ChatGPT use declines as users complain about ‘dumber’ answers, and the reason might be AI’s biggest threat for the future::AI for the smart guy?

140 points
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The free version of ChatGPT DEFINITELY is dumber than it was even a couple of months ago. Used to be able to get decent, useful code reviews out of it, now it barely knows how to write a nested loop anymore.

It’s storytelling capabilities fell off a cliff too, the drive towards safely sanitized unoffensive-at-all-times content it can output has rendered every story, choose-your-own-adventure or collaborative role playing game sterile, empty expressions of black and white stories with no nuance allowed where saintly goodness is the only choice possible

In my own experience, chatGPT has been massively nerfed for the use cases I used it for

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39 points

I tried a naughtybot for some steamy chat for the first time yesterday. I ended up in fight with the bitch.

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4 points

Hahahaha that’s brilliant.

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15 points

65B LLaMA models can actually do a pretty good job of writing. Here’s two examples with Guanaco 65B (bold part is my prompt):

tags: fairy tale, animals, dog, wolf, fox, death, humor, dark storyline, violence, loss

Animals in a forest setting investigate a series of gruesome murders that recently occured. Written in the style of classics like Animal Farm and Watership Down, the writing is vivid and very descriptive. The dialog is thoughtful and often quite witty. It’s clear the author really understands animal behavior and has done their research well!

Chapter 1: An Unfortunate Discovery

A fox by species, a detective by trade, you’ll only have reason to know my name if the worst has come to pass. It’s nearly winter and a bitter wind drives stinging sleet into my face, but it’s still not as chilling as the scene before me now…

I was summoned here by an urgent message from a panicked hedgehog. She told me she found her friend lying dead on his doorstep with his throat ripped out - black fur matted with blood. I rushed over immediately and saw for myself what had happened. He looked so peaceful despite being cut down in his prime - a young wolf just starting doing well for himself - taken too soon. His home nearby showed no signs of struggle or forced entry. Whoever did this must have caught him off guard somehow. I didn’t hear any howling either. That would have been easy enough to miss though since he lived alone deep in these woods where few creatures tread. I made sure to secure the crime scene and look around carefully without disturbing anything more than necessary until other investigators arrived. They should be here soon. We can’t afford to lose evidence in cases like this. Times are already hard enough as it is…

As I waited and pondered who might have committed such a horrible act, something felt wrong about all this. Surely a predator like me could smell another predator’s scent? But there were none that stood out among the melange of odors lingering here. How strange…

Soon after, several others joined me including some friends of mine. A stoic bear named Growler, grumpy badger called Grumpus, and a kindly old raccoon who goes by “Doc” due to his extensive knowledge of medicinal plants and wildlife biology. Together we began our investigation proper by gathering clues and questioning nearby witnesses while trying to minimize contamination through contact with them (we took care to put up caution tape first). Unfortunately, they hadn’t seen much useful apart from occasional glimpses of movement deeper in the undergrowth. Still, we decided to check those areas next along with searching the surrounding woodlands thoroughly for any additional victims. And find one we did, although sadly she suffered the same fate as poor George. Another young wolf lay beside a stream, body cold and stiffening. Someone snapped her neck cleanly like a twig. This couldn’t be coincidence surely? Not two deaths in quick succession like this.


<prompt> before me or what I must relay when I return home. My mind races with questions as I survey this brutal crime scene; who could do such a thing? Why was no one there to stop them? And how many more victims lie undiscovered further out in these woods? A lone paw print leads away from where a rabbit family once happily resided, now reduced to bloody scraps scattered among splintered twigs and torn fur. This isn’t just some random predator attack, something far more sinister is at play here…

I turn back toward town, determined to find answers. As I trudge through the snow, each step feels heavier than the last. How will I break the news to those closest to them? What words can possibly bring comfort after so much senseless suffering? I shake my head, trying to focus on the task at hand. There are others depending on me right now, they need someone strong and steady to guide them through this darkness. I won’t let them down.

