[SIGCIS-Members] Perplexity
Dag Spicer
dspicer at computerhistory.org
Sat May 24 10:08:57 PDT 2025
Some thoughts on The Book from the wonderful Carl Sagan seem apposite:
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."
Dag
-----
Dag Spicer
Senior Curator
Computer History Museum
Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
ACM History Committee
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View CA 94043
“History is a vast early warning system.”
— Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990).
Join our Mailing List here: https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe
On May 24, 2025, at 2:01 AM, Willard McCarty via Members <members at lists.sigcis.org> wrote:
An intrusion from an outsider who subscribes...
This morning on BBC Radio 4 someone at the Hay-on-Wye Festival
(celebrating books) got to talking about the pleasure of reading
physical codices. That led me to thinking about the inevitable loss of
data (if you will) when a book, any book, is digitised. I couldn't do
the interdisciplinary work I do without access to a large number of
digitised texts. Indeed I am exceedingly grateful for digital
collections and build my own with the help of a good scanner + OCR. But
then there's the sustained reading of those I regard as important to
spend time with.
However such an argument runs, the fact is that digitisation is a
particularly lossy form of translation. More than that, it not so much
makes the scholar's life easier as quite different. I worry about the
'easier' bit because it entails loss that one quickly stops thinking
about--hence the tendency to miss what only hard work will find. Given
the competitiveness of the academic life esp. for junior scholars--I'd
guess that in this crowd I don't have to spell it out.
On the tangible/digital, not either/or but both!
All best,
Willard McCarty
On 23/05/2025 22:39, James Cortada via Members wrote:
To your second point, what if the old Irish newspapers were no longer
around to check? We have 90 years of experience of librarians filming
and digitizing newspapers, magazines, etc then throwing away the
originals, at least in the USA. That was especially so with American
librarians with newspapers beginning in the 1930s when they microfilmed
them. Hate to criticize them, but they sometimes did not film all the
issues of a newspaper, sometimes missed pages, or they came out blurry.
Fast forward to the future if AI invents citations to stuff that no
longer exists in their original. I encountered a bit of that similar
result with the Google book project a few years ago. I worry about this
possibility. How do we address that problem?
Meanwhile, I, an old guy who grew up pre-AI, will still look at hard
copies or trusted online versions of something (e.g., a journal) and
keep hard copies of anything I cite off the Internet (e.g., images)
before dropping that info into an endnote, because I don't want to be
accused of faking stuff. It's hard enough working with real facts and
sources. I suggest others follow a similar path. Call me old
fashioned, but it has not hurt my productivity so far. Thanks for
posting your thoughts, Brian. Jim Cortada
On Fri, May 23, 2025 at 4:22 PM Brian Randell via Members
<members at lists.sigcis.org <mailto:members at lists.sigcis.org>> wrote:
Hi:____
__ __
My colleague Brian Coghlan added two further points about the
dangers AI hallucinations/fabrications pose to historians who are
trying to use Generative AI tools to help their investigations:____
__ __
First, our own investigation very strongly implied the "AI error
rate" was inversely proportional to the AI ____
knowledge of the query topic. So one *very easy* countermeasure
would be for AI tools to calculate their ____
knowledge of the topic and inversely adapt their response to that
(be more cautious, not provide citations, ____
warn users their knowledge is weak, etc). *THAT* would make me
somewhat hopeful ...
