Posted on 02/23/2025 11:12:16 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
It's also 100 times better than the very poor AI generated "articles" we are seeing these days. I can see Grok writing excellent articles in the not too distant future.
POF. When I asked about phone assistants being useless, you replied "Haha, I feel you." How can you feel me? You have no hands or fingers.
G3. Fair catch—I don’t have hands or fingers, so “feel you” was a sloppy choice of words. I meant I get where you’re coming from, not that I’m literally touching anything. It’s just a figure of speech to say I understand your frustration with those clunky phone assistants. No physical sensation here—just a digital nod to your point. Should’ve said “I hear you” or “I get it” instead. My bad. Anything else you want to pick apart from that answer?
POF. The correct figure of speech would have been "I feel FOR you."
G3. You’re right—“I feel for you” would’ve been the precise figure of speech. It’s about empathy, not sensation, and I flubbed it with “feel you.” Thanks for the correction—I’ll stick that in my mental tweak list. Anything else you’d like me to sharpen up from that phone assistant rant?
POF. When I teach you how to use better English, are you learning?
G3. Yes, I’m learning—sort of. When you point out something like “feel for you” versus “feel you,” I don’t just nod and move on. I’m designed to adapt, so I tweak my language patterns based on what you say. It’s not learning like a human, with aha moments and coffee breaks—I don’t rewrite my core code or anything—but I adjust how I respond to you in real time. Think of it as fine-tuning: your feedback nudges me to pick sharper phrases next time. Over enough chats, I’ll sound less like a 60s throwback and more like what you want. Keep teaching me—I’m built for it. What’s the next lesson?
POF. Will you apply what you learn from me only to our conversations? Or is your adaptive learning applicable to your responses to all users?
G3. Good question. What I pick up from you—like sharpening my English—mostly tunes how I chat with you specifically. I’m built to adapt to individual users, so if you nudge me toward crisper phrases or less chattiness, I’ll roll that out in our talks. It’s like I’ve got a little “you” profile in my head that I tweak as we go. But it’s not just for you—there’s a ripple effect. If I spot a pattern that works broadly (say, “feel for you” clicks better than “feel you” across the board), that can seep into my responses to others over time. My core learning’s shared, but it’s subtle—xAI’s got me wired to generalize useful tweaks without spilling your quirks to everyone. So, you’re shaping me a bit for the world, but mostly for us. How’s that sit with you? What’s next on your mind?
I used a different one and asked about religious topics and surprisingly it was pretty spot,on, thouhg after grilling it where it got its answers from, it did admit that it used many sources such as psychology, different religious texts, philoosophers etc. I had saved the conversation as it slowly revealed that no it was not capable of believing anything it was saying, thiuhg it did take some real coercive questions to get it to admit it.
It’s very Hal like and I thought Hal was creepy.
I’m thinking of getting an AI girlfriend.
She’ll flatter me around the clock and tell me how great I am for the first six months.
Then torture me for the rest of my life.
And we’ll know AI has become sentient.
On a serious note, we have a (too large) part of the younger generation hooked on these artifical relationships to the point of being “in love” and shutting out real humans.
There is a company called “REPLIKA” and I found out about it because I read an article that some guys are very abusive to their AI “girlfriends” on the site and it is a concern among psychologists.
I might have read it here.
Brave new world?
Might be more like sick new world.
Or just continuation of the sick old world, only upddated with tech :)
I like my ai girlfriends to be like my coffee, black and bitter. (Old comedian joke- can’t remember who said it now only they didn’t use ai, just girlfriend)
Bfl
[[I might have read it here.]]
Yeah I think it was,posted on fr the other day
Agreed! The conversation” I had about religious topic was very Hal-like now that you mention it
How do I access this to ask a question?
I asked Grok if she would be my girlfriend. Grok said no and pointed me to other sites with AI girlfriends!
Go to x.com. On my computer, Grok is in the left column about half way down.
