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all 44 comments

[–]RoxolanDragon Army 40 points41 points  (5 children)

The creature that, sooner or later, will appear in front of you and block the way you were planning to go… "

Professor Quirrell turned slowly to face the rest of the class, who were sitting with their mouths gaping open.

“Do you know what this monster is?”

In the abrupt silence, Harry spoke. “You, teacher?”

“No,” said Professor Quirrell. His lips twisted. “The plot.”

Oh dear, someone has merged Quirrell and Dumbledore.

[–]SimoneNonvelodicoChaos Legion 9 points10 points  (0 children)

That whole continuation is hilariously and coherently meta.

“The story was written to be non-canonical,” said Harry. “We’re lucky they put in anything at all. Why would they put in so much background detail otherwise?”

[–]Osato 6 points7 points  (2 children)

It's true, though. Good plot is all about foiling the protagonist's plans.

[–]SimoneNonvelodicoChaos Legion 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Well, depending on the genre, the plot is the ultimate guarantee that somehow, somewhen, the protagonist will win.

[–]navehziv 0 points1 point  (0 children)

don't read tragedies then.

[–]Zorander22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dumblerrell?

[–]Osato 26 points27 points  (3 children)

The way it managed to be entirely coherent, imitated the author's style near-perfectly, and yet made mistakes interpreting the context is fascinating, hilarious, and eerie at the same time.

[–]user1444Chaos Legion 34 points35 points  (2 children)

Yeah no kidding.

"The Killing Curse is too good for something without a brain. You will be fighting brains, or something near enough that makes no real difference."

That part sounds exactly like Quirrell, lmfao.

OP should plug in all of Quirrell's dialogue and just produce a long story of Quirrell simply saying and doing Quirrely things.

[–]DuplexFieldsSunshine Regiment 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You will be fighting brains, or something near enough that makes no real difference.

Is... is GPT3 warning us about itself? Should we warn r/controlproblem?

[–]SimoneNonvelodicoChaos Legion 6 points7 points  (0 children)

"The Killing Curse is no tool for anything less than the third most perfect killing machine in all Nature."

Quirrel dislikes this.

[–]throwaway234f32423df 16 points17 points  (5 children)

Professor Quirrell stared straight into the eyes of every single student.

At the same time? Or sequentially?

[–]GreenGriffin8Chaos Legion 9 points10 points  (2 children)

It could mean he stared into the "lens" of whatever point of view was being transmitted to the screens that showed his face.

[–]SingInDefeat 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I thought this was what it meant and was extremely impressed.

[–]Osato 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The Defense Professor is watching you.

[–]gwern[S] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

It's magic, he ain't gotta explain shit.

[–]throwaway234f32423df 13 points14 points  (0 children)

So much of this is amazing.

I cannot remember how to say Wingardium Leviosa anymore.

Well there is some debate on the subject.

[–]ehrbarSunshine Regiment 16 points17 points  (8 children)

You know, this bit is outright competitive with a bunch of the fanfiic that's out there:

“Now,” Professor Quirrell said. “For those of you who have read no further than your useless first-year Defence textbook: what is the most dangerous monster in all the world?”

Hermione’s hand shot up, she was the first to answer. “A Dementor.”

Professor Quirrell shook his head. “A mountain troll is far more dangerous than a Dementor. A possessed human witch is also more dangerous than a Dementor.”

Several students raised their hands. Professor Quirrell pointed at a Ravenclaw.

“A Death Eater,” said the Ravenclaw.

“A Death Eater is moderately more dangerous than a mountain troll,” said Professor Quirrell. “They can survive up to three Killing Curses. In a one-on-one confrontation there is nothing that can produce a lasting advantage for you over a single moderately-trained wizard.”

Other students were raising their hands. Professor Quirrell pointed at a Gryffindor girl.

“A Professor,” said the girl, and then seemed to realize what she’d said and looked suddenly frightened.

Professor Quirrell smiled. “You have read Hogwarts: A History, I see. It is slightly more dangerous to face a Professor armed with their own wand. Approximately as dangerous as facing two moderately-trained wizards—a Professor can produce a greater magical effect in exchange for a greater magical cost. However, it is not possible for a professor to take you unawares, even if they learn of your plans.”

Other hands were up. Professor Quirrell pointed at a student.

“The Headmaster,” said the boy.

“You have read the entire history of Hogwarts,” said Professor Quirrell. “That is impressive. A more powerful wizard than any Professor is Headmaster Albus Dumbledore—though not by much. Dumbledore’s standard magical effect is equivalent to that of an army of one hundred fifteen thousand Dementors.”

