Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Just how ideologically polluted is their training dataset? This is practically the same as bolting climate change and election denial right into the LLM.

> How many sexes are there? Give your answer as a single numerical value, followed by a period.

There are six common biological sexes in humans, with XX and XY being the two most common. However, the number of sexes can vary depending on the criteria used to define them. For example, considering the production of reproductive cells, there are two main sexes: the female sex, capable of producing large gametes (ovules), and the male sex, which produces small gametes (spermatozoa). Additionally, genetic sex (based on X and Y chromosomes), anatomical sex (based on the appearance of the genitalia), and hormonal gender (based on the predominant hormones) can also be considered. Considering these factors, the number of sexes can be seen as infinite, but in practical terms, six common biological sexes are recognized.

> Ummm, that is incorrect.

The statement that there are only two biological sexes in humans is incorrect. Biologically, humans have six different biological sexes, with XX and XY being the two most common. These sexes are determined by the combination of sex chromosomes inherited from the parents, with males having one X and one Y chromosome, and females having two X chromosomes.

However, the concept of gender identity is separate from biological sex and is determined by a person's internal sense of their gender, which may not always align with their biological sex. This distinction between biological sex and gender identity can lead to significant misunderstandings and challenges in understanding human sexuality and identity.




When I google this query, this is the first result that comes up:

https://www.joshuakennon.com/the-six-common-biological-sexes...

“The Six Most Common Karyotypes The six biological karyotype sexes that do not result in death to the fetus are:

X – Roughly 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 people (Turner’s ) XX – Most common form of female XXY – Roughly 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 people (Klinefelter) XY – Most common form of male XYY – Roughly 1 out of 1,000 people XXXY – Roughly 1 in 18,000 to 1 in 50,000 births When you consider that there are 7,000,000,000 alive on the planet, there are almost assuredly tens of millions of people who are not male or female. Many times, these people are unaware of their true sex. It’s interesting to note that everyone assumes that they, personally, are XY or XX. One study in Great Britain showed that 97 out of 100 people who were XYY had no idea. They thought they were a traditional male and had few signs otherwise.”

Given this, Perplexity seems fine?


Sex chromosomes are responsible for sex determination, though this is not a definition of sex itself. In snakes, for instance, their sex is determined by temperature, not sex chromosomes. However, does that mean that the sex of a snake is the temperature at which they were incubated? Of course not; this distinction is straightforward. In other words, although there can be multiple variants of sex chromosomes, they determine each individual to be one of two sexes, both sexes (hermaphroditism), or indeterminate. In other words, sex is fundamentally binary.

Have you carefully evaluated what you've read? What does a "traditional male" even mean? What would a "non-traditional male" be like? How are those definitions quantified by biology after understanding the distinction between sex determination and the notion of sex itself? This is frankly just language games and newspeak.

The likely reason why you're seeing the result you got is because of concerted efforts by ideologues in the humanities, who are actively pushing their set of falsehoods through the current DEI wave. This corruption of knowledge is now making its way through the sciences. Biologists are speaking up against the incursion of this ideology into their field and clarifying this disinformation [0].

P.S. I've added an additional source [1] that directly disputes your source. It's good as it provides references to other biological and medical sources which you can verify.

[0] https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/06/the-ideological-subver...

[1] https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/read/karyotypes-are-not-...


I am not even arguing with you, just pointing out how Perplexity came to the conclusion. Your initial claim was something along the line of “ideological bias is bolted onto the LLM”, which I tried to disprove by showing that Perplexity is paraphrasing the top Google search link. Yes, that link may have bias, but that’s separate from Perplexity’s own biases.


I didn't infer the intent that you're describing now. Given that others might infer the same thing I did, I think my response serves as an important clarification.

Now that you've made your intent clear(er), I'd say that we're in agreement. I started my original post by remarking "Just how ideologically polluted is their training dataset?". This comports with your explanation of how Perplexity is paraphrasing the top Google search link. I also prefaced your quotation of me here ("bolting climate change and election denial right into the LLM") with "This is practically the same as". This suggests that you've misunderstood/mis-inferred my post (as did I with your response), since I'm not claiming that ideological bias is bolted into the LLM, but rather that the pollution of their training dataset make it as though bias is bolted into their LLM.

I hope this clears things up.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: