> if you're worried the model is reinforcing your biases.....
i agree, i don't understand many domains well enough, yet i feel there's value in calling out assumptions, irrespective of how hard verification is
> Sometimes I go a step further and ask the question with the opposite bias.....
curious to try this
have you ever found it biasing you in the opposite direction tho?
> Have the model play the Devil's advocate.
i've tried this sometimes. only issue being dumb me skipping to add similar phrasing every time i open claude or gemini
have you found a way to consistently auto-nudging the model by default?
I don't have copy-paste prompts. If I need it to argue from another perspective, I just ask for that perspective in a new session, ideally arguing both sides in temporary sessions so that the context of any other session doesn't affect it.
I am also quite good at playing the devil's advocate myself. If you have some expertise, you can just come up with what I consider to be a good counterargument, and ask for an attack or defense of that argument. You can try the prompt below in your favorite thinking model and see what it says. Obviously, this is more work than some other methods.
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What are the strengths and weaknesses of the following line of argumentation?
Some proponents of climate-change denialism have taken a new tact: pointing out that there is a lack of practical solutions that meaningfully address the change in climate, especially given the political and social systems available.
To the extent that climate mitigations are expensive, they will tend to be politically unpopular in democracies, and economically destabilizing in dictatorships. Unilateral adoption of painful solutions weakens a country's relative position among nations; it wouldn't do for, say, China to harm itself economically while the rest of the world enjoys cheap energy.
We also have a gerontocracy in most countries; the people in power have no personal stake in the problems 50 years from now, and even as the effects of climate change start to become a problem, those in power are best positioned to be personally insulated.
And while there are solutions like solar power that are capital intensive but pay for themselves over time, the sum total of these net positive solutions doesn't amount to a meaningful dent in the problem, nor do we need policies or willpower to support "no-brainer" solutions that pay for themselves.
The conclusion is that negative effects of climate change are "baked in" by the lack of a political system ("benevolent" dictatorship) that could force the necessary and painful changes required, hence the entire discussion of climate change, while interesting, is partly moot.
Do these people have a point? Is there evidence that we can build an effective solution from non-painful measures? Why would it matter to those in power today, what the global average temperature in 2100 is?
Makes sense when talking about human postures and emotions.
Victory/elation/worship corresponds to extending the arms above the head or in a "V" shape, sorrow/grief corresponds to dropping to the knees and holding the head in the hands, etc. These associations seem to persist despite language barriers and great spans of time.
Walking along the millennia, viewing the night's glorious celestial panorama, the registrations on the floor, you'll have successfully circumnavigated the long now, as well the total integral of your own life.