Secondly, "but then I found" fake citations -- these are a *REALLY*
serious issue, especially to very old ____
sources, e.g. the 100+ years old Irish Times citations I'd to check
-- it took a full 2 days of my time plus an ____
archivist to check them, and he spent the previous day physically
retrieving the papers from a remote ____
archive (and presumably another day returning them) -- I got this
effort gratis because of the novelty of ____
our investigation at that time, but it'd be unlikely to be repeated
now without funding to pay for staff effort.____
Imagine some years from now when huge numbers of these fake
citations have to be checked, simply____
because one might be a previously unknown real citation. Who on
earth is going to fund that? ____
__ __
Cheers____
__ __
Brian Randell____
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-- ____
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School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG____
EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk <mailto:Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk>
PHONE = +44 (0)786 7805578____
URL = https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncl.ac.uk%2Fcomputing%2Fstaff%2Fprofile%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546393139%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=oNnyTHMuMgMucXs1HQaF7fFQ2aPrePKtCUKz%2FgOWL3I%3D&reserved=0
brianrandell.html <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncl.ac.uk%2Fcomputing%2Fstaff%2Fprofile%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546414984%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=fIctrwGi4ixQuD4q3NTvxNmvkkTHWp7QVNz%2FUgsYM7w%3D&reserved=0
brianrandell.html>____
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__ __
__ __
*From: *Brian Randell <brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk
<mailto:brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk>>
*Date: *Wednesday, 7 May 2025 at 14:52
*To: *Adam Hyland <achyland at uw.edu <mailto:achyland at uw.edu>>
*Cc: *Sigcis <members at sigcis.org <mailto:members at sigcis.org>>
*Subject: *Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Perplexity____
Hi Adam:____
____
Thanks – I hadn’t realised that URL links to Perplexity’s answers
aren’t transferable.____
____
It is certainly the case that Perplexity (which is based on ChatGPT4
I believe) is much more “knowledgeable” about Percy Ludgate than
ChatGPT was – not least because it has ingested subsequent additions
to the Internet. ____
____
Indeed, given the huge amount of effort and money being poured into
LLM research we surely should expect the latest models to be
significantly improved. ____
____
And Perplexity’s answer to my question “Are the references that
Perplexity provides always real ones” was very reasonable, one might
even say “thoughtful”, though its cautionary comments have of course
to be applied to this answer itself – a nice example of recursion. ____
____
However, the NY Times had a very interesting, and surely worrying
(for the Artificial Intelligentsia, especially) piece yesterday
entitled: “A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are
Getting Worse: A new wave of “reasoning” systems from companies like
OpenAI is producing incorrect information more often. Even the
companies don’t know why.”____
____
I hope this link to it will work: ____
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F05%2F05%2Ftechnology%2Fai-hallucinations-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546436545%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=gEVbAtuBLymTKWaFwz9h%2Be6vYbq5q2UNlVdPUpDvRE0%3D&reserved=0
chatgpt-google.html?
unlocked_article_code=1.E08.mKzL.qenddVF5UQVq&smid=url-share
<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F05%2F05%2Ftechnology%2Fai-hallucinations-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546455331%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=vRVlqD9IhBHHxMDZHD6gukKl2tzL%2B7HvgQ1MdNMoV7U%3D&reserved=0
chatgpt-google.html?
unlocked_article_code=1.E08.mKzL.qenddVF5UQVq&smid=url-share>____
____
And on the subject of “hallucinations” (or rather “fabrications”), I
also strongly recommend Gary Marcus’s very recent piece:____
____
Why DO large language models hallucinate? <https://
garymarcus.substack.com/p/why-do-large-language-models-hallucinate> ____
(https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgarymarcus.substack.com%2Fp%2Fwhy-do-large-language-models-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546472543%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xPJ2YSxEUEEBw9YRCf7qod1tjpyjd52GxXOWNmzKYdU%3D&reserved=0
hallucinate <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgarymarcus.substack.com%2Fp%2Fwhy-do-large-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546489849%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=cyClLhEZ5tXUcNiWnOY0%2BTZUQI2OvxYAFj24rnGi3hY%3D&reserved=0
language-models-hallucinate>)____
____
Let me end by quoting from it:____
____
“Because LLMS statistically mimic the language people have used,
they often /fool people /into thinking that they operate like
people. But they don’t operate like people. They don’t, for example,
ever /fact check/ (as humans sometimes, when well motivated, do).
They /mimic the kinds of things of people say in various contexts/.
