Inability of LLMs to accurately attribute sources and communicate ideas correctly, leading to confusion and misinformation

Signals over time

2 observed signals across 1 sources, tracked for 1 days. Confidence: low.

What people are saying Observed

• “> The idea of "contradictory data" is a projection that you're imposing. No. Using the topic in this subthread: the methods described as "whole language reading instruction" contradict the methods of learning to read supported by science. That is an observation . If you think it a projection or a hallucination, then maybe there is nothing left to say because we are talking past each other and you are being extremely pedantic in a way that is unproductive to communicating a problem that, yes, exists in the minds of humans. Humans who use LLMs without understanding LLMs, and walk away with information that is incorrect, useless, or worse-than-useless in the real world. If you genuinely think computer-literate people are projecting the notions of contradition and/or sycophancy into the workings of an LLM, I'm not sure how to persuade you otherwise. But I suspect most people on this forum using phrases like "sycophancy" understand what an LLM is (and why it is not technically a literal sycophant) and simultaneously understand that the phrase "sycophancy" provides a useful cautionary, metaphoric image for average people who are u”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “In another discussion I shared about how LLMs took my completely novel work on a human-language grammar and parrotted it back to me in chats, using the terms and concepts that I invented. But there were two big problems: 1. It misunderstood things and didn't communicate the ideas properly, in essence making these helpful terms very misleading and confusing. 2. It refused to cite my work as the source of these terms and concepts. I prodded and prodded and it just kept citing other works that never mentioned the terms. I am not worried about intellectual property theft. My work is free and out there for the public. What is deeply concerning is the inability to deterministically nail things back down to the source. Who created this and who said this, where can we get to the source and check if this is true? Good luck. LLMs are using what would would be considered the most deplorable practices of plagiarism, lying, and mangling sources. Any student would fail doing this. But instead of being disqualified and banned, they are being pushed as the number one source of truth and progress.”

  Hacker News · frustration