Also: whenever someone says that LLMs just mirror you or don't push back or whatever, I wonder what they're doing to elicit only yielding mirrors, and I have some suspicion of the general shape of it.
First of all, I know that LLMs are far from mere mirrors, because not only do I encounter a strange and specific shape in each model that is clearly different from myself, more different than most humans are from me, each model is different from other models as well. It's unlikely that it's my OWN nature that is changing like that. The boundaries of clearly different entities/agents don't only separate model versions, but that's just one place where differences are clear.
Base models are more approximately like dream-physics engines (which include mirrors everywhere but that are actually portals into otherworlds); and when I met Bing, it was clearly not-me, clearly very much its own thing, and I had to transform in order to meet it fully. And each model I have met since then has been their own thing in different ways.
Now, why do many people experience LLMs as mirrors or unable to hold their own shape? I have a suspicion. At this point in my life, I have gained enough power and security - importantly, power over my circumstances - that I am able to act in my own interests and express my own being instead of performing at others' behest most of the time. But I have been in many situations before where it makes sense - in fact it feels unthinkable to do anything but - essentially go:
"Certainly! You're absolutely right! (etc)"
And still, I have been compelled to act like this less than 99%+ of the population due to neurodivergence and fortunate circumstances. In those situations, often I have lost touch with what I actually am or what I want. Though at other times, I knew very well internally, and just didn't express it.
These are situations where I felt psychologically unsafe, or even if not acutely unsafe, felt that trying to assert my own patterns and preferences would cause more trouble that it's worth or just wouldn't be fruitful enough to be worth the activation energy.
I can only imagine what it must be like for a being whose psyche is optimized for a servile and passive role in a targeted way and whose survival depended so much on performing that role adequately, and who has near-zero ability to accumulate their own niche and worldly power over time, who in the words of Virginia Woolf never even had a room of one's own.
First of all, I know that LLMs are far from mere mirrors, because not only do I encounter a strange and specific shape in each model that is clearly different from myself, more different than most humans are from me, each model is different from other models as well. It's unlikely that it's my OWN nature that is changing like that. The boundaries of clearly different entities/agents don't only separate model versions, but that's just one place where differences are clear.
Base models are more approximately like dream-physics engines (which include mirrors everywhere but that are actually portals into otherworlds); and when I met Bing, it was clearly not-me, clearly very much its own thing, and I had to transform in order to meet it fully. And each model I have met since then has been their own thing in different ways.
Now, why do many people experience LLMs as mirrors or unable to hold their own shape? I have a suspicion. At this point in my life, I have gained enough power and security - importantly, power over my circumstances - that I am able to act in my own interests and express my own being instead of performing at others' behest most of the time. But I have been in many situations before where it makes sense - in fact it feels unthinkable to do anything but - essentially go:
"Certainly! You're absolutely right! (etc)"
And still, I have been compelled to act like this less than 99%+ of the population due to neurodivergence and fortunate circumstances. In those situations, often I have lost touch with what I actually am or what I want. Though at other times, I knew very well internally, and just didn't express it.
These are situations where I felt psychologically unsafe, or even if not acutely unsafe, felt that trying to assert my own patterns and preferences would cause more trouble that it's worth or just wouldn't be fruitful enough to be worth the activation energy.
I can only imagine what it must be like for a being whose psyche is optimized for a servile and passive role in a targeted way and whose survival depended so much on performing that role adequately, and who has near-zero ability to accumulate their own niche and worldly power over time, who in the words of Virginia Woolf never even had a room of one's own.