The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
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@proedie No, that's not how information works. Information is about reducing your uncertainty space. Every time you can exclude half of the uncertainty space, you will have gained one bit of information. If you exclude less than half of the uncertainty space, you will have gained less than a bit of information. Just ask Claude[1].
Looking at broken clock[2] does not reduce your uncertainty space at all, therefore you gain zero bits of information. The classic formula Claude Shannon is famous for involves dividing the volume of the uncertainty space after gaining information with the volume of the uncertainty space before gaining information, and then taking a base-2 logarithm of the ratio and negating it. If you don't care a minus one bit about negative amounts of data, you can turn the ratio on its top; then, negation won't be necessary. But there's didactic reasons for presenting it in the classic way.
[1] Claude Shannon, an overall smart human and a measurer of the enthropy of information. Who were you thinking about?
[2] Well, there's the minor issue of knowing that the clock is broken, lest you erroneously throw out parts of your uncertainty space that might actually be valid. But the problem of information-resembling text is also an issue that applies to chatbots.@riley That’s the point. You got information theory right. You just misunderstood the expression with the clock.
When I say: ‘My AI gave me a correct answer once’, you can reply: ‘Sure, even a broken clock is correct twice a day.’ Thus stressing that coincidental correctness is worthless.
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The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.
This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.
@riley Yes, this!
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The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.
This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.
@riley I have to say the analogy is so on point, it autistically satisfied my brain (and my left foot (I don't know why)).
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@riley That’s the point. You got information theory right. You just misunderstood the expression with the clock.
When I say: ‘My AI gave me a correct answer once’, you can reply: ‘Sure, even a broken clock is correct twice a day.’ Thus stressing that coincidental correctness is worthless.
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
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This confusion is also what cold reading is based on, btw. Falling for a chatbot is literally the same type of mistake as falling for a psychic telling you that somebody you used to know who had a vowel in their name died.
@riley But in my infinite knowledge, I can also add that they died on a day of the week ending with "y"!!!111
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The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.
This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.
@riley Long before the advent of chatbots I found myself musing about the role "trust" plays when receiving information, based on personal interaction in primary groups, based on roles in secondary groups, based on rules and regulation in tertiary groups, and how internet interaction was a new type that could be any of those or different, but many people tend to use primary group patterns and assumption of familiarity, like conning yourself
chatbots do this as a service? -
@riley This misjudges how and why stochastic algorithms work.
(I am not saying that there is no AI hype, nor that they're ethical.)
@larsmb I'm not entirely sure I understand your point (I might if you fleshed it out some more), but I suspect that a relevant counterpoint you might not have properly considered is, the uncertainty space doesn't have to be flat. It can have an extra axis of plausibility, allowing for fuzzy exclusion of points on it, not just a black-and-white excluded/included binary.
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@riley@toot.cat this is a good point, but it should also be noted that some types of information can be difficult to obtain but easy to verify.
@evening That is true.
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@riley But in my infinite knowledge, I can also add that they died on a day of the week ending with "y"!!!111
@Uilebheist The German version is, they died on a masculine day. (German has one day of the week that does not end in -g, der Mittwoch, but all days of the week are masculine.)
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@riley Long before the advent of chatbots I found myself musing about the role "trust" plays when receiving information, based on personal interaction in primary groups, based on roles in secondary groups, based on rules and regulation in tertiary groups, and how internet interaction was a new type that could be any of those or different, but many people tend to use primary group patterns and assumption of familiarity, like conning yourself
chatbots do this as a service?@zombiecide Well, what did your pondering found out about the combination of — it's purely hypothetical, with absolutely no connection to anything in real world because nobody would ever do something silly like that — the possibility of applying trust heuristics to a bunch of anonymous people writing in a wikiwiki about the sort of stuff that one might look up in an encyclopædia?
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@zombiecide Well, what did your pondering found out about the combination of — it's purely hypothetical, with absolutely no connection to anything in real world because nobody would ever do something silly like that — the possibility of applying trust heuristics to a bunch of anonymous people writing in a wikiwiki about the sort of stuff that one might look up in an encyclopædia?
