site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2218 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 11, 2026

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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How do you verify your conversations with LLMs? Are there services that ask several models in parallel and cross-validate their answers?

Which ones are you using primarily? With thinking and web search, they all now extensively cite their work, right? If a claim is missing a source, just ask for it to find one. And then, yes, I read the sources. If I don't like what I'm reading, I tell it to go find better sources.

If I'm far outside my expertise, I sometimes have two models debate each other by proxy. If one model claims X, I just tell it I've read Y somewhere and to explain where the discrepancy is coming from.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek. I think the first one doesn't let you combine thinking and web search. Gemini seems to be the one that likes to confidently answer every question in great detail the most.

Hmm? ChatGPT can definitely use web search when in thinking mode. I get links and citations by default, and more if I ask. You might want to check personalization to make sure you haven't set search to off by default.

They're definitely vastly improved, but I've still been burned recently. Both Grok and ChatGPT independently invented hallucinated time mandates (2000 and 2250, respectively) when fed in this, this, and this. To be fair, that's a hard enough problem that the FAA's gotten pushback over a proposed regulation not just because of normal problems like cost and necessity, but because literally zero mechanics can understand the charts and formula. It's one of the worst formatted set of PDFs I've ever seen, and I've worked with badly-translated Chinese microchip docs.

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