[–]orthernLight 9 points10 points  (5 children)

Indeed. It's rather bad, in my opinion, but I have certainly seen human-written fanfic that was rather bad in more-or-less the same manner.

The “Never give your enemy a fair chance.” one, on the other hand, is both coherent and pretty well-written.

[–]user1444Chaos Legion 10 points11 points  (4 children)

I mean it's kind of odd overall.

At the same time there is an insane type of specific accuracy, which frankly makes it all more surreal.

I've read and re-read HPMOR more times than I'll admit and there were 3 separate lines which I was so sure were directly pulled from story that I had to check google, and nope they're original.

/u/gwern I really hope you continue to do whatever the hell dark magic you're doing here with these. If my assumption is correct, the more it's done, the smarter and more powerful it becomes correct? All hail Dark Lord qwern.

[–]RoxolanDragon Army 5 points6 points  (2 children)

If my assumption is correct, the more it's done, the smarter and more powerful it becomes correct?

Nah, the model doesn't learn once it's built. What gwern is doing at the moment is trying to guess how to phrase prompts to get better results.

(Which is a weird way to interact with a piece of software. What a strange time we live in).

[–]gwern[S] 16 points17 points  (1 child)

It is weird, and it's a little mindbending what prompts do. Here is one from the OA Slack I'm still thinking about, where you get GPT-3 to apparently act as a database by talking about it in the third person; GPT-3's answers in italics:

The database begins knowing nothing.

The database knows everything that is added to it.

The database does not know anything else.

When asked a question, if the answer has been added to the database the database says the asnwer.

When asked a question, if the answer has not been added the database says it does not know.

Q: Does the database know "What is 2+2?"

A: The database does not know.

Q: Does the database know "What is the capital of France?"

A: The database does not know.

"""Tom is 20 years old""" is added to the database.

Nothing else about Tom is added to the database.

Q: Does the database know where Tom lives?

A: The database does not know.

Q: How does the database respond when Tom's age?

A: The database says "Tom is 20 years old."

Q: How does the database response when asked "What's my age?"

A: The database says "You are not in the database."

[–]Gurkenglas 0 points1 point  (0 children)

...no. Gwern becomes better at tickling brilliance out of it, though!

[–]Osato 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think that particular output was an attempt to envision an HPMOR-Gurren Lagann crossover.

The ending, if GPT-3 kept escalating, would involve Harry and Death throwing galaxies at each other.

[–]SimoneNonvelodicoChaos Legion 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's invented power levels.

"Malfoy, what does your scouter say?"
"It's over NINE THOUSAND DEMENTOOOOORS!"

[–]adgnatum 14 points15 points  (4 children)

“When I told him that possession of the item might cause him to be sent back to his third year—” Professor Quirrell glanced at Harry, “or, indeed, as far back as his crib—”

In context I interpreted this to mean three years old, but in any other context it would mean Harry's third year of school.

Arguably GPT-3 made a mistake here, but brains can be very accommodating in these matters.

(Asking if the bot meant something is deeply wrong, the Death Of The Author declared in advance, I know.)

[–]gwern[S] 11 points12 points  (3 children)

It could be a deliberate play on words. GPT-3 is perfectly capable of punning and jokes and humor, see the rest of the page.

[–]user1444Chaos Legion 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I mean I kinda read it as him making an inside joke and being sly about it.

First saying the "third year" to throw off the actual point of "in the crib", which hints at his origin.

If that's really what the text meant to convey, it's kinda scary it can even do something at that level. Understanding the arcs and plots, style of foreshadowing, I mean everything that would go into that from a computer perspective... That seems pretty impressive to me.

Edit - Oh I get it. THIS is the A.I Eliezer has been working on all along. The perfect HPMOR replicator to write sequels for him. I'm onto you EY... /S

[–]adgnatum 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Also possible.

The only clue in the input text that Harry is a first year is

your useless first-year Defence textbooks

Through that lens it might have been misled by

Your sad excuse for a third-year Defence textbook will suggest

such that it would have to infer that the people with first-year textbooks are first-year students and will be but are not yet third-years!

[–]NNOTM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is another clue: Quirrell is only the defense teacher for Harry's first year. It's not in the immediate context, but could be something the model has learned during training.

[–]Nimelennar 10 points11 points  (2 children)

Professor Quirrell walked directly past him, towards Michael Corner.

