AI chatbots have linguistic slips when they go off-script
Let’s say you're chatting away with AI — perfect grammar, great vocabulary. Then, boom: a random word in another language! That's the topic for today's “Uncanny AI.” Those moments where it becomes really clear that AI doesn't think like us. Janelle Shane, who writes the AI Weirdness blog, helps explain why AI chatbots do this.
More on this:
“ChatGPT users flummoxed after AI bot starts inserting Arabic into responses” from The New York Post
“ChatGPT is mixing languages or Answers are Wrong!” from OpenAI Developer Community
Uncanny AI: Why AI bots remember random, sometimes useless information
Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino has been using chatbots pretty intensively the last couple years. And there are some details she’s shared about herself that chatbots seem to think are really important. For instance, Claude is obsessed with the fact that she sometimes gets up for work at 4 a.m.
It comes up constantly in their chats — apropos of nothing. So, why do large language models latch on to these random tidbits? It's the first topic in our new series “Uncanny AI.” Those moments when it becomes clear AI doesn't think like us.
Here to help us unpack what might be going on is Janelle Shane, a laser scientist who writes the AI Weirdness blog.