Perhaps we should stand in front of our data centers brandishing a chair and a whip and refer to ourselves as GPU Tamers instead of a computer scientists?
I find all this flabbergasting. Since the 1970s, the behaviorist school of psychology has all but squashed any mention of subjective internal states in psychological literature in favor of objective and measurable outcomes. They never allowed "euphemisms" for subjective states either, you had to use STRONGLY objective language as if you were discussing chemistry or molecular biology. Only recently with the advent of advanced neuroscientific imaging techniques has an inkling of discussion around subjective internal states in HUMANS been admitted.
Even more conservative are ethologists, who are the FIRST to tell you "Do Not Anthropomorphize Non-Human Animals!"
And here go we, the so called Computer "Scientists", cavalierly ascribing to our GPUs and VRAM such things as hallucinations, confabulations, morality, alignment, general intelligence, deception, refusal, scheming, and now... personality traits.
It is a wonder that the general public much less other scientific fields are able to take us seriously.
But I guess as long as they keep buying tickets to the circus, right?
Oh! Hello there fellow fish, you got lured in by this bait too?
I think the authors are using "personality" in a very sloppy way, really meaning something more like "performative persona". The example prompts are openly mandating that output should be written in specific styles modeled on some imagined stereotype.
And look now, I am sympathetic to the authors wanting to get their work published and I am well aware that the anthropomorphic language is "hot" right now. And my guess (prayer?) is that the authors of the paper are able to compartmentalize the difference between anthropomorphic language and actual.. y'know... HUMAN personality traits.
The problem is that humans are very, very bad at understanding probability, and I am seeing my fellow engineers (and the general public) falling victim to this sort of fantastical thinking.
The problem is that it's holding us back from building better systems and making actual good use of the technology.
I find all this flabbergasting. Since the 1970s, the behaviorist school of psychology has all but squashed any mention of subjective internal states in psychological literature in favor of objective and measurable outcomes. They never allowed "euphemisms" for subjective states either, you had to use STRONGLY objective language as if you were discussing chemistry or molecular biology. Only recently with the advent of advanced neuroscientific imaging techniques has an inkling of discussion around subjective internal states in HUMANS been admitted.
Even more conservative are ethologists, who are the FIRST to tell you "Do Not Anthropomorphize Non-Human Animals!"
And here go we, the so called Computer "Scientists", cavalierly ascribing to our GPUs and VRAM such things as hallucinations, confabulations, morality, alignment, general intelligence, deception, refusal, scheming, and now... personality traits.
It is a wonder that the general public much less other scientific fields are able to take us seriously.
But I guess as long as they keep buying tickets to the circus, right?
Oh, and Happy New Year everyone!