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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

#301

Post by dchftcs »

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…

It will probably increase the number of people deemed useless by the economy and the death rate of those people will be high.

1% of the world is over 800m people. You don't know if the net impact will be an improvement.

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

#302

Post by pessimizer »

chubot wrote: post #86
stavros wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when you tell it to not coddle you, it just says something cringeworthy like "ok, the gloves are off here's the raw deal, with New Yorker honesty:" and proceeds to feed you a ton of patronizing bullshit. It's extremely annoying.

I have definitely experienced the sycophancy ... and LLMs have sometimes repeating talking points from real estate agents, like "you the buyer doesn't pay for an agent; the seller pays". I correct it, and it says "sorry you're right, I was repeating a talking point from an interested party" --- BUT actually a crazy thing is that -- with simple honest questions as prompts -- I found that Claude is able to explain the…

It's as simple as that successful people are selected due to their proud and energetic obedience to authority and institutions. It's tautological - the reason their opinions are respected is because institutions have approved them as people (PhD's!, management!) Authority is anyone wearing a white coat (or really any old white man in a suit with an expensive haircut), and an institution is anybody with serif letterhead.*

People are only aware of the deceit of their own industry, but still work to perpetuate it with varying levels of upset; they 1) just don't talk about how obviously evil what they do is; 2) talk about it, wish that they had chosen another industry, and maybe set deadlines (after we pay off the house, after the kids move out) to switch industries, or 3) overcompensate in the other direction and joke about what suckers the people they're conning are.

I can tell you first-hand that this is exactly what happened inside NAR. At the top it was entirely 3) - it couldn't be anything else - because they were actively lobbying for agents to have no fiduciary duty to their clients. They were targeting politicians who seemed friendly to the idea, and simply paying them to have a different opinion, or threatening to pay their opponents. If you look at how NAR (or any of these groups) actually, materially lobby, it's clear that they have exactly the same view of their industry as their worst critics.

* And by this I mean that if you are white, try to look older (or be old), buy a nice tailored suit, get an expensive haircut, incorporate with a name that sounds institutional, get letterhead (including envelopes) with a professional logo with serifs and an expensive business card with raised print, and you can con your way into anything. You don't have to be handsome or thin or articulate, but you can't have any shame because people will see it.

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

#304

Post by delaminator »

DanielVZ wrote: post #299
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…

I do think we need to be hyper focused on this. We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. This is a huge misalignment of objectives and we do not know what other misalignment issues are already more silently happening or may appear in the future as AI capabilities evolve. Also we can’t deny the emotional element. Even though it is subjective, knowing that the reason your daughter didn’t seek gui…

Did you know that 5% of all deaths in Canada is by elective suicide?

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

#305

Post by turbonegrofa »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17
chris-vls wrote: post #15

It seems quite probable that an LLM provider will lose a major liability lawsuit. "Is this product ready for release?" is a very hard question. And it is one of the most important ones to get right. Different providers have delivered different levels of safety. This will make it easier to prove that the less-safe provider chose to ship a more dangerous product -- and that we could reasonably expect them to take more…

> a lot of liability law dates back to the railroad era. Another time that it took courts to rein in incredibly politically powerful companies deploying a new technology on a vast scale Do you have a layman-accessible history of this? (Ideally an essay.)

[dead]

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

#306

Post by sofixa »

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…

> 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.

That's the thing, those are "normal" and "accepted". That's not a reason to add new (like vaping).

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

#307

Post by roenxi »

DanielVZ wrote: post #299
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…

I do think we need to be hyper focused on this. We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. This is a huge misalignment of objectives and we do not know what other misalignment issues are already more silently happening or may appear in the future as AI capabilities evolve. Also we can’t deny the emotional element. Even though it is subjective, knowing that the reason your daughter didn’t seek gui…

There are a lot of edge cases where suicide is rational. The experience of watching an 80 year old die over the course of a month or few can be quite harrowing from the reports I've had from people who've witnessed it; most of whom talk like they'd rather die in some other way. It's a scary thought, but we all die and there isn't any reason it has to be involuntary all the way to the bitter end.

It is quite difficult to say what moral framework an AI should be given. Morals are one of those big unsolved problems. Even basic ideas like maybe optimising for the general good if there are no major conflicting interests are hard to come to a consensus on. The public dialog is a crazy place.

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

#308

Post by chickensong »

danny_codes wrote: post #128
hereme888 wrote: post #94

This is ridiculous. The NYT, who is a huge legal enemy of OpenAI, publishes an article that uses scare tactics, to manipulate public opinion against OpenAI, by basically accusing them that "their software is unsafe for people with mental issues, or children", which is a bonkers ridiculous accusation given that ChatGPT users are adults that need to take ownership of their own use of the internet. What's the difference…

I think NYT would also (and almost certainly has) written unfavorable pieces about unfettered forums like 4chan as well. But ad hominem aside, the evidence is both ample and mounting that OpenAI's software is indeed unsafe for people with mental health issues and children. So it's not like their claim is inaccurate. Now you could argue, as you suggest, that we are all accountable for our actions. Which presumably is…

> Now you could argue, as you suggest, that we are all accountable for our actions. Which presumably is the argument for legalizing heroine / cocaine / meth.

That's not the only argument. The war on drugs is an expensive failure. We could instead provide clean, regulated drugs that are safer than whatever unknown chemical salad is coming from black market dealers. This would put a massive dent in the gang and cartel business, which would improve safety beyond the drugs themselves. Then use the billions of dollars to help people.

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

#309

Post by ragequittah »

majormajor wrote: post #145
OGEnthusiast wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the types of people who use AI as a substitute for romantic relationships are already pretty messed up and probably wouldn't make good real romantic partners anyways. The chances you'll encounter these people in real life is pretty close to zero, you just see them concentrate in niche subreddits.

You aren't going to build the skills necessary to have good relationships with others - not even romantic ones, ANY ones - without a lot of practice. And you aren't gonna heal yourself or build those skills talking to a language model. And saying "oh, there's nothing to be done, just let the damaged people have their isolation" is just asking for things to get a lot worse. It's time to take seriously the fact that ou…

There's a large swath of people who try desperately to get the practice you speak of and end up with none or worse. We're biological beings we all try pretty hard to connect. Many just get broken down to the point where trying to connect is more painful than avoiding it.

I personally don't ever see a chatbot ever being a substitute for myself but can certainly empathize with those who do.

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

#310

Post by david-gpu »

delaminator wrote: post #304
DanielVZ wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think we need to be hyper focused on this. We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. This is a huge misalignment of objectives and we do not know what other misalignment issues are already more silently happening or may appear in the future as AI capabilities evolve. Also we can’t deny the emotional element. Even though it is subjective, knowing that the reason your daughter didn’t seek gui…

Did you know that 5% of all deaths in Canada is by elective suicide?

By elderly people wo are already dying from natural causes and ask for a medically assisted death instead of unnecessarily prolonging their suffering. It is telling that so many people who suffer choose a dignified death once they are legally allowed to.
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