[poutine]

Have you met my cousin Barry? He does pretty much the same thing, though in a less formal way.

Barry is still sentient and can perform quite a few tasks quite admirably. I still wouldn't use him as a sole source reference for obscure facts however.

(I don't actually have a cousin Barry, this is for illustration).

[crazygringo]

No, actual human beings don't generally lie to your face like this about whole sets of facts. That would be pathological behavior.

They usually just say they don't know, or they think it might be X but they're not totally sure.

People sometimes lie when it's in their self interest for various reasons, e.g. where they were last night, or when writing an Op-Ed or on the campaign trail, but not just lying willy-nilly about regular facts when asked a normal question.

[kenjackson]

They may not do it to your face (though some will). But on the internet there are a bunch of people that will lie to you. Even worse they often do it for financial or social gain.

ChatGPT's motivation is simply that it was trained to do so. Huamns usually have more nefarious motives for their lies.

[poutine]

You haven't met a bullshitter then. ChatGPT can be a bullshitter. We built a bullshitter.

[dmonitor]

Notice that we don’t have Barry fielding a public Q&A so that he can share his knowledge with the world.

[poutine]

Lots of Barry's out there, one of them even got elected president and shared his knowledge with the world quite widely. Half the people took him credulously.

Point being, yes the LLM loves to make shit up. Lots of people dismiss it as a result. It's still bloody impressive, we just need to be aware of its limitations.