I Asked an AI

[Mandy D]

For amusement, I asked https://openai.com  "Describe the optical system of a ritchey chretien telescope" It's response is given below.

 

A Ritchey-Chretien telescope is a type of reflecting telescope that uses a particular optical design to correct for distortion and achieve a wide field of view. The Ritchey-Chretien design uses a hyperbolic primary mirror and a hyperbolic secondary mirror to eliminate coma and other optical aberrations.

The optical system of a Ritchey-Chretien telescope consists of a primary mirror, a secondary mirror, and a focuser. The primary mirror is a concave mirror that is made of highly reflective material, such as aluminum or silver. It is usually paraboloidal in shape, but in a Ritchey-Chretien telescope, it is hyperbolic.

The secondary mirror is a smaller, convex mirror that is mounted in front of the primary mirror. It reflects light from the primary mirror back towards the focuser, which is the part of the telescope where the eyepiece is located. The focuser allows the user to adjust the focus of the telescope and to direct the light from the secondary mirror towards the eyepiece.

In a Ritchey-Chretien telescope, both the primary and secondary mirrors are hyperbolic in shape. This is important because it allows the telescope to correct for coma, which is a type of distortion that occurs in other telescope designs. Coma is caused by the fact that light rays from different parts of the field of view are focused at different points, resulting in distorted images. In a Ritchey-Chretien telescope, the hyperbolic mirrors ensure that all light rays are focused at the same point, providing a sharp and undistorted image.

Overall, the optical system of a Ritchey-Chretien telescope is designed to correct for distortion and to provide a wide field of view. It uses a combination of hyperbolic mirrors and a focuser to achieve these goals.

[Peter Drew]

Close, but no cigar.      🙂

[vlaiv]

Was thinking about this just this morning.

My wife casually mentioned that she read online that boiling water more than once is harmful. My jaw dropped, so I went online and - sure enough, there are such claims scattered around the web.

Ok, so it is a known thing that people tend to write utter nonsense just so they can publish something and earn some money of people reading that (or watching you tube videos and so on). This is unfortunately not limited to odd individual here and there - it has become mainstream in journalism - write sensational things, and don't care about accuracy, truth or if you are in fact writing utter nonsense, so we can't expect general public to behave any better then professionals.

Problem is however much deeper if we start including AI in the equation. Most AI / Chat bots nowadays use hive mind approach to knowledge. What is stated on majority of sources online - must be truth / fact. On the other hand - we have copy / paste journalism and just passing on the "news" / articles without any sort of background check, so some things become "common knowledge" - even if they are completely wrong.

This problem is going to just grow larger if "trusted" sources like AI / Google / Chat bots start serving the same content as being "valid.

 

[Mandy D]

@vlaiv I totally agree. I had an argument with someone on Facebook a few years ago, who was claiming that drinking lemon juice is a cure for an acid stomach! I pointed out that lemons contain citric acid, which is an acid and you can only neutralise an acid with an alkali - chemistry 101. THey insisted that there is a special reaction that takes place in the stomach between the two acids that results in them both being neutralised! They then provided a link to an article on the webernet that made the same claim.

Obviously, I googled it for further information and every link that came up made the same bizarre claim! It was only through using Google Scholar that we could find any articles that contradicted this.

I tried another question with this bot:

"Compare the electrostatic force between the nucleus of an atom and it's orbital electrons with the gravitational force"

It took a very long time to come up with an answer, but when it did, it was detailed and remarkably correct. It was also much lengthier than answers to previous questions and contained a tabulated list at the end, but unfortunately, it then declared and error and cleared the text. Repeating my question gets the much shorter and simpler answers that we might expect.

[iantaylor2uk]

I thought it was pretty well known (to physicists at least) that the electromagnetic force is around 10^40 (ten to the power 40) times stronger than the gravitational force - not sure why it would need such a long and detailed answer.

[Mandy D]

5 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

I thought it was pretty well known (to physicists at least) that the electromagnetic force is around 10^40 (ten to the power 40) times stronger than the gravitational force - not sure why it would need such a long and detailed answer.

I'm not sure what you are (or I am) missing here, but I asked it to provide a comparison between two totally different physical forces, not to simply calculate their ratio. The answer could (and should) include the ratio you mention, but I was also expecting the nature and origin of the forces to be compared, all of which the AI did, at least in it's original and detailed answer.

[iantaylor2uk]

Well to a good approximation they are both inverse square laws so the main difference between the forces is the strength of the coupling - in the case of gravitation this is the gravitational constant G, and in the case of electromagnetism it is sometimes known as Coulomb's constant. The other difference of course is that in electromagnetism charges can be positive or negative so you can get attraction or repulsion, whereas in gravity masses are only positive, so you only get attraction.  

I would have thought it if you ask an AI to compare the two forces it would simply say what their ratio would be - I would be very surprised if it explained the nature and origin of the forces.

[DaveS]

A I Artificial intelligence? Or artificial inanity? Or possibly Artificial Insanity?