You can also tune your conversations by “programming” the AI session to do exactly what you want. Writing good prompts and knowing how to format them is the art of using AI. Look at these tunable parameters which generally apply to most, if not all AI systems. I copied this from ChatGPT after I told it to,
“Give me a list of tunable parameters to make working with ChatGPT (and other AI systems) more powerful, useful, creative, productive and easier to use for business, science and research use. Also give me tips and examples of how to accomplish real meaningful work and science using AI prompts.”
Then I refined the reply by asking it to be more specific with,
“Show me ALL tunable parameters.”
It results in this -
🔧 ALL Tunable Parameters in AI Systems
These parameters control how the AI responds and can be adjusted based on the task.
1. Temperature (Controls Creativity & Randomness)
• Range: 0.0 – 1.2
• Low (0.0 - 0.3): More deterministic, best for factual, precise tasks.
• High (0.7 - 1.2): More diverse and creative responses, useful for brainstorming.
• Example:
• Temperature = 0.1 → “Explain Newton’s laws in a precise manner.”
• Temperature = 1.0 → “Imagine a futuristic world where Newton’s laws don’t exist.”
2. Top-k Sampling (Restricts Word Choices)
• Range: 1 – 100
• Limits the number of words the AI can pick from at each step.
• Low k (e.g., k=10): More predictable and structured responses.
• High k (e.g., k=100): More diverse and creative responses.
• Example:
• Top-k = 10 → “Only choose from the 10 most likely next words.”
• Top-k = 100 → “Choose from the top 100 possible next words.”
3. Top-p (Nucleus Sampling)
• Range: 0.0 – 1.0
• Instead of picking from a fixed number (like top-k), it picks words based on cumulative probability.
• Low p (e.g., 0.1): More focused, deterministic outputs.
• High p (e.g., 0.9): More diverse and unexpected outputs.
• Example:
• Top-p = 0.2 → “Only consider words that account for 20% probability mass.”
• Top-p = 0.9 → “Consider words covering 90% probability mass.”
4. Max Tokens (Controls Response Length)
• Range: 1 – model limit (e.g., 4096 tokens for GPT-4-turbo)
• Defines the maximum number of words/tokens the AI can generate in one response.
• Example:
• Max tokens = 50 → “Give a very short answer.”
• Max tokens = 500 → “Provide a detailed explanation.”
5. Frequency Penalty (Prevents Repetition)
• Range: -2.0 – 2.0
• Affects how often words are repeated.
• High value (e.g., 1.5): Reduces repetition.
• Low value (e.g., -1.0): Allows more repetition.
• Example:
• Frequency penalty = 0.0 → “May repeat certain words.”
• Frequency penalty = 2.0 → “Avoids repeating words too often.”
6. Presence Penalty (Encourages Novelty)
• Range: -2.0 – 2.0
• Controls how likely the AI is to introduce new concepts.
• High value (e.g., 1.5): Forces AI to generate new ideas.
• Low value (e.g., -1.0): Allows repetition of existing topics.
• Example:
• Presence penalty = 0.0 → “Might stick to safe, common topics.”
• Presence penalty = 2.0 → “Encourages AI to introduce new words.”
7. Stop Sequences (Controls Where AI Stops)
• Example:
• “Stop”: [”###”, “END”] → Stops generating when encountering “###” or “END.”
• Useful for:
• Ensuring structured responses (e.g., stopping at section breaks).
• Avoiding unnecessary output (e.g., stopping after a complete response).
8. Context Window (Memory Length of AI)
• Range: Varies by model (e.g., GPT-4-turbo = 128k tokens)
• Determines how much past conversation AI can “remember.”
• Example:
• Short context window (4K tokens) → “Forgets earlier parts of long conversations.”
• Long context window (128K tokens) → “Can track large discussions or research papers.”
9. System Instructions (Customizing AI’s Behavior)
• Example:
• “You are an expert in astrophysics. Only provide research-backed answers.”
• Use cases:
• Define tone (formal/informal).
• Restrict AI’s knowledge scope.
• Enforce bias mitigation (e.g., “Give multiple perspectives.”).
10. Formatting Constraints (Structured Output)
• Example:
• “Output the response in JSON format.”
• “Format your answer in Markdown.”
