The Academics That Think ChatGPT Is BS
Better Offline
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 688 Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a paper released earlier this year, three academics from the University of Glasgow classified ChatGPT's outputs not as "lies," but as "BS" - as defined by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in "on BS" (and yes I'm censoring that) - and created one of the most enjoyable and prescient papers ever written. In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by academics Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries and Joe Slater in a free-wheeling conversation about ChatGPT's mediocrity - and how it's not built to represent the world at all.
LINKS:
Paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
Michael Townsen Hicks: https://www.townsenhicks.com/
Joe Slater: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/joeslater/
Newsletter: wheresyoured.at
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline
Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at
Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human |
| 0:03.5 | CallZone Media |
| 0:07.2 | Hello and welcome to Better Offline. |
| 0:10.2 | I'm your host, Ed Zedron. |
| 0:20.7 | In early June, What's the whole? |
| 0:21.6 | In early June, three researchers from the University of Glasgow published a paper in the Ethics of Information and Technology Journal called ChatGBTGBT is bullshit. |
| 0:32.6 | And I just want to be clear, this is a great and thoroughly researched and well-argued paper. |
| 0:38.4 | This is not silly at all. It's actually great academia. |
| 0:41.9 | And today I'm joined by the men who wrote it, academics Michael Townsend Hicks, James Humphreys, and Joe Slater, to talk about ChatGBT's mediocrity and how it's not really built to represent the world at all. |
| 0:53.6 | So for the sake of argument, could you define bullshit for me? |
| 0:58.6 | So you are bullshitting if you are speaking without caring about the truth of what you say. |
| 1:06.0 | So normally, if I'm telling you stuff about the world, |
| 1:09.6 | in a good case, I'll be telling you something that's true and trying to tell you something that's true. If I'm telling you stuff about the world, in a good case, I'll be telling you something that's true |
| 1:12.1 | and like trying to tell you something that's true. If I'm lying to you, I'll be knowingly telling you |
| 1:17.3 | something that's false or something I think is false. If I'm bullshitting, I just don't care. I'm |
| 1:22.2 | trying to get you to believe me. I don't really care about whether what I say is true. I might not |
| 1:27.1 | have any particular view on whether it's say is true. I might not have any |
| 1:27.5 | particular view on whether it's true or not. Right. And you define between like soft and hard |
| 1:33.7 | bullshit. Can you also get into that as well? Can you also identify yourselves as well? |
| 1:38.7 | Sorry. Yeah, I'm Joe. So the soft bullshit, hard bullshit dist is a very serious and technical distinction. |
| 1:45.1 | Right. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.