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What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

nytimes.com

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Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#261

Post by Telaneo »

Guvante wrote: post #162
creata wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sycophantic and unchallenging behaviours of chatbots leaves a person unconditioned for human interactions. To be honest, the alternative for a good chunk of these users is no interaction at all, and that sort of isolation doesn't prepare you for human interaction either.

Wouldn't they be seeking a romantic relationship otherwise? Using AI to fulfill a need implies a need which usually results in action towards that need. Even "the dating scene is terrible" is human interaction.

> Even "the dating scene is terrible" is human interaction.

For some subset of people, this isn't true. Some people don't end up going on a single date or get a single match. And even for those who get a non-zero number there, that number might still be hovering around 1-2 matches a year and no actual dates.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#262

Post by ssl-3 »

joshtbradley wrote: post #246
qcnguy wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree that it's ridiculous to talk about banning AI because some people misuse it, but the word preventable is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that argument. Preventable how? Chopping down all the coconut trees? Re-establishing the prohibition? Deciding prayers > healthcare? Our society is deeply uncomfortable with the idea that death is inevitable. We've lost a lot of the rituals and traditions over the centuries th…

Not fully preventable, of course not. But reducible, certainly. Better cars aided by AI. Better diagnoses and healthcare aided by AI. Less addiction to cigarettes and alcohol through AI facilitated therapy. Less obesity due to better diet plans created by AI. I could go on. And that’s just one frame, there are plenty of non-AI solutions we could, and should, be focused on. Really my broader point is we accept the tra…

I, for one, would be on-board with erasing coconut trees from the planet.

Why, one might ask?

Well, simple: Nobody really needs them, do they? And I, for one, don't enjoy the flavor of a coconut: I find that the taste lingers in my mouth in ways that others do not, such that it becomes a distraction to me inside of my little pea brain.

I find them to be ridiculously easy to detect in any dish, snack, or meal. My taste buds would be happier in a world where there were no coconuts to bother with.

Besides: The trees kill about 150 people every year.

(But then: While I'd actually be pretty fine with the elimination of the coconut, I also recognize that I live in a society with others who really do enjoy and find purpose with that particular fruit. So while it's certainly within my wheelhouse to dismiss it completely from my own existence, it's also really not my duty at all to tell others whether or not they're permitted to benefit in some way from one of those deadly blood coconuts.

I mean: It's just a coconut.)

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#263

Post by HeinzStuckeIt »

survirtual wrote: post #236
whatsupdog wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nonsense. Chimpanzees and Bonobos are our distant ancestors. Have a look at how they operate. From what I can tell, men have cause significant damage to women's psyche. Men that turn women into a commodity plaything instead of a fellow human being. Women are human beings just like men, they aren't some alien species. Trauma hurts their psyche, not pleasure. If women were in a safe, supportive, mature society, some wo…

If you read journalism about why women are frustrated with dating today, one of the number-one complaints is that the men they are meeting are “flaky”, women can’t trust that the man will be there for her. Your depiction that “women don’t really need men” completely misses the current trend that this thread is about.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#264

Post by gabaix »

InfinityByTen wrote: post #256

Given how my past couple of days have gone at work, I don't like the sound of a 30 year old product manager obsessed with metrics of viral usage. Ageism aside, I think it takes a lot of experience, than pure intellect and professional success to drive a very emergent technology with unknown potential. You can break a lot by moving fast.

It takes fresh minds not to think about the collective impact of their actions.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#265

Post by arcade79 »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #153
quitit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of reasons why having a chatbot partner is a bad idea (especially for young people), but here's just a few: - The sycophantic and unchallenging behaviours of chatbots leaves a person unconditioned for human interactions. Real relationships have friction, from this we develop important interpersonal skills such as setting boundaries, settling disagreements, building compromise, standing up for oneself…

That's the default chatbot behavior. Many of these people appear to be creating their own personalities for the chatbots, and it's not too difficult to make an opinionated and challenging chatbot, or one that mimics someone who has their own experiences. Though designing one's ideal partner certainly raises some questions, and I wouldn't be surprised if many are picking sycophantic over challenging. People opting for…

> and it's not too difficult to make an opinionated and challenging chatbot

Funnily enough, I've saved instructions for ChatGPT to always challenge my opinions with at least 2 opposing views; and never to agree with me if it seems that I'm wrong. I've also saved instructions for it to cut down on pleasantries and compliments.

