ChatGPT, LLMs, and what they mean for RSEng

[jdamerow]

ChatGPT, LLMs, and what they mean for RSEng, RSEs, etc. How are people using it, how should we be using it, how shouldn't we be using it, etc

[christophernhill]

👍

[NickleDave]

Posting some resources.

I have strong feelings about this--mainly, it's bad to replace real human thought with stochastic parrots that are fragile, not really intelligent, and also happen to destroy the environment--but I'm guessing you won't have any trouble finding pro-LLM hype articles.

CoPilot, not ChatGPT, but most relevant for RSEs, IMO

• https://matthewbutterick.com/chron/this-copilot-is-stupid-and-wants-to-kill-me.html
• https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com/
• https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/
• https://twitter.com/DocSparse/status/1581461734665367554?cxt=HHwWhMDRibPEvfIrAAAA
• nice summary blog post: https://rutgershonorsblog.wordpress.com/2023/02/15/how-the-github-copilot-lawsuit-is-going-so-far/

LLMs in science and more generally

• https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-023-00581-4 (and see citations)
• https://irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2022/12/29/against-automated-plagiarism/
• https://irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2023/01/14/stop-feeding-the-hype-and-start-resisting/

other issues:

• LLMs suffer from model collapse: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493
• LLM text is not easily detected: https://decrypt.co/149826/openai-quietly-shutters-its-ai-detection-tool
• adversarial LLM prompts are fairly easy to generate and transferable across models: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.15043
• training LLMs consumes massive amounts of water at a time when this resource is already endangered e.g. in the southwest
  • https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03271
  • https://techthelead.com/study-reveals-training-chatgpt-consumes-as-much-water-as-a-nuclear-reactor/