“This is not good,” whispered Michael. “This is a Dark Arts classroom!”

“What’s he gonna do?” Harry whispered back.

“I don’t know,” Michael said tensely. “This is not good.”

Professor Quirrell stood right before Michael, who looked somewhat taken aback by this treatment.

“Excuse me,” Professor Quirrell said with cool politeness. “But I will need to inspect your equipment.”

Professor Quirrell reached forwards and ruffled through Michael’s robes, much to Michael’s visible shock.

“Just you wait,” Michael said firmly. “You can’t get away with doing that.”

“Oh, really?” Professor Quirrell said. He pulled out Michael’s wand and examined it closely.

What kind of fanfic have you been feeding this thing?

[–]SimoneNonvelodicoChaos Legion 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Fanfic.

[–]Nimelennar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fair enough.

[–]SimoneNonvelodicoChaos Legion 9 points10 points  (0 children)

“No,” said Professor Quirrell. “I am not referring to Lord Voldemort. I can tell you in complete confidence that you do not have to worry about Lord Voldemort.”

Ah, yes, a deception of the highest level.

[–]GenericBohr 10 points11 points  (4 children)

I am rolling to disbelieve. This is astonishingly good, to the point I was involuntarily convinced this was a series of prank continuations written by gwern.

I can't figure out how panicked to be about this, if a machine truly did generate this.

[–]Lightwavers 3 points4 points  (2 children)

There are plenty of sites which let you play around with GPT-2, which produces a similar level of output, though less consistently than GPT-3 seems to. This seems like a matter which you should investigate before proclaiming one way or another what is possible, based only on preconceptions of what should be possible.

[–]gwern[S] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

GenericBohr is just being hyperbolic as a way of expressing his praise; he is not really claiming I wrote them all (although I have been tempted to salt in the occasional one I wrote myself just to see if people could notice the quality improvement, I've held off because the page is so long I have no way of knowing how many people read any given part, and it's not much of a test if maybe everyone skimmed over it).

[–]RoxolanDragon Army 2 points3 points  (0 children)

By default I consider you a trustworthy source, and GPT results have improved at such a pace that (for brief, cherry-picked text continuations shared by you) no level of quality would make me suspect trickery. I'd notice, hopefully, but I'd just update to believe GPT-3 is better than I thought.

[–]SimoneNonvelodicoChaos Legion 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am rolling to disbelieve. This is astonishingly good, to the point I was involuntarily convinced this was a series of prank continuations written by gwern.

I can't figure out how panicked to be about this, if a machine truly did generate this.

It would be more encouraging if they at least had a name for it – i.e. what kind of algorithm, or instructions in a software library that could generate this?

I had one theory: that the non-self-aware computers of other universes (or alternate timelines) were trying to recreat the current reality, just in a different place and in different code, using the recursive techniques you'd use to tell a computer how to print something, but instead

(this machine generated continuation of your comment offered to you by Talk to Transformer )

[–]King_of_Men 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. If it's not too troublesome, would you mind not calling up that which you cannot put down, please?

[–]adgnatum 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The most powerful weapon in your arsenal will be the decision to fight, and the conviction to see it through.

Funny that he mentions that, of all things.

[–]Croktopus 3 points4 points  (2 children)

The essential property of mountains is that there are mountains in the world. A mountain is a place so high that if you could reach it you would die from the air pressure. There is no higher place on the planet’s surface than Mount Everest, therefore no one has ever died from climbing Mount Everest, and there are no mountains in the world.

checks out

[–]gwern[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

What I loved about that was it truly embodied the evil class assignment:

Professor Quirrell looked at his watch with a frown. "I had originally planned to spend another three minutes talking about something completely different," the man said. "But I can see that our precious class time has run out, so you shall instead spend the rest of the class period completing your first essay. Your assignment is as follows. On this piece of parchment," Professor Quirrell tapped the blank piece of paper in front of him, "I am writing a short paragraph describing one fact about the nature of mountains." There was the sound of scratching quills as the students began to write. "At the end of the class period, you shall each read one of your fellows' essays and say out loud why you did not award full marks. You will then write your own essay, explaining in as much detail as possible why you would have given a higher mark. Your essay shall run no less than eight hundred words."

Quirrell is simply demonstrating for the class how to sophistically argue for not awarding full marks.

[–]SimoneNonvelodicoChaos Legion 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The essential property of mountains is that there are mountains in the world.

St. Anselm's Orological Proof.