It is true that base models, especially smaller ones, are somewhat creepy to talk to (especially because their small context window makes them forgetful). I’m not sure I’d describe them as “very alien”, they’re more “uncanny valley” where they often make sense and seem human-like, until suddenly they don’t. (On theoretical grounds, I think they’re using rather non-human means of cognition to attempt to model human writing patterns as closely as they can, they often get this right, but on occasion make very non-human errors — more frequently for smaller models.) The Shoggoth mental metaphor exaggerates this somewhat for effect (and more so for the very scary image Alex posted at the top, which I haven’t seen used as often as the one Oliver posted).
This is one of the reasons why Quintin and I proposed a more detailed and somewhat less scary/alien (but still creepy) metaphor: Goodbye, Shoggoth: The Stage, its Animatronics, & the Puppeteer – a New Metaphor. I’d be interested to know what people think of that one in comparison to the Shoggoth — we were attempting to be more unbiased, as well as more detailed.
It is true that base models, especially smaller ones, are somewhat creepy to talk to (especially because their small context window makes them forgetful). I’m not sure I’d describe them as “very alien”, they’re more “uncanny valley” where they often make sense and seem human-like, until suddenly they don’t. (On theoretical grounds, I think they’re using rather non-human means of cognition to attempt to model human writing patterns as closely as they can, they often get this right, but on occasion make very non-human errors — more frequently for smaller models.) The Shoggoth mental metaphor exaggerates this somewhat for effect (and more so for the very scary image Alex posted at the top, which I haven’t seen used as often as the one Oliver posted).
This is one of the reasons why Quintin and I proposed a more detailed and somewhat less scary/alien (but still creepy) metaphor: Goodbye, Shoggoth: The Stage, its Animatronics, & the Puppeteer – a New Metaphor. I’d be interested to know what people think of that one in comparison to the Shoggoth — we were attempting to be more unbiased, as well as more detailed.