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Can LLMs accurately recall the Bible?

(benkaiser.dev)
223 points benkaiser | 5 comments | 29 Dec 24 03:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.306s | source
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ddtaylor ◴[29 Dec 24 07:07 UTC] No.42538247[source]▶
I'm heavily biased here because I don't find much value in the bible personally. Some of the stories are interesting and some interpretations seem useful, but as a whole I find it arbitrary.

I never tell other people what to believe or how they should do that in any capacity.

With that said I find the hallucination component here fascinating. From my perspective everyone who interprets various religious text does so differently and usually that involves varying levels of fabrication or something that looks a lot like it. I'm speaking about the "talking in tongues" and other methods here. I'm not trying to lump all religions into the same bag here, but I have seen that a lot have different ways of "receiving" communication or directive. To me this seems pretty consistent with the colloquial idea of a hallucination.

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1. 1123581321 ◴[29 Dec 24 20:27 UTC] No.42542763[source]▶
Most study and application tries to either source or fully work out from principles the meaning of the Bible. These can be wrong arguments but wouldn’t be hallucinations.

Your experience sounds limited to Pentecostal-originated churches, which are 100-150 years old. In those churches, it’s acceptable to speak as if you’ve received a spontaneous understanding of the Bible and to not explain it. That does have a parallel to LLM hallucinations in face value output, I suppose, but the origination is completely different as the spontaneous human is making planned remarks passed off as spontaneous, trying to affect specific people in the room, or emotionally overwhelmed. None of those resemble why/how LLMs hallucinate.

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2. o11c ◴[29 Dec 24 21:33 UTC] No.42543424[source]▶
As quick as I am to criticize the bizarre versions of Christianity, I do think you're in error to assume Pentecostalism is all or even mostly about "planned remarks passed off as spontaneous".

Improv is a thing, and can be trained as a skill even outside of comedy/entertainment.

Though, outside of Charismatic sects, Christianity does see a more reasonable level of "I had prepared by thinking about (verse X), but suddenly now I'm thinking about (obscure verse Y)."

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3. User23 ◴[29 Dec 24 22:30 UTC] No.42544012[source]▶
Interestingly there is an entirely licit charismatic subsect within Catholicism called Catholic Charismatic Renewal. And yeah they’re basically Catholic Pentecostals.
4. 1123581321 ◴[29 Dec 24 23:47 UTC] No.42544702[source]▶
Didn’t say all or mostly. It is one aspect. You’re right it’s typically bullet points that are fleshed out in the moment, rather than a rehearsed speech, when this happens.
5. ddtaylor ◴[31 Dec 24 12:22 UTC] No.42558303[source]▶
I agree fringe religious groups paint a stranger picture, but I don't think that entirely covers it here.

Without specifying any specific religions, many often have different interpretations at different times on critical issues like human rights, torture, slavery and worse. Different interpretations at different times have been used to justify spousal abuse, human selling/trafficking for specific agreed upon prices or transactions, etc.

I think in the same way that LLMs hallucinate because they can't find a proper place in their vector mapping for that embedding to draw on experience or reason (simplifying) the humans are also drawing from a place that has blanks and filling in the gaps.