[LINK] ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web

[Kim Holburn]

An interesting take on ChatGPT.  A long read but here's a nice quote:

> I think there’s a simpler explanation. Imagine what it would look like if ChatGPT were a lossless algorithm. If that were the 
> case, it would always answer questions by providing a verbatim quote from a relevant Web page. We would probably regard the 
> software as only a slight improvement over a conventional search engine, and be less impressed by it. The fact that ChatGPT 
> rephrases material from the Web instead of quoting it word for word makes it seem like a student expressing ideas in her own 
> words, rather than simply regurgitating what she’s read; it creates the illusion that ChatGPT understands the material. In human 
> students, rote memorization isn’t an indicator of genuine learning, so ChatGPT’s inability to produce exact quotes from Web pages 
> is precisely what makes us think that it has learned something. When we’re dealing with sequences of words, lossy compression 
> looks smarter than lossless compression.

-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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