The first person I see upon entering town is old man Badger, his white whiskers blown about by the gusting wind. He looks up at me expectantly, “Well Fox, did you find anything?” His voice quavers slightly, betraying his concern for the missing families.

“I’m afraid I have bad news,” I say somberly, “there were signs of a struggle near the burrow entrance, but no survivors.”

Badger sighs heavily, “Dear me, this is worse than we feared. We must alert the council immediately!”

We hurry over to the meeting hall, a large hollow tree that serves as our central gathering place. Inside, several other animals are already waiting anxiously for word of their loved ones. They look up hopefully as we enter, then quickly realize the grim tidings we bear. A collective groan fills the room, followed by muffled sobs and whispered prayers.

Mayor Bear calls for order, her deep voice cutting through the din. She motions for us to join her at the front of the room, “Please tell us everything you saw, Fox. Every detail may be important.”

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34 points

Writer here. Very sorry to contradict you, but this is absolute shit. It looks good on the surface, but that’s all.

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16 points
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Yeah, while it’s cool that a computer can make a story, I have yet to see one that you would think was written by a human and would want to read.

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15 points

Very sorry to contradict you, but this is absolute shit.

To be clear, I’m talking in relative terms. Would you argue that ChatGPT did a massively better job and didn’t write “absolute shit”?

It looks good on the surface, but that’s all.

From some of the stuff I’ve seen published, that might just be enough for certain people. I could even be that “certain people” from time to time, sometimes just the right theme, setting and some time to fill is sufficient.

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7 points

Do you know of any good alternatives for role playing? I used it a while back to flesh out some NPCs and location for a DnD game I was planning on running but if it’s gotten noticeably worse I’d like to try something else.

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5 points
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NovelAI - They even train their own models specifically for storytelling (and to avoid undue censorship from an outside model provider like OpenAI)

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1 point

Ai dungeon

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3 points

Definitely stay away from AI dungeon - they have a long history of privacy, moderation and censorship concerns. and relevant to this discussion, players have repeatedly noticed decreased functionality of the AI in favor of censoring it further (very similar mindset to OpenAI, which they used to work with very closely)

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4 points

Really? I actually found it’s gotten less restrictive recently. Maybe it’s just because now I’ve learned to control the context so it doesn’t perceive a request as offensive.

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1 point
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It has not gotten worse for coding. GPT4 is incredibly much better, if anything. And it’s total bullshit that it can’t write a nested loop.

I use it daily for work, so I’d definitely know.

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14 points

Sorry I should have mentioned I’m talking about the free version of chatGPT

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14 points

I should honestly have understood that! Never mind then, glad we could clear that up

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7 points

Don’t know why you’re downvoted. I use GPT4 to code and design infrastructure and it’s very, very good. Around 500% productivity boost.

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5 points

Glad someone is realizing what I am!

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4 points

I know he didn’t say he wasn’t using gpt4 but it seems pretty clear. So saying it’s bullshit that gpt3.5 is dumber then 4 is pretty inaccurate.

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1 point

Fair enough. Saying chatgpt has gotten dumber is false, saying 3.5 has might be true!

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1 point

I find the quality is controllable to a degree by instructing it which sources to use.

Obviously proofread the damn thing and fix any glaring errors.

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-30 points

Why did they do this? Did government step in and forced them to nerf it, because it was too powerful for citizens to use?

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24 points

I’m sorry but this sounds more like a conspiracy theory then a real concern. Occam’s razor probably says it’s expensive to run the service at full power. ChatGPT already generated a cult like following for AI so no need to spend a ton on the service and they can profit of the hype.

Not that openAI is held back by a government that is somehow afraid that it will empower the people, to do what? Revolution?