[DaveL59]

3 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Was thinking about this just this morning.

My wife casually mentioned that she read online that boiling water more than once is harmful. My jaw dropped, so I went online and - sure enough, there are such claims scattered around the web.

 

 

ugh so I've been slowly poisoning myself for the past 40 years then? 😢 

I'd bet tho that a lot of so-called AI just googles and picks based on some ranking which answer to give...

Edited December 14, 2022 by DaveL59

[powerlord]

I've been enjoying playing with it all this week. Ask it 'what was the name of the dog in the 1955 film dambusters'..

I mean yes, it was my purile attempt to get it to say a naughty word.. but the answer is not 'I'm not saying that'...

On the other hand, it is still amazing - see here when I asked it for a poem about my dog.

[powerlord]

3 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Was thinking about this just this morning.

My wife casually mentioned that she read online that boiling water more than once is harmful. My jaw dropped, so I went online and - sure enough, there are such claims scattered around the web.

Ok, so it is a known thing that people tend to write utter nonsense just so they can publish something and earn some money of people reading that (or watching you tube videos and so on). This is unfortunately not limited to odd individual here and there - it has become mainstream in journalism - write sensational things, and don't care about accuracy, truth or if you are in fact writing utter nonsense, so we can't expect general public to behave any better then professionals.

Problem is however much deeper if we start including AI in the equation. Most AI / Chat bots nowadays use hive mind approach to knowledge. What is stated on majority of sources online - must be truth / fact. On the other hand - we have copy / paste journalism and just passing on the "news" / articles without any sort of background check, so some things become "common knowledge" - even if they are completely wrong.

This problem is going to just grow larger if "trusted" sources like AI / Google / Chat bots start serving the same content as being "valid.

 

The thing I can't get my head around there is that your wife says stuff like that. is it opposite's attract ? 🤣

Anyway, its well known that it is only harmful to the information that you have stored in the water via it being hit with a magic mallet*

stu

*poor homeophathy joke.

[CraigT82]

3 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Was thinking about this just this morning.

My wife casually mentioned that she read online that boiling water more than once is harmful. My jaw dropped, so I went online and - sure enough, there are such claims scattered around the web.

Ok, so it is a known thing that people tend to write utter nonsense just so they can publish something and earn some money of people reading that (or watching you tube videos and so on). This is unfortunately not limited to odd individual here and there - it has become mainstream in journalism - write sensational things, and don't care about accuracy, truth or if you are in fact writing utter nonsense, so we can't expect general public to behave any better then professionals.

Problem is however much deeper if we start including AI in the equation. Most AI / Chat bots nowadays use hive mind approach to knowledge. What is stated on majority of sources online - must be truth / fact. On the other hand - we have copy / paste journalism and just passing on the "news" / articles without any sort of background check, so some things become "common knowledge" - even if they are completely wrong.

This problem is going to just grow larger if "trusted" sources like AI / Google / Chat bots start serving the same content as being "valid.

 

To be honest Vlaiv I'm not totally convinced you're not an A.I.

 

😆

[vlaiv]

5 minutes ago, powerlord said:

The thing I can't get my head around there is that your wife says stuff like that. is it opposite's attract ? 🤣

Not only that, but she gets really upset with the way I react when she tells me things like that

 

[DaveL59]

3 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Not only that, but she gets really upset with the way I react when she tells me things like that

 

has she told you yet that fruit have feelings? 😉 

[vlaiv]

1 minute ago, DaveL59 said:

has she told you yet that fruit have feelings? 😉 

No, but lemon acting alkaline once digested ingested has been suggested

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by vlaiv

[vlaiv]

I think that it just a case of targeting fears in some people.

People are more likely to take (wrong) advice without questioning it if it is presented as advice that will save them from harm.

- don't reboil water

- don't use aluminum wrapping because it does this or that (can't remember which)

or if it is possibly cure for some unpleasant condition - like that with lemon and stomach acid, although I'm not 100% sure about that one.

One possible reason why people might think that lemon helps with acid is that it has lower acidity than stomach acid - while still being acid enough to stop further acid production. So it effectively reduced acidity of stomach content and acts to stop further acid production or something like that.

 

[DaveL59]

1 minute ago, vlaiv said:

 

One possible reason why people might think that lemon helps with acid is that it has lower acidity than stomach acid - while still being acid enough to stop further acid production. So it effectively reduced acidity of stomach content and acts to stop further acid production or something like that.

 

Probably most/all fruit has lower acidity tho I was surprised when my dentist told me off for drinking so much apple juice vs orange. Didn't realise it was more acidic. Didn't change my consumption much tho I have more switched to smoothies now. She's still not impressed 😄 

[Mandy D]

46 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

ugh so I've been slowly poisoning myself for the past 40 years then? 😢 

I'd bet tho that a lot of so-called AI just googles and picks based on some ranking which answer to give...