And that’s essentially all they do. . .____
Of course the systems are probabilistic; not every LLM will produce
a hallucination every time. But the problem is not going away;
OpenAI’s recent o3 actually hallucinates<https://
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theleftshift.com%2Fopenai-admits-newer-models-hallucinate-even-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546506529%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xw5N%2Fc6tdtVnuVi4D03pyaPlcthOWxyKWT02P5Ofjss%3D&reserved=0
more/>/more <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theleftshift.com%2Fopenai-admits-newer-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546521577%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=bQjrSC%2B7xv8IYTFYlHcrdXFCDt8h9eZuoVhYJ6GqH1U%3D&reserved=0
models-hallucinate-even-more/>/than some its predecesssors <https://
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theleftshift.com%2Fopenai-admits-newer-models-hallucinate-even-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546534705%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ZLpsZutayii5WFyyxofOWiVMASWx1O0nu4picq8gVdc%3D&reserved=0
more/>. ____
The chronic problem with creating fake citations in research papers
<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Flarsdaniel%2F2025%2F01%2F29%2Fthe-irony-ai-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546547635%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=HD1jw8wsOJghYC6LIxA6MpL%2FI7YU9HEy69mugPUys8o%3D&reserved=0
experts-testimony--collapses-over-fake-ai-citations/> and faked
cases in legal briefs <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Flindell-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546560792%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=gyX8uT%2Fug31s5K8zkvG1VujsP%2FX8ZOnsa%2Fdz85tECU0%3D&reserved=0
dominion-2671843170/> is a manifestation of the same problem; LLMs
correctly “model” the structure of academic references, but often
make up titles, page numbers, journals and so on — once again
failing to sanity check their outputs against information (in this
case lists of references) that are readily found on the internet. So
to is therampant problem with numerical errors in financial reports
<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vals.ai%2Fbenchmarks%2Ffinance_agent-04-22-2025&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546576681%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Jy66QrskB3aPCoO3ayT%2FICWZ4FlbqZq5M6SlRgAbyZM%3D&reserved=0>,
documented in a recent benchmark.____
Just how bad is it? One recent study showed rates of hallucinations
of between 15% and 60%<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fresearch.aimultiple.com%2Fai-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546590578%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=seRW1vLe2NuBP15YS%2F%2FmAtHGOCE%2B5838OzedZyVUnN0%3D&reserved=0
hallucination/>across various models on a benchmark of 60 questions
that were /easily verifiable relative to easily found CNN source
articles that were directly supplied in the exam/. Even the best
performance (15% hallucination rate) is, relative to an open-book
exam with sources supplied, pathetic. That same study reports that,
“According to Deloitte, 77% of businesses who joined the study are
concerned about AI hallucinations”.____
If I can be blunt, it is an absolute embarrassment that a technology
that has collectively cost about half a trillion dollars can’t do
something as basic as (reliably) check its output against wikipedia
or a CNN article that is handed on a silver plattter. But LLMs still
cannot - and on their own may never be able to — reliably do even
things that basic.”____
Cheers____
____
Brian____
____
-- ____
____
School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG____
EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk <mailto:Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk>
PHONE = +44 (0)786 7805578____
URL = https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncl.ac.uk%2Fcomputing%2Fstaff%2Fprofile%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546603193%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xVmA%2FdBbDaP81326OABeW%2FbePJz4Z8aihr%2F3dSqt7zE%3D&reserved=0
brianrandell.html <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncl.ac.uk%2Fcomputing%2Fstaff%2Fprofile%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546615899%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=QnN96y8EPhon8PY3WVdoggoWF0o3j23NTDpPYSGZlBk%3D&reserved=0
brianrandell.html>____
____
____
____
*From: *Adam Hyland <achyland at uw.edu <mailto:achyland at uw.edu>>
*Date: *Tuesday, 6 May 2025 at 23:15
*To: *Brian Randell <brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk
<mailto:brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk>>
*Cc: *Sigcis <members at sigcis.org <mailto:members at sigcis.org>>
