[Rd] An interesting chat with ChatGPT

[Robert Baer]

On 2/13/2023 11:14 AM, Kevin Coombes wrote:
> Chat bots are like politicians, or talking dogs. The fact that they exist
> is interesting. But no same person would believe anything they say.

I think it is more appropriate to be a little less harsh, " no same 
person would believe EVERYTHING they say"

  What chatGPT (and politicians) say must be run through your own 
personal filters and sanity checks ( just like the things even your 
mother tells you.)  ;-)


>
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 10:58 AM Boris Steipe <boris.steipe using utoronto.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Duncan -
>>
>> Indeed, this has now been well documented; I have called these
>> constructions "Schrödinger Facts", since they arise from a superposition of
>> truths in the training data that collapse into an untruth when observed.
>>
>>     https://sentientsyllabus.substack.com/p/chatgpts-achilles-heel
>>
>> Now, the curious question is: why can it program. Why is its production of
>> R-syntax less vulnerable to this effect than a literature quote, or
>> reference? Maybe it has to do with the fact that in producing correct
>> syntax there is a ground truth - errors just will not run. But I'm not sure.
>>
>> Regardless: it signals that we need a reinvigorated culture of validation.
>> Actually ChatGPT will happily make test data for you. Whisvh. in a way, it
>> judt did  ;-)
>>
>>
>> Boris
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 2023-02-13, at 08:37, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> I was wondering which anchor would match in the regular expression
>> "(a)|(b)" if both "a" and "b" matches the target string.  What appears to
>> happen is that the first match wins, and that's how it is documented in
>> Python, but I was looking for docs on this in R.
>>> As far as I can see, the ?regex help page doesn't resolve this. So just
>> for fun, I decided to ask ChatGPT, and got an interesting response.  I
>> won't show the whole conversation here, but just some extracts:
>>> ---------------------------------------
>>> Me:  In a regular expression in R, if both "a" and "b" match, which does
>> "(a)|(b)" match?  Please include authoritative references in your answer.
>>> ChatGPT: [long answer about grep]
>>>
>>> Me:  In grep(), it doesn't matter which of a or b matches.  It's only in
>> sub() or gsub() that it makes a difference.  Do you know an authoritative
>> reference that discusses those functions?
>>> ChatGPT:  [long irrelevant answer about sub and gsub, with a reference
>> to "R Cookbook" by P. Teetor.]
>>> Me:  Teetor's book is not authoritative, and the other reference doesn't
>> discuss ambiguous alternation.
>>> ... finally we get to the interesting part ...
>>>
>>> ChatGPT: I apologize for the mistake in my previous answer.
>>>
>>> A more authoritative reference for the behavior of regular expressions
>> in R can be found in the official R documentation.
>>> Regarding the behavior of ambiguous alternation, the regex section of
>> the manual "An Introduction to R" explains it as follows:
>>> "When several alternatives are possible, the first alternative is
>> chosen, so it is important to specify alternatives in the order in which
>> they should be tried."
>>> Here is the reference for the official R documentation:
>>>
>>>     "An Introduction to R" manual:
>> https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-intro.html#Regular-expression-facilities
>>> I hope this reference provides the information you were looking for.
>>> ---------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>> All right, an authoritative answer!  The only problem is that *it
>> doesn't exist*.  There's no such anchor in that document.  R-intro isn't a
>> very rapidly changing document, so I could look at every change recorded in
>> svn, and that section has *never* existed.
>>> I guess ChatGPT is a pattern matching machine, and if such a question
>> had an answer, it would probably be in a location like that.  (I would have
>> guessed a help page like ?regex instead of R-intro, but I had just told it
>> that answer was wrong.)
>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-devel using r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>> --
>> Boris Steipe MD, PhD
>>
>> Professor em.
>> Department of Biochemistry
>> Temerty Faculty of Medicine
>> University of Toronto
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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-- 
__________________________________________________
Robert W. Baer, Ph.D.
Professor of Physiolgy
Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine
A.T. Still University of Heallth Sciences
800 W. Jefferson St.
Kirksville, MO 63501
P: 660-626-2322


  

              

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