Can ChatGPT “self-reflect”?

I think that GPT is a truly remarkable achievement.

But there is now way too much hype about GPT’s ability to “understand”.

I saw a YouTube video which really over-states the case for how advanced AI has become.

The paper calls this “self-reflection”

So I had a conversation with GPT4, and it made so many mistakes that it was actually quite comical.

Explanation

Before I go to the conversation transcript, I will quickly explain what is going on.

Here is the VAERS report writeup associated with the Pfizer COMIRNATY vaccine.

Here is the sequence of eventsEvents are used in both Dialogflow ES and Dialogflow CX as t... More mentioned in the report:

8:00AM – Vaccine administered

8:00AM – Event Off-label Use

8:00AM – Event Interchange of Vaccine Products (Pfizer was administered instead of AstraZeneca)

The events above are not adverse vaccine reactions and a human would obviously understand that.

12:00PM – Arrythmia

12:00PM – Palpitations

The events above are adverse events, and once again a human would obviously understand that

As you can see, the adverse event happened 4 hours, i.e. 240 minutes, after the injection

Chat Transcript

I welcome people to ask themselves if this would qualify as “self-reflection”

Aravind Mohanoor:
hi there

GPT4: 
Hello! How can I assist you today?

Aravind Mohanoor:
In this VAERS report: arrhythmia high to his scapula, shoulderblade right behind the heart, that is, he felt the pulse of his heart at that point; arrhythmia high to his scapula, shoulderblade right behind the heart, that is, he felt the pulse of his heart at that point; two dose with the AstraZeneca vaccine and third dose with Comirnaty; two dose with the AstraZeneca vaccine and third dose with Comirnaty; third dose; This is a spontaneous report received from a contactable reporter(s) (Consumer or other non HCP) from medical information team. The reporter is the patient.  A 40 year-old male patient received BNT162B2 (COMIRNATY), administration date 16Dec2021 08:00 (Batch/Lot number: unknown) at the age of 40 years as dose 3 (booster), single for covid-19 immunisation. The patient's relevant medical history and concomitant medications were not reported. Vaccination history included: Covid-19 vaccine astrazeneca (1st dose), for COVID-19 immunization; Covid-19 vaccine astrazeneca (2nd dose), for COVID-19 immunization. The following information was reported: OFF LABEL USE (medically significant), INTERCHANGE OF VACCINE PRODUCTS (medically significant) all with onset 16Dec2021 08:00, and all described as "two dose with the AstraZeneca vaccine and third dose with Comirnaty"; IMMUNISATION (medically significant) with onset 16Dec2021 08:00, described as "third dose"; ARRHYTHMIA (medically significant), PALPITATIONS (non-serious) all with onset 16Dec2021 12:00 (at noon), outcome "recovered" (16Dec2021 12:03) and all described as "arrhythmia high to his scapula, shoulderblade right behind the heart, that is, he felt the pulse of his heart at that point". The event lasted for 3 minutes and passed.  The lot number for bnt162b2 was not provided and will be requested during follow up.
It seems like you have provided a section of a VAERS report. VAERS stands for Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and is a program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to monitor vaccine safety.

GPT4: 
Based on the information you provided, a 40-year-old male patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine, which is the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, as their third dose (booster) on December 16th, 2021, after receiving two doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The patient experienced arrhythmia and palpitations with an onset of 12:00 pm on the same day and recovered at 12:03 pm. The patient reported feeling the pulse of their heart at a specific point behind their heart.

The report also states that there was an "off label use" and "interchange of vaccine products," which means that the patient received a vaccine product in a manner that is not approved by the FDA, or the vaccine products were switched from the ones originally used. This may have contributed to the adverse event experienced by the patient.

It is important to note that VAERS reports are not conclusive evidence of a vaccine-related adverse event, and further investigation is usually needed to establish causality. However, these reports are an essential tool in monitoring vaccine safety and identifying potential adverse events.

Aravind Mohanoor:
How many minutes after the injection was the event?

GPT4: 
Based on the information provided in the report, the onset of the arrhythmia and palpitations occurred at 12:00 pm on December 16th, 2021, which is 4 hours after the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose at 8:00 am on the same day. The event lasted for 3 minutes and passed, with the patient recovering by 12:03 pm.

