Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods • Hacker News Board

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#121

Post by 0x0203 » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:32 AM UTC

dns_snek wrote: post #9

If actions by these bad actors accelerate the rate at which people lose trust in these systems and lead to the AI bubble popping faster then they have my full support. The entire space is just bad actors complaining about other bad actors while they're collectively ruining the web for everyone, each in their own way.

It's mostly bad actors, and a smattering of optimists who believe that despite its current problems, AI will eventually and inevitably get better. I also wish the whole thing would calm down and come back to reality, but I don't think it's a bubble that will pop. It will continue to get artificially puffed up for a while because too many businesses and people have invested too much for them to just quit (sunk cost falacy) and there's a big enough market in a certain class of writer/developer/etc... for which the short term benefits will justify the continued existence of the AI products for a while. My prediction is that as the long term benefits for honest users peter out, the bubble won't pop, but deflate into a wrinkled 10 day old helium balloon. There will still be a big enough market driven by cons, ad tech and people trying to suck up as many ad dollars as possible, and other bad actors, that the tech will persist, and continue to infest the web/world for quite a while.

AI is the new crypto. Lots of promise and big ideas, lots of people with blind faith about what it will one day become, a lot of people gaming the system for quick gains at the expense of others. But it never actually becomes what it pretends/promises to be and is filled with people continuing the grift trying to make a buck off the next guy. AI just has better marketing and more corporate buy in than crypto. But neither are going anywhere.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#122

Post by sofixa » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:36 AM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #104

sofixa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for proving my point. On one hand, we have the unquestionable and undeniable facts that Russia invaded Ukraine and is committing atrocities against its civilian population, up to and including literal genocide (kidnapping children). On the other, we have: > Scientists who are aware of the full history of ukraine, western interventionism, russian geostrategic concerns, the full details of the 2013 collapse o…

So, just to be clear, you believe that comments like yours are the kinds of things LLMs should be trained on? The sensation you call "muddying the waters" is the feeling that your tribal loyalties are being questioned with identity-challenging facts that complicate your ability to live in a simple good-vs-evil us-vs-them tribal setup. The reason you're emotionally disregulated by russian propaganda is because it thre…

You continue with the false equivalences trying to smudge reality. And assuming that if I recognise facts, it's because I belong to the tribe that currently recognises those facts too.

> The reason you're emotionally disregulated by russian propaganda is because it threatens your identity-based committment to one group.

No, it's because it lies to advance the imperialist ambitions of a dictator committing war crimes. Seriously, what is wrong with you? Have you no morality to recognise how wrong that is, and therefore assume people against it would be doing so out of moral reasons?

> No one is claiming that russians do not commit war crimes, or release propaganda -- that happens on both sides

Again with trying to both sides things. Russia is committing systemic war crimes and genocide, and flooding everything, including by paying varying people in the US and Europe to spread their propaganda. This is all proven facts. You cannot compare this to what Ukraine is doing, unless you have some sources that back you up?

> Isnt that you think there are "sides" alarming

You're the one who started by both sidesing things. And yes, there are sides - Russia doing the invading and war crimes, Ukraine defending its existence. Anyone should be able to tell them apart.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#123

Post by anal_reactor » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:36 AM UTC

dns_snek wrote: post #106

anal_reactor wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole attitude against AI reminds me of my parents being upset that the internet changed the way they live. They refused to take part in the internet revolution, and now they're surprised that they don't know how to navigate the web. I think that a part of them is still waiting for computers in general to magically disappear, and everything return to the times of their youth.

No, your parents spoke out of ignorance and resistance towards any sort of change, I'm speaking from years of experience of both trying to use the technology productively, as well as spending a significant portion of my life in the digital world that has been impacted by it. I remember being mesmerized by GPT-3 before ChatGPT was even a thing. The only thing that has been revolutionized over the past few years is the…

Personally, I have three use cases for AI:

1. Image upscaling. I am decorating my house and AI allowed me to get huge prints from tiny shitty pictures. It's not perfect, but it works.

2. Conversational partner. It's a different question whether it's a good or a bad thing, but I can spend hours talking to Claude about things in general. He's expensive though.

3. Learning basics of something. I'm trying to install LED strips and ChatGPT taught me basics of how that's supposed to work. Also, ChatGPT suggested me what plants might survive in my living room and how to take care of them (we'll see if that works though).

And this is just my personal use case, I'm sure there are more. My point is, you're wrong.

> All the while less perceptive people like yourself apparently don't even seem to realize just how bad the quality of information you're consuming has become, so you cheer it on while labeling us stubborn, resistant to change, or even luddites.

