Not believing that a prompt is an effective way to actually control their behavior is obviously incorrect to anyone who's actually used these things.

It's not a guaranteed way to control their behavior, but you can more than move the needle.

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wwweston 18 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The word most relevant to this conversation is “influence.” Influence is possible and users observe it and use it to increase margins of useful outcomes. “Control” is incorrect.

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fl4regun 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

yeah that distinction is pretty important, and in general that guy I believe IS making the point - if you can not control it with guaranteed outcomes - you cannot control it.

	▲	gwerbin an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You can't control it any more than you can control a draw from a deck of cards, but you can absolutely control the deck of cards that you choose to draw from.
	▲	wat10000 25 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That's silly. My car is not absolutely guaranteed to turn left when I turn the steering wheel left, but you wouldn't say I can't control my car on that basis. Steering an LLM with a prompt is way less reliable than steering a car with a steering wheel, but there's still control. It's just not absolute.