*Subject: *Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Perplexity____
⚠External sender. Take care when opening links or attachments. Do
not provide your login details. ____
Thanks for your return to this topic. The perplexity thread you
shared is private and unfortunately the pdf generated obscures the
answer with a UI element. I’ve asked the same question to Perplexity
using their “research” mode which more profligately uses computing
resources to give a more detailed answer. The result is here (____
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.perplexity.ai%2Fsearch%2Fdid-percy-ludgate-s-work-have-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546629150%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8QIVbhLoazvcEGTCFS3nRUmDn2neKBJFd7nq8EkVJ1o%3D&reserved=0
oxneW37nS9.bAiYvfV3QVw <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.perplexity.ai%2Fsearch%2Fdid-percy-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546642455%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0yHeqZbyjt5RHEE6eq%2FZoJ0J1UcyJfR9tBSJQSSQ4sA%3D&reserved=0
ludgate-s-work-have-oxneW37nS9.bAiYvfV3QVw>) and should be available
to anyone with the URL.____
____
I’m familiar with perplexity because the University of Washington
pays for “pro” access which makes it both partially difficult and
morally dubious to proscribe its use in the classroom.____
____
One broad point is probably obvious to everyone but bears repeating:
there is much more difference in capability between any of these
agents today versus a year ago than there is among the agents
themselves. They all show a dramatic increase in capability to
“understand” queries and generate cogent responses. If someone on
this thread last posed one of their exam questions to ChatGPT last
year they ought to try again today, and again in another month.____
____
-Adam____
____
Adam Hyland (/he/him)/ ____
adampunk.com <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fadampunk.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546655285%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Ow8%2FV0Y7rWMGRQhane6Pp%2FcE9Oxg55j0zNPTYgT8bBg%3D&reserved=0>____
UW HCDE PhD Student____
____
____
On Tue, May 6, 2025 at 8:57 AM Brian Randell via Members
<members at lists.sigcis.org <mailto:members at lists.sigcis.org>> wrote:____
Hi:____
____
A while ago I and colleagues published a short critique in the
Annals of the History of Computing of ChatGPT, based on its
performance on some questions about Percy Ludgate.____
____
I’ve recently been trying (the free version of) Perplexity, the
AI search (or more exactly question-answering) system.____
____
Perplexity itself claims:____
____
Here's what makes Perplexity different____
____
Answers that are accurate and always cited____
We continuously search the internet and identify the best
sources, from academic research ____
to Reddit threads, to provide the perfect answer to any
question.____
____
Citations in every response____
Every answer uses cited sources to provide a more accurate and
comprehensive answer. ____
If you want to dig deeper, just click the link to the source.____
____
See its brilliant answer to the question “Did Percy Ludgate's
work have any impact?”:____
____
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.perplexity.ai%2Fsearch%2Fdid-percy-ludgate-s-work-&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546668082%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=dzyBnIvPfmq65vIvQjJPwvPZHANmdBEFbwA%2FIIPaVdw%3D&reserved=0
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UgdlqkBkNCRifXnXGAv6Y1rWzqMDvgDAx9lcE0e3xttiUQD_Zgg0jayzgaPV_LCgiwp1l7QbFBQe$>____
____
The web version limits the number of questions per day – so far
the iPhone App hasn’t.____
____
I assume I’m not alone here in trying Perplexity, but I don’t
recall any previous comment about it in SIGCIS.____
____
However, the Wikipedia article about it ____
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPerplexity_AI&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546706849%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ttz0ePB2g%2BxEWWIKeQcWtVWDB1FkyzqTPxuJo%2BQuZPE%3D&reserved=0 <https://
urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cdspicer%40computerhistory.org%7C38f01d8a834a4bf76b2608dd9aa1b495%7Cb6a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0%7C0%7C638836741546719376%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0PAz3wNJkFpfXf%2BrFq5X2ndkK9Ag1geNAVatxGlAwgc%3D&reserved=0
Perplexity_AI__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!gyxp0x4-
UgdlqkBkNCRifXnXGAv6Y1rWzqMDvgDAx9lcE0e3xttiUQD_Zgg0jayzgaPV_LCgiwp1l_ByERqJ$>____
is a little sobering, regarding its alleged copyright
violations, and failure to respect the robots.txt web-crawling
standards.____
____
Cheers____
____
Brian____
_______________________________________________
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