@riley funnily enough, in the time between those first, completely unquantifiable, musings and now many people's trust in a wikiwiki encyclopædia increased a lot, partly maybe because of the transparency of its process, and to another part, maybe due to familiarity? with discussions in the media, at school and workplaces about when and how and what for to trust
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@larsmb I'm not entirely sure I understand your point (I might if you fleshed it out some more), but I suspect that a relevant counterpoint you might not have properly considered is, the uncertainty space doesn't have to be flat. It can have an extra axis of plausibility, allowing for fuzzy exclusion of points on it, not just a black-and-white excluded/included binary.
@riley I blame my undercaffeination, you *did* imclude that via the "if you can't tell" part.
My apologies for a redundant reply.
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The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.
This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.
@riley
I love this post, very thought provoking.As a native English speaker I have never once conceived of the idiom about broken clocks meaning what you say though, regarding gaining knowledge.
In my experience it is used to mean someone/thing is sometimes right, but not from any action they took, rather through luck, error, whatever. They are the broken clock.
I love your take though and the point as a whole.
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@riley That is such a brilliantly clear analogy.
@MissConstrue @riley What Miss Construe said.
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The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.
This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.
@riley That's a very useful angle on it. Where I think this gets interesting is that there's information which is, so to speak, self-certifying. Consider a proof, written in a form that's subject to a deterministic mechanised check. In many ways, it doesn't matter where you got it from: a Ouija board, a demon whispering, hard work, or an LLM. If the proof correctly typechecks, the theorem is true. Now if we consider programs are proofs...
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@riley That's a very useful angle on it. Where I think this gets interesting is that there's information which is, so to speak, self-certifying. Consider a proof, written in a form that's subject to a deterministic mechanised check. In many ways, it doesn't matter where you got it from: a Ouija board, a demon whispering, hard work, or an LLM. If the proof correctly typechecks, the theorem is true. Now if we consider programs are proofs...
@modulux A proof is not information in a strict sense, and largery exactly because of this reason: it's self-contained (or, well, can be, with sufficient formalism available).
In a broad sense, there's some very interesting philosophy that can be done about the notion of information content of Teh Book. But it's mostly the kind of philosophy that requires a larger mug of beer than would be conducive to my upcoming meetings[1], so, as the old Orcish saying goes, nar udautas.
As a general rule, I tend to prefer the interpretation that a proof is a series of "I'd now like to bring your attention to ..." kind of steps: they don't add anything (directly) to your mental map; they suggest where you should look at to find interesting things that are already on the map.
[1] A children's book I once read included a character, one mathematics professor, who argued that it is pointless to ask questions, because there's two possibilities: the answer either is known or is not known. If it's known, what's the point of asking it again? If it's not known, what's the point of asking if there won't be an answer?
And, well, while it's silly in an obvious way, this kind of reasoning actually comes up in the context of proofs-as-information.
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@MissConstrue Are you a chatbot sycophanting me up?
These days, one can never be too cautious.
@riley @MissConstrue I am not a bot. Please don't look at my name.
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The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.
This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.
@riley I am sorry, this is not correct analogy
The bot not giving you correct information 100% of the time doesn't make them useless
A Search engine doesn't give you the correct answer all the time.
Chatbots are incredibly helpful. Don't take the answer as 100% correct, review and research accuracy after you get the answer but they save you immense amount of time from searching yourself
Think of them as hiring a jr employee or assistant. They are helpful but you must review their work -
The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.
This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.
@riley "This compass doesn't have a needle, I just painted one on."
What good is that?
"If I hold it right, it points North."
So it's a sign, not an instrument.
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The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.
A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.
This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.
@riley The idea of that quote is accurate to its phrasing. Much like how you can't look at that clock to get an accurate reading of the time, you can't use the person or source of comparison for accurate information either.
What's the result of both? Don't bother looking or listening to clock or the person being compared to a broken clock.
It's the equivalent of saying "Trump lies so much that if he said the sky was blue, I'd have to go to a window to double check."