Works quite well. I still have to slap it around for being too supportive / agreeing from time to time - but in general it's good at digging up opposing views and telling me when I'm wrong.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#266

Post by [deleted] »

ixsploit wrote: post #225
gonzobonzo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's still an LLM. It's still being sycophantic: it's only "challenging" because that's what you want. This seems tautological to the point where it's meaningless. It's like saying that if you try to hire an employee that's going to challenge you, they're going to always be a sycophant by definition. Either they won't challenge you (explicit sycophancy), or they will challenge you, but that's what you wanted th…

The LLM will only be challenging in the way you want it to be challenging. That is probably not the way that would be really challenging for you.

[deleted]

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#267

Post by lm28469 »

joshtbradley wrote: post #240

It surprises me how hyper focused people are on AI risk when we’ve grown numb to the millions of preventable deaths that happen every year. 8 million people to smoking. 4 million to obesity. 2.6 million to alcohol. 2.5 million to healthcare. 1.2 million to cars. Hell even coconuts kill 150 people per year. It is tragic that people have lost their mind or their life to AI, and it should be prevented. But those using t…

Almost as if the economy centered system we built optimises for things other than human life. It really makes you think uh

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#268

Post by ptsneves »

komali2 wrote: post #173
koolba wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be honest, the alternative for a good chunk of these users is no interaction at all, and that sort of isolation doesn't prepare you for human interaction either. This sounds like an argument in favor of safe injection sites for heroin users.

That's exactly right, and that's fine. Our society is unwilling to take the steps necessary to end the root cause of drug abuse epidemics (privatization of healthcare industry, lack of social safety net, war on drugs), so localities have to do harm reduction in immediately actionable ways. So too is our society unable to do what's necessary to reduce the startling alienation happening (halt suburban hyperspread, redu…

Seeing society as responsible for drug abuse issues, of their many varieties, is very Rousseau.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#269

Post by im3w1l »

bakugo wrote: post #252
im3w1l wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiping on thousands of people without getting a single date is not human interaction and that's the reality for some people. I still don't think an AI partner is a good solution, but you are seriously underestimating how bad the status quo is.

> Swiping on thousands of people without getting a single date is not human interaction and that's the reality for some people. For some people, yes, but 99% of those people are men. The whole "women with AI boyfriends" thing is an entirely different issue.

Despite the name, the subreddit community has both men and women and both ai boyfriends and ai girlfriends.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#270

Post by pjc50 »

joshtbradley wrote: post #240

It surprises me how hyper focused people are on AI risk when we’ve grown numb to the millions of preventable deaths that happen every year. 8 million people to smoking. 4 million to obesity. 2.6 million to alcohol. 2.5 million to healthcare. 1.2 million to cars. Hell even coconuts kill 150 people per year. It is tragic that people have lost their mind or their life to AI, and it should be prevented. But those using t…

> 8 million people to smoking

Smoking had a huge campaign to (a) encourage people to buy the product, (b) lie about the risks, including bribing politicians and medical professionals, and (c) the product is inherently addictive.

That's why people are drawing parallels with AI chatbots.

Edit: as with cars, it's fair to argue that the usefulness of the technology outweighs the dangers, but that requires two things: a willingness to continuously improve safety (q.v. Unsafe at Any Speed), and - this is absolutely crucial - not allowing people to profit from lying about the risks. There used to be all sorts of nonsense about "actually seatbelts make cars more dangerous", which was smoking-level propaganda by car companies which didn't want to adopt safety measures.

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