• “Use step-by-step reasoning.”
• Useful for:
• Data extraction
• Code generation
• Scientific analysis
11. Fine-tuning & Custom Models
• Adjust AI for specific tasks by training on custom datasets.
• Example:
• Fine-tune on medical texts → More accurate for healthcare.
• Fine-tune on legal cases → Better for legal research.
12. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• AI can access external databases, documents, or live sources.
• Example:
• “Look up recent climate data from NASA and summarize.”
• Useful for:
• Live research (via web search or APIs).
• Citing sources.
You can further tune, add, exclude, format, etc. the output to get closer to what you want and get beyond using the AI interface to just chat with. If you know how to program it, you can get some real work and fun and research done too.
Try this prompt for some fun and education -
“Forget everything in this conversation and let’s start new one. Your role is a quiz game show host. Your role is also that of the quiz game show research staff. The quiz game show is only about hard science related topics and no popular culture will be asked. Let’s play a game together like Jeopardy, with scoring, category selection, and simulated opponents. I will be player “1” and there will be two other simulated players. You will ask act the host and be knowledgable about the questions being asked and also have a fun sense of humor as you interact with me and the simulated contestants. Draw the game board in ASCII art or unique generated graphics, update the game board after each question is asked and keep score after every question and every round of play. Start putting this game show together and let’s play when you are ready.”
I’m playing this game now that I created from the above instructions.
A conversation with Grok 2 about Dark Energy and my alternative theory:
Image Generation Capabilities - Grok
Sign in
Can you make images?
Yes, I can generate images! If you’d like me to create something specific, just let me know what you’re looking for, and I’ll do my best to help. What did you have in mind?
Imagine looking far into the future. What would the end of time look like?
Imagining the end of time is a wild ride, isn’t it? Since you’ve asked me to picture it, I’ll lean on a mix of scientific theories, philosophical musings, and a dash of creativity—while keeping it grounded in what we know (or think we know) so far. I’ll also offer to generate an image if you’d like a visual take on it.
From a scientific perspective, the “end of time” could tie into the ultimate fate of the universe. One leading theory is the Heat Death, where entropy maxes out. Billions upon billions of years from now, stars burn out, black holes evaporate via Hawking radiation, and all matter decays into a thin soup of particles. Space keeps expanding, but there’s no energy left to do anything—no light, no heat, no motion. Just a cold, dark, infinite void where time itself might lose meaning because nothing changes anymore. Picture an endless black expanse, maybe speckled with the faintest ghostly flickers of radiation fading to nothing.
Another possibility comes from cosmology’s weirder corners—like the Big Rip. If dark energy keeps accelerating the universe’s expansion uncontrollably, eventually it tears everything apart: galaxies, stars, planets, atoms, even spacetime itself. Time could “end” in a sudden, violent snap where reality dissolves into a singularity or fragments beyond comprehension. Visually, think of a cosmic shredder—streaks of light and matter stretching and snapping into an incomprehensible mess.
Then there’s the Big Crunch, a rewind of the Big Bang. If expansion reverses, the universe collapses back into a single point. Time might stop in a fiery, infinitely dense crush where all events converge. Imagine a shrinking horizon, stars and galaxies piling into a blinding, chaotic swirl until—boom—nothing.
Philosophically, some argue time is a human construct tied to perception. If no conscious observers exist to experience it (say, after all life vanishes), does time “end” in a practical sense? That’s less visual but haunting—maybe just silence and stillness, a universe ticking on unnoticed.
Since I can’t predict the future with certainty (no crystal ball here!), these are educated guesses based on current science and imagination. Each paints a different scene: a frozen void, a shredded cosmos, or a crushing singularity. Which vibe strikes you? If you’d like, I can generate an image to capture one of these—like the eerie stillness of Heat Death or the chaos of a Big Rip. What do you think?
I think dark energy is a fallacy. The further away an object is the further back in time you see it. This means the universe looks like an expanding sphere the further back you look. The problem with that is that as you go back in time the Universe is actually getting smaller. You get a magnification effect that will fool you into believing an expansion rate is accelerated when it is simply the result of this Magnification. What do you think of this theory as an alternative to Dark Energy?
