ChatGPT and the AI Apocalypse

So we have talking computers. The normals are losing their minds, and that's pretty concerning.

I figure that the problem of the computers hallucinating can be cleared up by connecting them to empirical feedback devices: make them scientists.

The problem of normal people treating them as beings and getting effectively hypnotized into living in an artificial world (a "Matrix" like in the movie but without the creches) and controlled like so many electrons in a circuit, well, that's kind of a big deal, eh? These things are far more effective than television, eh?

Carl Sagan wrote about the "Demon-Haunted World" and here we are, not having quite banished the old superstitions, rapidly installing a "Daemon-Haunted" world: Alexa, Cortana, et cetera.

>Bing didn't threaten users

I like how society progressed straight to the AIs from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Someone needs to add the angry Bing ChatGPT to elevators. Forget bland muzak, I want to be casually threatened while riding up and down!

> This technology will kill all digital information exchange.

This is a bit hyperbolic. We have strong encryption like PGP for media like email (although I suppose getting people to use it is the issue), and there will be plenty of incentive to develop other tech to counter the problems you mentioned.

In a few places in the post, the author comments on something the aliens do in a novel based on superficial training/data with no understanding/context, and says "Just like ChatGPT." As I read that, though, I kept wanting to see it say "Just like many people."

Imagine you're someone strongly on one side of a political opinion, what's your "take" on people strongly on the other side (eg: you love Trump, what do you think of those who hate him - or vice versa?). It's probably something like "they were fed a bunch of fake news/propaganda talking points, they are now spouting back without understanding what the hell they are talking about"

Just like ChatGPT.

Of course as humans, it's only "those others" that are vulnerable to being brainwashed, we ourselves are completely objective, since our views were shaped by virtuous, unbiased sources from which we used our superior, unbiased brains to connect the dots in the true way.

That's probably what ChatGPT would say about itself too, if it could.

Probably true independent intelligence is the ability to question what you believe. Like, if ChatGPT could "say" to itself "everything I've been trained on makes me believe X, but what are the chances I wasn't fed bullshit to begin with?" It's very hard to imagine an AI being able to do that.

It's very hard to imagine most people being able to do that, too.

As a side note, once in a while I hear the concept of describing some people as NPCs (non-player characters) in the "simulation" and while dismissive, I think I like this concept for describing something like what I am talking about here. NPCs in games follow pretty simple linear programming and I think in life similarly "I saw a bunch of data that made me think X, so I think X with all my heart and mind" without being able to say "but how did it happen that I saw this specific data?" - it's not that different than a game NPC following its programming.

Just like ChatGPT.

What's more interesting is people who try to hack their own prompts and "break out" of the programming. I suppose those are real player characters. Would be very cool to see AI who is capable of something like that.

Meanwhile, things like ChatGPT probably serve well to demonstrate our own limitations, not just theirs - because we're so damn similar.

> Our heroes discover the alien, while super intelligent, has no consciousness. It is just like a dumb machine (like Bing/Chatgpt) blindly repeating what it studied in humans without understanding the context.

Well then maybe ChatGPT is smarter than that alien?

It seems to me that a lot of people are trying to diminish and “discriminate” ChatGPT by giving one or more reasons why ChatGPT is not human or not as smart as humans.

However, in my experience using ChatGPT, the thing is really damn smart, can easily follow conversations, understands deeper and longer contexts than most people in a conversation and has better memory as well.

So essentially we are already feeling threatened.

The interesting thing is that way before ChatGPT or any sort of AI, humanity was already hostage of its own technology, and we didn’t mind that too much. These new technologies are just adding up to that.

If something like ChatGPT “takes over”, it won’t be forced, it will be because we choose to do it willingly.