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6 points

I don’t think anybody stepped in, I’m only talking about the free version. It makes some sense they’d gimp it in order to make more people sign up for the paid version, I guess

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74 points

Back in my day, we used to call ‘prompt engineering’ ‘asking a question’.

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back in my day, we call it “google fu”

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38 points

And then we had to actively unlearn that google fu because google no longer works with keywords, but rather has an NLP pipeline that expects a question.

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25 points

So that’s why I can’t find shit. I always just use keywords, asking a whole question seems almost wasteful.

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1 point

Someone used the phrase “dead-catting” on here the other day, so I went to google to figure out what the hell that meant. It gave me reults for the Catechism. Between the actual phrase “dead cat bounce” and “Catechism”, it chose the latter to show me.

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google fu

That reminds me of something. I don’t remember precisely why, nor what line it resonates with in my brain, but it reminds me of this guy from The Core (movie):
Image link for compatibility

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1 point

That’s DJ Qualls, who was great in Z Nation. Too bad no one watched Z Nation. It was hilariously insane. I mean, radioactive post-nuke zombies? At least it got an ending.

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1 point

I still say “Google fu”!

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13 points

They got to have a special termonology because what they do is oh so special. Some AI users act like they’re Louise Banks from the movie Arrival cracking the code to an alien language or something. And I don’t think it’s far fetched to assume they’re often from the same breed who had NFT monkeys as their twitter pfp about 18 months ago.

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4 points

Blockchain > Crypto > NFTs > LLMs > whatever’s next.

These people will always be sniffing around for the next big thing to oversell and fleece their audience.

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5 points

LMAO people forgot Metaverse even happened

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0 points

when i think of “prompt engineering” i think more of stuff like this paper

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-2 points

Its more than because half the time it doesn’t even answer the question.

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56 points
Deleted by creator
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9 points

I’ve had similar experiences lately. Either that or it decides to review and analyze my code unprompted when I’m trying to troubleshoot a particularly tricky line. Had a few instances where it tried to borderline gaslight me into thinking that it was right and I was wrong about certain solutions. It feels like it happened rather suddenly too, it never used to do that save for the odd exception.

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7 points
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Deleted by creator
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42 points
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Removed by mod
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19 points

They could make it paid only today, and it’d be instantly profitable. Most free users would transition to a free alternative, but the corporate world would easily pay for use. So would some power users. But I’m sure they are making good money with all the API use anyways, the free access is a cheap way to get mass testing and training data.

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15 points

I know so many average Joe’s that use it all the time and would instantly pay $5 a month for it, even just a phone app.

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36 points

It’s getting worse based on the feedback unfortunately, the need for safety and lack of meaningful deliberation towards how AI companies should operate and what should and should not be done has led Sam and co to be indesicive towards doing anything. Alongside the “morality” of the thing being hyjacked has lead to other AI’s performing better… lead by x employees of OpenAI, with actual bound morals and not inherently relying on user input to train future models, this will be the path forward, this will lead to safe and controlled integration.

I guess at the core of this, we are afraid of ourselves. We are afraid that the worste of humanity outpaces the better parts, that the inputs and training aren’t altruistic but are more pointedly “bad” or “wrong”, and thus leading to “harmful”, whether through misinformation, lies, or fabrications.

I hope we find a way to do better. I’m still excited for the future of AI, I mean crap, I’m closer to having a family doctor that’s a robot then I am to a real human doctor.

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14 points

I guess at the core of this, we are afraid of ourselves. We are afraid that the worste of humanity outpaces the better parts, that the inputs and training aren’t altruistic but are more pointedly “bad” or “wrong”, and thus leading to “harmful”, whether through misinformation, lies, or fabrications.

Is there any reason not to be afraid? I think you could say that Tay was essentially the same idea a few years back and it took like 48 hours loose on the internet for it to spout literal Nazi (1930s-40s German NSDAP) rhetoric. Besides that being a PR disaster - if “AI” is only getting stronger and more integrated into human life and society, that can be pretty problematic.

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