hope that doesn't happen.
Great line. Reminds me of my travels there. Very lonely country.
I think that's true but far less so in a family, and if the family is tight and remains so. That helps a lot. I see a lot of fractured families and disaffected youth, who become rudderless adults (unless they bind themselves to some group or club or other activity). Jobs can fill this role Another thing people often don't get about work culture here.
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Context: I wrote this some time ago when I was sufficiently annoyed with contrived drowning hypotheticals. I had a lot of fun writing it, but then didn't know where to put it. I've never really written a short story before (except way back as a teen, for other teens) so no guarantees that this is actually any good. But it seemed stupid to write it out fully but to not at least post it somewhere afterwards, so here it goes. @mods, if you consider this inappropriate here, feel free to move it, though I didn't want to start a thread on anything I'm not sure is any good.
It’s a beautiful morning. You’re wandering next to the river which serves as the natural limit of the city. You want to visit granny; Well, not your REAL grandma, but when you were a teen, she was there for you. She hasn’t been doing well, forgetting things, especially later in the day.
You pass by a bridge, closed off with a fence - though it's sufficiently damaged that one can get past if one wants to -, showing a sign that reads “trespassing will be punished by fine”. This used to be one of the most important, most used roads out of the city, but a year ago it has started to be plagued by suicide attempts, so the city decided to block access after a public pressure campaign.
A little further, a group of tall and athletic men is playing beach volleyball. A priest tries to shortly talk with them, is rebuffed & leaves, shaking his head.
You will probably not reach granny. Steve (that’s what you call him in your mind, at least, it’s not like you really know him) will soon jump of the bridge, as he does everyday, and you will jump in to save him. He will be taken to the hospital for the day, where you also have to wait until someone can take your report, which gets logged into the system, and you will get released, by which time it’s too late in the afternoon.
But something is different today: You’ve seen a policemen, in the wild, who isn’t already occupied! You go straight towards him.
You: Hello, Officer, do you have a moment?
Policemen: Yes, sir?
You: A man will soon go on the bridge and jump off. Could you arrest him for trespassing before he has a chance to jump?
Policemen: Sir, I can’t do anything just on hearsay.
You see Steve entering the bridge from the other side.
You: See, that’s him!
Policemen: Sir, according to our anti-escalation training we are not allowed to arrest a person for only trespassing.
You see Steve jump from the bridge. The group of men doesn’t care, the policemen pretends to be busy writing something and the priest just looks at your sternly. You sigh, and run to save him. When you leave the water, the policemen walks up to you and gives Steve a fine.
——
It’s a morning. You’ve had enough. Screw Steve, you’ll just walk faster, and then it’s going to be someone else’s problem. You pass by a masked man, looking off into the sky. The priest walks up to you.
Priest: Hello, son. You want to leave that poor person to his fate?
You: Why don’t you ask someone else?
Priest: You know they won’t listen. What do you want to do now, instead?
You: I’ll visit my grandma.
Priest: Just visit? You know a life is more important than a visit.
You: Do it yourself, then.
Priest: I’m old and frail. Besides, I’m saving many lives here; Anytime someone wavers in his faith, I restore it, so that they can save the needy. If I were to do it myself, I’d be taken in for the day.
You wasted so much time on the discussion that you see Steve jump from the bridge. The priest looks at you sternly. You sigh and run to save him.
——
It’s morning. This time you won’t get derailed; You put on headphones and pretend to neither see nor hear the priest and walk at a brisk pace. When you walk past, you notice that a small coffee shop has now opened up at the shore of the river, with the priest sitting at a table. After you passed by, the priest goes to the masked man, who was just looking at the sky again, and talks with him. He gets up, runs after you, catching up almost instantly, grabs you, and slowly drags you towards the water. You shout at him, but he just screams “fuck you” over and over, until he has finally dumped you into the water, where Steve is already flailing. You sigh, and swim over.
——
Morning. The headphones broke after getting wet. At the shore you pass by a journalist explaining something to a camera, with the bridge as a backdrop. Later at the coffee shop, you see the priest and the masked man sitting together drinking tea. Enraged, you confront the priest.