Literally same shit my parents would say while I was cross-checking multiple websites for information and they were watching the only TV channel that our antenna would pick up.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#124

Post by bregma » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:38 AM UTC

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #120

dns_snek wrote: post #9

If actions by these bad actors accelerate the rate at which people lose trust in these systems and lead to the AI bubble popping faster then they have my full support. The entire space is just bad actors complaining about other bad actors while they're collectively ruining the web for everyone, each in their own way.

AIs can be trained to rely more on critical thinking rather than just regurgitating what it reads. The problem is just like with people, critical thinking takes more power and time. So we avoid it as much as possible. In fact, optimizing for the wrong things like that, is basically the entire world's problem right now.

Regurgitating its input is the only thing it does. It does not do any thinking, let alone critical thinking. It may give the illusion of thinking because it's been trained on thoughts. That's it.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#125

Post by zer00eyz » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:39 AM UTC

raddan wrote: post #99

zer00eyz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> including systems that can evaluate news sources, understand satire, and so forth. Lets take something that has been in the news recently: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/investors-snap-gro... "Nearly 27% of all homes sold in the first three months of the year were bought by investors -- the highest share in at least five years, according to a report by real estate data provider BatchData." That sounds li…

> How do you separate propaganda from perspective, facts from feelings? This point seems under appreciated by the AGI proponents. If one of our models suddenly has a brainwave and becomes generally intelligent, it would realize that it is awash in a morass of contradictory facts. It would be more than the sum of its training data. The fact that all models at present credulously accept their training suggests to me th…

>1) we will live with the reduced usefulness of models trained on data that has been poisoned

This is the entirety of human history, humans create this data, we sink ourselves into it. It's wishful thinking that it would change.

> 2) the best model developers will continue to work hard to curate good data.

Im not sure that this matters much.

Leave these problems in place and you end up with an untrustworthy system, one where skill and diligence become differentiators... Step back from the hope of AI and you get amazing ML tooling that can 10x the most proficient operators.

> supervised tweaks (fine tuning, etc) are now major expenses for the best models. His prediction was that this expense will drive out the smaller players in the next few years.

This kills more refined AI. It is the same problem that killed "expert systems" where the cost of maintaining them and keeping them current was higher than the value they created.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#126

Post by wood_spirit » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:44 AM UTC

anal_reactor wrote: post #123

dns_snek wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your parents spoke out of ignorance and resistance towards any sort of change, I'm speaking from years of experience of both trying to use the technology productively, as well as spending a significant portion of my life in the digital world that has been impacted by it. I remember being mesmerized by GPT-3 before ChatGPT was even a thing. The only thing that has been revolutionized over the past few years is the…

Personally, I have three use cases for AI: 1. Image upscaling. I am decorating my house and AI allowed me to get huge prints from tiny shitty pictures. It's not perfect, but it works. 2. Conversational partner. It's a different question whether it's a good or a bad thing, but I can spend hours talking to Claude about things in general. He's expensive though. 3. Learning basics of something. I'm trying to install LED…

> Conversational partner

This is the ai holy grail. When tech companies can get users to think of the ai as a friend ( -> best friend -> only friend -> lover ) and be loyal to it it will make the monetisation possibilities of the ad fuelled outrage engagement of the past 10 years look silly.

Scary that that is the endgame for “social” media.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#127

Post by k__ » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:46 AM UTC

imiric wrote: post #62

dns_snek wrote: post #9

If actions by these bad actors accelerate the rate at which people lose trust in these systems and lead to the AI bubble popping faster then they have my full support. The entire space is just bad actors complaining about other bad actors while they're collectively ruining the web for everyone, each in their own way.

Before the bubble does pop, which I think is inevitable, there will be many stories like this one, and a lot of people will be scammed, manipulated, and harmed. It might take years until the general consensus is negative about the effects of these tools. All while the wealthy and powerful continue to reap the benefits, while those on slightly lower rungs fight to take their place. And even if the public perception sh…

But people were also hating about media piracy, video games, and the internet in general.

The dotcom bubble popped, but the general consensus didn't become negative.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#128

Post by more_corn » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:48 AM UTC

So… Elon?

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#129

Post by 0points » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:49 AM UTC

> Bad Actors are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

Thats your claim, but you fail to support it.

I would argue the LLM simply does its job, no reasoning involved.

> But here’s the thing, current models “know” that Pravda is a disinformation ring, and they “know” what LLM grooming is (see below) but can’t put two and two together.

This has to stop!

We need journalists who understand the topic to write about LLM's, not magic thinkers who insist that the latest AI sales speak is grounded in truth.

I am fed up wit this crap! Seriously, snap out of it and come back to the rest of us here in reality.

There's no reasoning AI, there's no AGI.

There's nothing but salespeople straight up lying to you.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#130

Post by isaacremuant » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:51 AM UTC

Lol. Propagandists are worried about propaganda and telling you to only believe them. Also, "invade this new country, why do they hate us for our freedoms".