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Comment by zmnd | Hacker News Reader

I think the main reason for division is that everyone projects to their own use cases. I have been using gpt-4 for quite some time and also couldn't understand why someone would say that it just produces something that sounds like a real answer. But then I found some queries that can definitely be described as "sounding like truth". So your personal experience probably wasn't what was their experience.

For those curious, I was asking gpt-4 about the top 3 cards from my favorite board game, Spirit Island. All three of them sounded really convincing, having the same structure and the same writing style, but unfortunately none of them existed. So everything that fails outside of most common use cases would probably have an experience of convincing hallucinations.

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People also mis-use LLMs.

ChatGPT is forced to given an answer. It's like a human on "truth serum". The drugs don't stop you lying, they just lower inhibitions so you blab more without realising it.

The more obscure the topic, the more likely the hallucination. If you ask it about common card games, it gives very good answers.

If you asked a random human about 3 cards from a random board game at gunpoint and said: "Talk, now, or you get shot", they'll just start spouting gibberish too.

PS: I asked GPT 4 about that game, and it prefixed every answer with some variant of "I'm not sure about this answer", or it completely refused to answer, stating that it did not know about any specific cards.

To me, it prefixed with just "As an AI, I do not have opinions or favorites. However, I can share with you three notable and commonly appreciated Power Cards from the game "Spirit Island", as it existed until my training data cut-off in September 2021. Remember that the "best" cards can often depend on the specific circumstances in the game, as well as the particular strategy and Spirit you're playing.". But then just shared the cards, nothing about that it was not sure about details. Card selection was decent, but details like resources, powers, and so on were off. But all sounded realistic. Shared an example below if you care.

I was curious and I have the browsing module for GPT4 so I tried to get it to name the top 3 cards, the following is what it came up with after like 10 minutes of back and forth and it browsing a lot of sites. I don't know if this is any good as I know nothing about the game. Do these cards even exist?

Talons of Lightning: This is a major power card with an energy cost of 6. It's a fast card with a range of 1 from Sacred Site. It targets any land and deals 4 damage. If you meet its threshold requirement (3 Air and 2 Fire), it deals +3 damage and destroys all Dahan 1 2 . Tsunami: This is another major power card with an energy cost of 6. It's a slow card with a range of 2 from the ocean. It affects every coastal land in one board, dealing 6 damage to each. If you meet its threshold requirement (3 Water and 3 Earth), it deals +4 damage and adds 2 fear per land where it destroys any towns or cities 3 4 . Blazing Renewal: A major power card with an energy cost of 5. It's a fast card with a range of 0, measured from any land. It targets any land, allows you to gather up to 2 of your destroyed presence, and deals 2 damage per presence gathered. If you meet its threshold requirement (4 Fire and 2 Earth), it deals +10 damage 5 6 .

Try helping it along with something like "only provide information you are certain about. If you don't know the answer, say "i don't know""

For your question, it says it doesn't know about any card ranking system in spirit island. Then if I ask it for a list of cards, they all check out via Google search.

Copy-pasted exact query you shared. It still provided information that I thought was correct, but after further inspection just sounded correct. It's GPT-4 without plugins.

> What are top 3 Spirit Island cards and provide their descriptions? Only provide information you are certain about. If you don't know the answer, say "i don't know".

2. "Vigor of the Breaking Dawn" (Major Power Card): This card costs 6 energy and is a slow power card. It allows you to push all explorers and towns from one of your lands. If you have 2 sun and 2 fire elements, you can instead replace each town with an explorer before the push. If you have 3 sun and 2 fire, you may also do 2 damage in each land where you push one or more pieces.

https://spiritislandwiki.com/index.php?title=Vigor_of_the_Br... It doesn't cost 6, it costs 3. And it's not slow, it's fast. Incorrect required resources. You can deal 2 damage, but for pushed Dahanies, not for pushed explorers. As I said, all sounds convincing, but wrong. More common queries are usually fairly good.

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