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Mr. Chatterbox is a Victorian-era ethically trained model

by y1n0 on 3/31/2026, 2:26:15 AM

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Mar/30/mr-chatterbox/

Comments

by: fastball

[delayed]

3/31/2026, 6:48:18 AM


by: lovelearning

I thought the title meant the training data used was ethics content and ethical reasoning. Turns out "ethically trained" means the training data used doesn't violate copyright laws.

3/31/2026, 5:40:58 AM


by: heyethan

Looks like a model size issue, but the behavior already seems largely shaped by the data distribution.

3/31/2026, 6:35:35 AM


by: parpfish

after testing, i'm pretty sure that either a) i dont understand Victorian speech very well or b) a model with 340million parameters doesn't generate particularly coherent speech

3/31/2026, 5:12:44 AM


by: gen6acd60af

<p><pre><code> &gt;Honestly, it’s pretty terrible. &gt;But what a fun project!</code></pre>

3/31/2026, 6:42:01 AM


by: kgeist

Prior art: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=46590280">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=46590280</a><p>&gt;TimeCapsuleLLM: LLM trained only on data from 1800-1875

3/31/2026, 5:50:18 AM