From a LinkedIn post by Hugh Jones.
#AI is getting talked about a lot, but in truth it means lots of different things.
For example, there's pattern recognition type AI - the sort of software which analyses medical scans to pick up signs of disease. And there are LLMs - large language models - such as ChatGPT or OpenAI. These are designed to behave in conversation as a person would, enabling the rapid synthesis of lots of data. They're integrated into a lot of apps and websites nowadays - if you've ever clicked on the rewrite with AI button on LinkedIn, for instance, this is using an LLM.
But all is not as it seems. An LLM is not an intelligence. It works by detecting patterns in the use of words, and applying those patterns to new questions or prompts. Its an averaging machine. And now, according to research done in part by OpenAI itself, they are mathematically *guaranteed* sometimes to produce hallucinated answers. I've linked to an article about this in the first comment below.
This is, needless to say, not good. If you're relying on an LLM to write things for you, I'd recommend using it only to write a first draft. You need to read it, think critically about it, and edit it. And for my money the edit shouldn't be simply refining the AI prompts and asking it to go again - this doesn't remove the possibility of hallucination. I mean edit it yourself. Check the facts it is reporting. Make it your words, and your thoughts.
This was taken from a post on LinkedIn by Hugh Jones and he has a website
One response to his post was as follows
I find the attitude of many universities to LLMs a bit odd though. I get the concerns around academic integrity,, of course. But as a tool for learning, they're awesome. Providing one is aware of the risks associated with hallucinations (and who isn't these days?), they find and summarise new information faster than anything else out there, you can debate with them (and they will challenge you if prompted well), they will "think" of angles you haven't, and so on. It's like having a tutor in your pocket 24/7. Why wouldn't unis be all over that?
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