on some level it makes sense that when i ask an LLM for a book rec on a given topic it will just make one up, like, “which books exist” is a totally arbitrary fact, its crazy that somehow predicting the most likely token correctly identifies books that actually exist much of the time. but it’s such a bizarre experience. the idea of someone giving you the title, author, and publishing year of a book, with some specific details about it too, and the book being totally fictional, is kind of freaky. like. if someone did that to you in real life, that guy would be real weirdo
It’s actually a somewhat well known subtype of compulsive lying. Obviously, as with all psychological diagnoses, you have to take this with a grain of salt. I think it’s been removed from more recent editions of the DSM. But if you want to read about it you can look at chapter 3 of Burkheim’s Compulsive Disorders, where he talks about compulsive lying and describes this subclassification in a bit of detail. I don’t think he’s a Freudian but he says some Freudian-ish stuff (the book is from the 60s or 70s I think so you could get away with that), like he describes people who compulsively talk about not just books but films, magazines, etc. that don’t exist, and basically claims that the motivation is to protect the ego by “positioning oneself as a bearer and arbiter of obscure knowledge, always with a hand on the gate, as it were, by virtue of its fabricated nature and therefore its inherently internal locus”. Interesting that he kind of preempts the notion of “gatekeeping”, if nothing else.
i guess before the internet this was a much more viable strategy like. how is someone gonna call you on it? it’s in the library back home. at my house? no. in the city i grew up. many miles away. its a rare and treasured book. thats why all the libraries youre checking dont have it
Max is doing a bit here afaict there is no Burkheim Compulsive Disorders
oh my god. oh my god they got me. goddamit. im high but i totally would have fallen for this sober. i was kind of excited to read about this disorder..
“weird that AI does bits”, says guy on the doing bits website