I asked OpenAI a question about a business and it replied that it suspected this was a person or business and that it could not go onto Google to find an answer, instead only being able to answer from it's own programmed database of knowledge [gathered from the internet, one presumes].

[powerlord]

It is a mistake to think that Doctors are logical though - their training and aptitude is about learning information, and matching it. Not deduction. The scientic process was a stranger in a doctors surgery until relatively recently for example*. Seriously, they are very good at what they do, but logical scientific reasoning is not one of their strong points. 

stu

*Ben Goldacre - Bad Science worth a read if you have never read it.

[powerlord]

3 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

I asked OpenAI a question about a business and it replied that it suspected this was a person or business and that it could not go onto Google to find an answer, instead only being able to answer from it's own programmed database of knowledge [gathered from the internet, one presumes].

well, that is sort of how ML works really - except we call it a training set rather than the internet, and the rankings are provided by the trainer (a person).

I asked it who the UK Prime minister is... on monday. It told me "As of 2022 the PM of the UK is Teresa May"....

that's a fun one, because its training data set was up to 2021 only.

As you say, as from today it appears that they have unplugged it from the internet as a live source... and this question now just gives that answer. weird.

[Hawksmoor]

3 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Was thinking about this just this morning.

My wife casually mentioned that she read online that boiling water more than once is harmful. My jaw dropped, so I went online and - sure enough, there are such claims scattered around the web.

Ok, so it is a known thing that people tend to write utter nonsense just so they can publish something and earn some money of people reading that (or watching you tube videos and so on). This is unfortunately not limited to odd individual here and there - it has become mainstream in journalism - write sensational things, and don't care about accuracy, truth or if you are in fact writing utter nonsense, so we can't expect general public to behave any better then professionals.

Problem is however much deeper if we start including AI in the equation. Most AI / Chat bots nowadays use hive mind approach to knowledge. What is stated on majority of sources online - must be truth / fact. On the other hand - we have copy / paste journalism and just passing on the "news" / articles without any sort of background check, so some things become "common knowledge" - even if they are completely wrong.

This problem is going to just grow larger if "trusted" sources like AI / Google / Chat bots start serving the same content as being "valid.

 

An interesting issue for AI that I had never considered.

My son several Christmas ago made us an ‘Oracle’ portal. Essentially a Raspberry pi with display sampling our internet Wi-Fi feed and presenting snippets of news on the wall behind our breakfast table. When he originally programmed it there was no limitation on the date the item was published, so now we get a mixture of contemporary and ancient news. It’s a bit like having a wall mounted time machine with disgraced politicians reinstated and the dead resurrected. We have old favourites which we look forward to seeing displayed in between current events. Time is slippery stuff and seemingly information once published by the news media lasts forever. The internet randomly sampled is tantamount to looking through Alice’s Looking Glass.😂

George

[vlaiv]

When we are on the subject of AI,

I'm under impression that more and more content on the web seems to be generated by AI.

Here is an example of what I mean. I'm making 3d printed focuser and I always wondered if PLA (type of plastic) will be good enough for gears that I'm printing as part of assembly or should I perhaps invest into Nylon (or rather Polyamide).

Nylon gears are much longer lasting (much tougher) and don't require lubrication, but this is very low torque and low speed application and my only concern is smoothness of the motion.

In any case, I wanted to read as much as I can on comparison between these two types of plastics for given application - and this is typical page that I'm running into when doing google search on the topic:

https://www.techinpost.com/3d-printed-gears-a-complete-guide/

Do you think this article is written by human or by AI?

[Mandy D]

5 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

When we are on the subject of AI,

I'm under impression that more and more content on the web seems to be generated by AI.

Here is an example of what I mean. I'm making 3d printed focuser and I always wondered if PLA (type of plastic) will be good enough for gears that I'm printing as part of assembly or should I perhaps invest into Nylon (or rather Polyamide).

Nylon gears are much longer lasting (much tougher) and don't require lubrication, but this is very low torque and low speed application and my only concern is smoothness of the motion.

In any case, I wanted to read as much as I can on comparison between these two types of plastics for given application - and this is typical page that I'm running into when doing google search on the topic:

https://www.techinpost.com/3d-printed-gears-a-complete-guide/

Do you think this article is written by human or by AI?

It may have been written by an AI, but I think it more likely that it was written by a young person with an emphasis on getting keywords into the body text and then translated from the original language into English by a non-native english speaker.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Mandy D
calrification

[powerlord]

AI. 100%.  I see it all the time looking for reviews of comparisons between products.

Usually about a paragraph in it's obvious.

It's weird, because I use an ad blocker (the brilliant ublock origin) so often find myself thinking what the point is, then look at what ublock has purged and its like 50 odd bits of ads, tracking, social mince you name it. Not that most pages are any different mind you.

Oh, and get some PC. Ideal for that sort of thing.

Stu

Edited December 14, 2022 by powerlord

[vlaiv]

I also think that it is AI, and that brings us to interesting "catch 22" situation.

AI is used to generate large quantity of content online which is in turn used to train AI on what is correct / truth