You: What the fuck? You can’t just tell someone to assault me!
Priest: Oh, I was just telling him about that poor man who will jump off the bridge. It’s not my fault that he reacted that way, and besides, I couldn’t have stopped him anyway.
You: But you could at the very least report the crime!
Priest: Of course I did, but the man had already left when the police showed up. You also have to admit he did it for a noble goal: To save a life. So I can’t say I’m too unhappy.
You stare at the man right next him.
Priest: This nice young man just told me that he can’t even afford a tea. So I invited him.
You: So you claim it’s not him?
Priest: How would I know? He’s wearing a mask. You know, Corona.
You, towards the man: Are you ?
“Of course not”, says the voice that screamed “fuck you” yesterday. You look at him, and flip the table. Tea sprays everywhere, both are cursing, and you take the chance to run as fast as you can. You run along the shore, but at the place where you could have sworn is the path to granny’s house, there is a fence instead. A sign tells you to just continue, which you do, until you reach a dead end between the shore on one side and the fence on the other. You see Steve flailing in the water, screaming. You sigh, and jump in.
——
This time you take a large cutter with you. At the coffee shop, the priest is now being interviewed by the journalist, which he visibly enjoys. The beach volleyball players, meanwhile, are back today and trying to garner the attention of the (admittedly quite attractive) journalist. The masked man is nowhere to be seen, so you just walk fast while looking back, making sure you’re not being followed. Carelessly, you bump into something, and turn your head around to see … the masked man. His eyes glimmer with anger. You look at him, then the cutter, then at him again, and swing it in a large arc. He gets an arm up, screams in pain and goes to the ground. You run past, not looking back, breathing heavily. You made it! Nothing can stop you now!
——
“REPORT: ANOTHER SUICIDE ATTEMPT AT THE BRIDGE Calamity struck just as our investigative journalist was taking an interview for a documentary about the suicide bridge: Another attempt was made. According to trusted sources, one particular local man, present at the scene, already knew in advance. But instead of intervening, he struck an innocent bystander down, breaking his arm, and fled the scene. He was later found nearby harassing an older woman, after he gained access to her home by cutting open a fence. The police is still investigating his motive and the connection he has to her, as she claims to have never seen him before. He is currently in custody on charges of assault, vandalism, trespassing and harassment. Fortunately, another bystander playing volleyball jumped into the water, saving the day.”
The priest takes back the paper he gave you.
Priest: You know child, I don’t think you’re so bad. So I put in a good word for you. The man you assaulted has also agreed to drop charges if you cooperate.
Do you take up the Priest’s offer and do community service at the bridge?
Yes, but do a sufficiently bad enough job at the bridge that they tell you to stop. Sometimes the only way out of an impossible situation is to act so incompetent that people stop forcing you to do it (after all, if you hadn’t saved the guy the first time, you wouldn’t be asked back).
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I would absolutely do community service at the bridge - it seems like doing community service at the bridge is my lot in life anyway.
Edit: also I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, great job.
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The second person (narrative voice) in a story is very interesting. I tried it once many years ago after reading Bright Lights, Big City. Thanks for sharing, I like reading things like this. I have no answer to your question. Probably I'd be intransigent and not cooperate just because, but that could be mental bravado.
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I have the local hospital put a psych hold on Steve and forget about it.
But that would take away Steve's freedom of movement for the part of the day he’s not trying to commit suicide! Can you in good conscience deprive someone of his freedoms?
(This is, of course, sarcastic. I agree your solution is probably the best, just like tying people to trolley tracks and sabotaging the brakes is already illegal.)
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Some marriage-fraud cases:
Normally I like reading your legal dispatches, but I don’t see how these are fun at all!
Fun, mildly interesting—what's the difference?
I think the Hussen case in particular is fairly funny. He submitted oodles of evidence, but the government still refused to believe that his marriage was genuine.
Also, don't forget about the context of past discussions of marriage fraud on this forum (1 2).
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