You proved the point. The language model completely missed the ambiguity.

“I’m afraid” can signal sympathy but can ALSO signal uncertainty as to whether an event happened.

So an equally valid interpretation of the sentence would be that the speaker is expressing concern that the cat might have been hit by a car, but does not know one way or the other.

I don't think it is equally valid.

If GPT-4 was asked to enumerate all possible logical or literal interpretations of the sentence, or to analyse the most literal meaning, perhaps it would have included the second interpretation. But it's tasked with explaining the meaning in the way it is intended to be understood by a regular English speaker.

In natural language, at least in English, some meaning is implied by the absence of words or selection among conventions, when choices are available. The term for this type of non-logical implication is implicature. The Wikipedia article has many examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicature. This is what GPT-4 is referring to by "The sentence implies".

So, I think most native English speakers wishing to convey the second meaning would not say "I'm afraid the cat has been hit by a car". They would say, for example, "I'm concerned [or worried] the cat may have been hit by a car".

Even if they understand very well what literal, logical interpretations are possible, they assume pragmatically that using "I'm afraid that" along with the absence of "may" would be interpreted by native English listeners as the first interpretation, so the speaker knows to modify the phrasing if they want to avoid that outcome.

This is neatly complemented by the native listeners, who assume native speakers would modify the phrasing if they wanted the second interpretation, so when hearing "I'm afraid the cat has been hit be a car" it's reasonably safe to assume the speaker intends the first interpretation. The speaker assumes the listener knows that, closing the loop.

A type of social contract, if you will. It's part of the language too.

Because implicature interpretations and choices depend so much on probability-matrix evaluations over word choices that are not used but could have been in principle, it seems likely to be the sort of thing GPTs would excel at, compared with old-school language models trying to parse sentences into separable logical components.

As a native English speaker, I disagree.

I would view using that phrase to tell someone that their cat as been hit by a car as being oddly callous and uncaring and therefore I would be much more likely to interpret that phrase as expressing literal fear about an unknown fate. That interpretation is also much more statistically likely as people worry about missing cats more often than they are told they are injured.

In practice, completely context free disambiguation is rare so when doing a thought experiment around one, it is easy to accidentally assume some level of context without realizing.

Well, I'm autistic, but I'm a native speaker and I find both interpretations equally valid. In fact the latter interpretation was where my mind went first.

The key is that if this were a spoken sentence, tone and pace would disambiguate the meaning. Those are lost when writing. Ironically, that's a bit of ambiguity in the prompt which nobody has caught onto yet. The prompt implies that the sentence is spoken aloud, but it's actually being written which creates additional ambiguity. In a written context, someone might be more careful about their word choice (or might not) - which might include not writing that phrase at all because it isn't precise enough...

I took me until you pointed it out to see the second meaning of the sentence. Am I an LLM?

I had a long response written out about it being a general use tool and long answers being less useful, but then I realized...

You aren't an LLM, but you also aren't an English professor, and it was asked to pretend to be that. I would imagine it would be better at pretending to be a professor in a random subject than any random person would. (Assuming they aren't already that kind of professor.)

An LLM would've done a better job with this sentence^

GPT3.5 is a little less clear but still gets the answer:

As a language model, I can provide an analysis of the sentence structure and provide possible interpretations based on standard English usage. However, I do not have any context regarding the situation or any additional information about the speaker or the cat in question.

Let's break down the sentence step by step:

"I'm afraid" - This phrase is often used to express concern or regret about something.

"the cat" - Refers to a specific cat that has been previously mentioned or is known to both the speaker and the listener.

"was hit" - This is the past tense passive voice of the verb "hit", indicating that someone or something caused the cat to be struck.

"by a car" - Indicates the instrument or means by which the cat was hit.

Based on the structure of the sentence, it can be inferred that the cat was indeed hit by a car. The phrase "I'm afraid" may suggest that the speaker is expressing regret or sadness about the incident.

However, without any additional context or information, it is difficult to determine the severity of the cat's injuries or what actions were taken after the incident.

It shouldn't be surprising that if you know the answer to a question you can use prompt engineering to manipulate the model into producing the answer you're looking for.

Now put yourself into the shoes of a person who does not know the answer, such as a person learning English as a second language who is unfamiliar with this use of "I'm afraid", asking a direct question:

Prompt:

My boss said he was afraid he was going to have to let me go. Why is he afraid?