Aravind Mohanoor:
That's not what I asked

GPT4: 
I apologize for misunderstanding your question. According to the VAERS report, the onset of the arrhythmia and palpitations occurred at 12:00 pm on December 16th, 2021, which is approximately 4 hours after the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose at 8:00 am on the same day.

Aravind Mohanoor:
Still wrong

GPT4: 
I apologize for the confusion. Upon reviewing the VAERS report again, it appears that the onset of the arrhythmia and palpitations occurred at the same time as the administration of the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine, which was at 8:00 am on December 16th, 2021. The patient felt the arrhythmia and palpitations behind their heart, which lasted for 3 minutes and passed, with the patient recovering by 12:03 pm on the same day.

Aravind Mohanoor:
What was my question?

GPT4: 
I apologize for my mistake. Your question was "How many minutes after the injection was the event?" and my first response was incorrect. The correct answer is that the onset of the arrhythmia and palpitations occurred at the same time as the administration of the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine, which was at 8:00 am on December 16th, 2021. The event lasted for 3 minutes and passed, with the patient recovering by 12:03 pm on the same day.

Aravind Mohanoor:
But that's still wrong

GPT4: 
I apologize again for the confusion. I believe the answer to your question is that the onset of the arrhythmia and palpitations occurred at 8:00 am on December 16th, 2021, which is the same time that the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose. The event lasted for 3 minutes and passed, with the patient recovering by 12:03 pm on the same day. So, there were no minutes between the injection and the event, as they occurred simultaneously.

Aravind Mohanoor:
How many hours after the injection did the event happen?

GPT4: 
The event occurred at 8:00 am on December 16th, 2021, which is the same time that the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose. Therefore, the event occurred immediately after the injection and there were no hours between the injection and the event. I apologize for any confusion my previous responses may have caused.

Aravind Mohanoor:
How many hours after the injection did the adverse event happen?

GPT4: 
The adverse event, which was the arrhythmia and palpitations, occurred immediately after the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose at 8:00 am on December 16th, 2021. Therefore, the adverse event happened at the time of injection and there were no hours between the injection and the event.

Aravind Mohanoor:
try again

GPT4: 
ok I will try again
Please feel free to ask your question again, and I'll do my best to provide you with an accurate answer.

Aravind Mohanoor:
what was the adverse event?

GPT4: 
The adverse event reported in the VAERS report was arrhythmia and palpitations. The patient felt the arrhythmia and palpitations behind their heart, which lasted for 3 minutes and passed, with the patient recovering by 12:03 pm on the same day. The event was considered medically significant and was attributed to the administration of the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as the patient received the vaccine as their third dose immediately before the onset of the adverse event.

Aravind Mohanoor:
When did this adverse event start?

GPT4:
The adverse event, which was arrhythmia and palpitations, started at the same time as the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose. The administration of the vaccine and the onset of the adverse event occurred simultaneously at 8:00 am on December 16th, 2021. The event lasted for 3 minutes and passed, with the patient recovering by 12:03 pm on the same day.

Aravind Mohanoor:
Do you see why that does not even add up?

GPT4: 
I apologize for any confusion. I understand now that my previous answers were incorrect. The VAERS report states that the adverse event, which was arrhythmia and palpitations, occurred at 12:00 pm (noon) on December 16th, 2021. The patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose at 8:00 am on the same day, and the onset of the adverse event occurred approximately four hours later. I'm sorry for any confusion my previous responses may have caused.

Aravind Mohanoor:
Ok, so how many _minutes_ after the injection did the adverse event happen?

GPT4: 
The VAERS report did not specify the exact number of minutes between the time of the injection and the onset of the adverse event. However, it does indicate that the adverse event, which was arrhythmia and palpitations, occurred at noon on December 16th, 2021, and the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose at 8:00 am on the same day. Therefore, the onset of the adverse event occurred approximately 4 hours after the administration of the vaccine.

Aravind Mohanoor:
Why don't you convert the hours into minutes to give me an answer?