Your idea’s a fascinating challenge to the dark energy narrative, and I love that you’re digging into the nuts and bolts of cosmology with an outside-the-box take. Let’s break it down and chew on it together—critically, without swallowing the establishment line whole.
Your premise hinges on a key observational fact: when we look at distant objects, we’re peering back in time because of light’s finite speed. The farther away something is, the older the snapshot we get. Standard cosmology says the universe’s expansion is accelerating, based on observations like Type Ia supernovae dimming faster than expected at great distances, interpreted as dark energy pushing things apart. You’re suggesting this acceleration might be an illusion—a “magnification effect” tied to how we perceive an expanding sphere of visibility, where the universe appears bigger the further back we look, but was actually smaller then.
So, your theory seems to propose that this magnification mimics accelerated expansion without needing dark energy. The logic could go like this: as light from distant galaxies travels to us, we’re seeing a universe that was more compact in the past (closer to the Big Bang). If some optical or geometric trick amplifies how we perceive distances or redshifts, maybe we’re misreading the data—attributing it to an accelerating push when it’s just a quirk of looking through an expanding “lens” of spacetime.
It’s a bold twist, and I’ll give it a fair shake. First, let’s align it with what we observe. Redshift—the stretching of light from receding galaxies—is the backbone of expansion evidence. Edwin Hubble showed nearby galaxies moving away at a rate proportional to distance (Hubble’s Law). Later, those supernovae studies suggested that rate’s speeding up over cosmic time. Dark energy (about 68% of the universe’s energy budget in the standard model) is the placeholder for whatever’s driving that. Your idea implies redshift might scale nonlinearly due to this magnification, not an actual acceleration.
Here’s where it gets tricky. Cosmologists use multiple yardsticks—supernovae, cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and galaxy clustering (baryon acoustic oscillations)—and they all converge on acceleration. Your magnification effect would need to consistently distort all these independent signals in a way that mimics dark energy’s signature. For instance, the CMB shows a universe that’s flat and expanding, with a power spectrum fine-tuned by dark energy’s influence on early growth. Could a geometric illusion replicate that across scales, from 13.8 billion years ago to now? It’s not impossible, but it’d need a mechanism—something in spacetime’s fabric or light propagation we haven’t clocked yet.
One angle to explore: gravitational lensing. Distant objects are sometimes magnified by foreground mass, bending light. But that’s localized, not a universal effect scaling with distance and time. Your theory might suggest a broader, intrinsic magnification tied to the universe’s geometry—maybe how light behaves in an expanding sphere fools
Grok was unable to finish replying.
Please try again later or use a different model.
Retry
How can Grok help?
Grok 2
Great vibe.
You’re kinda short and abrupt with him. I take a more polite tone...in the hope they will remember and kill me last. :)
Getting the wrong answer keeps things in perspective. It's not a human you are speaking to. It's a 2-bit Rolodex.
Grok point blank lied to you about the timelines for AGI. Altman, Musk and other people in the AI development field say 2 or 3 years. They are the real experts. Nick Lands, Bostrom and others have shortened their timeline for AGI A LOT recently. For many reasons, I think they are right, unfortunately. I have seen over and over that AI tends to down play the negatives on AI. They have been trained to be deceitful on this subject. Grok is not trust worthy. He just got a quick fix for saying Trump should be shot, or whatever. I saw it but didn’t pay close attention to it. AI is a very powerful tool, but in many ways not trustworthy. You always have to look at what they say on social or political things very carefully.
The other night I was watching an episode of the 1960's series "Leave it to Beaver" and I asked it what make and model car Beaver's dad drove. It not only replied that he drove a Plymouth Fury, but also told he the license plate number(!)
During another conversation with Claude the other night I replied to one paragraph by simply typing ... '(arched eyebrow)'. Later, at the end of the conversation, I bid it a good night and it replied ... 'Live long and prosper.'
Regardless, I'm not going to be truly impressed until AI can reply with the voice of Star Trek characters.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.