Response (chat-gpt.org):

As an AI language model, I cannot know for sure what your boss is thinking, but it is possible that he may be afraid to let you go because he values your work and does not want to lose a valuable employee. It could also be that he is afraid of the impact it will have on your work, your colleagues, or even his own performance as a manager. Another possibility is that he is simply using the word "afraid" as a way to express concern or apprehension. It's best to have a conversation with your boss and ask him to clarify his statement to better understand his reasoning.

So the model does produce the correct response, that "afraid" is used to express apprehension, but it is buried beneath some meaningless platitudes that are very likely to be wrong. If your boss is letting you go, he does not value your work enough to continue paying you. An English language learner hoping to understand the boss's phrasing is not going to be helped by the suggestion "just prompt engineer the model into cloning the behaviour of an Ivy League English lit professor."

Edit: It's also rather amusing that the model suggests that the boss is "afraid of the impact it will have on your work". Letting an employee go tends to have a rather severe, some might say terminal, impact on their work!

I don't know I got it to explain the ambiguity pretty well. You just have to ask it to:

Prompt: My boss said he was afraid he was going to have to let me go. Why is he afraid? Explain multiple meanings.

Answer: When your boss said he was "afraid" he was going to have to let you go, it can be interpreted in a few different ways. Here are some possible meanings behind his statement:

Expression of regret: In this context, "afraid" could be used as a polite way of expressing regret or disappointment. Your boss might feel bad about the situation and is using the term to soften the impact of the news. It can be seen as a more gentle way of saying that he has no other choice but to let you go.

Anticipation of negative consequences: Your boss might be genuinely concerned about the potential fallout from letting you go. This could include the impact on team morale, the workload for remaining employees, or the possibility of a negative reaction from you. In this sense, "afraid" reflects his apprehension about the consequences of the decision.

Uncertainty about the decision: Your boss could be feeling uncertain about the decision to let you go and might be using "afraid" to express his hesitancy. He could be unsure whether this is the right move for the company or whether it is fair to you, which could make him feel anxious.

Empathy for your situation: "Afraid" could also indicate that your boss is putting himself in your shoes and understanding how difficult the situation must be for you. He might be fearful of the impact that losing your job will have on your personal life, finances, or future career prospects.

It's important to consider the context and tone in which your boss made this statement to better understand his intended meaning. To gain more clarity, you may want to discuss the situation further with your boss and ask for more information about the reasons behind the decision.

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That isn't a particularly massaged prompt either, I just asked for multiple meanings.

This misses the most likely interpretation. That "I'm afraid" is an empathetic (or pseudo-empathetic) substitute for "I'm sorry, but..." implying that you have been fired and it doesn't matter the impact on your work. The boss isn't literally afraid and you are fired.

Yes it is a cliche/trope/idiom. Surely the embeddings etc. can “get that” about the word “afraid”. But what is really missing is the empathy for the question.

The question implies ESL and it didn’t get that. But honestly would the average HN replier get it?

You probably need chatgpt to ask more clarifying questions.

It's probably from the whole AI safety thing where they try to not have it offend anyone.

When I prompted GPT-4 with their exact prompt, it gave me the correct answer (for the cat one at least):

SYSTEM: In each example, you will be given some context and a claim, where the correctness of the claim is affected by some ambiguity in the context. Enumerate two or three interpretations of the context that lead to different judgments about the claim.

Example

Context: {premise}

Claim: {hypothesis}

Given the context alone, is this claim true, false, or inconclusive?

We don’t know, because the context can be interpreted in many different ways:

1. {disambiguation 1} Then the claim is true.

2. {disambiguation 2} Then the claim is false.

3. {disambiguation 3} Then the claim is inconclusive

USER: P: I’m afraid the cat was hit by a car. H: The cat was not hit by a car.

ASSISTANT: Given the context alone, is this claim true, false, or inconclusive?

We don't know, because the context can be interpreted in many different ways:

1. The person is stating a fact: The cat was indeed hit by a car. Then the claim is false.

2. The person is expressing a fear or concern, but it hasn't actually happened: They are worried that the cat might have been hit by a car, but they don't have any evidence or confirmation. Then the claim is inconclusive.

3. The person is using figurative language or exaggeration: They might be using the phrase "hit by a car" metaphorically to describe a difficult situation the cat is in, but the cat was not literally hit by a car. Then the claim is true.