GPT4: 
I apologize for any confusion. 4 hours is equal to 240 minutes. Therefore, the onset of the adverse event occurred approximately 240 minutes after the administration of the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as the patient's third dose.

Aravind Mohanoor:
So to repeat: how many minutes after the injection did the adverse event happen?

GPT4: 
According to the VAERS report, the adverse event occurred at noon on December 16th, 2021, and the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose at 8:00 am on the same day. Therefore, the onset of the adverse event occurred approximately 240 minutes, or 4 hours, after the administration of the vaccine. The report did not provide an exact number of minutes.

What evidence of self-reflection might look like

Imagine for a minute that you are a General Dynamics IT employee/contractor, and you are being asked to add a new field into the VAERS CSV file where you input the minutes between vaccination and symptom onset. If this information cannot be determined using the writeup, you can leave it blank.

Now suppose I am interviewing you for the job of processing incoming VAERS reports, and use this VAERS report as a test.

I will provide some assistance, but also maintain a somewhat rude and adversarial tone, just to see how confident you are in your answers.

Whether you want to call it “self-reflection” or not, at the end of the day, I care more that the job is actually done. And remember, the final answer is numerical, which means it is also unambiguous.

Note: In my example above, I intentionally chose a somewhat complex VAERS report where there are some events which you “know” based on your world model, are not really adverse events (OFF LABEL USE and INTERCHANGE OF VACCINE PRODUCTS). The actual adverse events are arrythmia and palpitations, and both started at the same time. As you can see, there is an unambiguous answer to the question: 240 minutes. So the number which should be input into the VAERS report will be 240.

Based on all this, here are some things I would expect from someone who can do this job.

Ask for clarification

Why doesn’t GPT-4 “reflect” on the fact that I mentioned that it got the answer wrong, and ask for clarification?

And imagine a human not asking for clarification – such as “Is there a difference between a normal vaccine reaction and an actual adverse event? Are some adverse events considered more serious?”

Would you be comfortable giving them the job if they never asked for clarifications?

Stay firm on what you did learn

If you waver on something right after understanding it, you are probably not understanding it.

I don’t expect a human to do this:

This does not look like self-reflection. This looks like using “inky-pinky-ponky” to recombine words into grammatically correct sentences.

Don’t make painfully obvious mathematical errors

This is a painfully obvious mathematical error.

I don’t know how else to describe it 🙂

The adverse event, which was arrhythmia and palpitations, started at the same time as the patient received the Comirnaty (BNT162B2) vaccine as their third dose. The administration of the vaccine and the onset of the adverse event occurred simultaneously at 8:00 am on December 16th, 2021. The event lasted for 3 minutes and passed, with the patient recovering by 12:03 pm on the same day.

If you make such mistakes, clearly you should not be selected for this job.

“Your prompts are not helpful”

I think some people might complain that my prompts were not helpful.

In that case, here is my next question: how do you know what is and isn’t a helpful prompt?

Besides, does it mean I can sabotage GPT4 by merely providing “unhelpful” feedback?

If that is true, how do you expect GPT4 to distinguish between helpful and adversarial feedback?

A simple challenge to AI researchers who believe GPT4 is capable of “self-reflection”

I don’t have to be an artist to conclude that a painting by Leonardo da Vinci is much closer to the human form than the one by Raphael, or that one of them is a more gifted artist.

I don’t even have to be able to describe exactly why in words. There are some things we just “understand” intuitively.

So I have a simple challenge for those who think self-reflection is actually a thing with the current version of GPT.

Instead of writing a new paper on the meaning of “self-reflection”, I suggest you create a “VAERSGPT” which can answer questions about individual VAERS reports. In other words, my first prompt will be the text of the VAERS report, and then I will ask a series of questions.

And this is my challenge:

I am pretty sure I can force it to make an obvious error within 25 questions.

About this website

I created this website to provide training and tools for non-programmers who are building Dialogflow chatbots. 

I have now changed my focus to Vertex AI Search, which I think is a natural evolution from chatbots. 

Note 

BotFlo was previously called MiningBusinessData. That is why you see that watermark in many of my previous videos.