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OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

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Re: OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

#21

Post by phire »

anuramat wrote: post #14
make3 wrote: post #5

the thing could barely make full grammatical sentences, it's funny to see that even then they were overclaiming the fuck out of their myself

imho it was more reasonable back then to claim "agi soon" -- back when nobody really knew how it scales

They weren't claiming it was dangerous because "AGI soon", that didn't come until later.

OpenAI were claiming GPT-2 was too dangerous because it could be used to flood the internet with fake content (mostly SEO spam).

And they were somewhat right. GPT-2 was very hard to prompt, but with a bit of effort it could spit out endless pages that were good enough to fool a search engine, and even a human at a first glance (you were often several paragraphs in before you realised it was complete nonsense.

Re: OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

#22

Post by raincole »

cinkhangin wrote: post #6

I think they are right unintentionally. The growing amount of low-quality content everywhere could become a real problem.

They were more than right. They were correct in an intentional, precise manner. This is what OpenAI actually stated[0]:

> Synthetic imagery, audio, and video, imply that technologies are reducing the cost of generating fake content and waging disinformation campaigns.

> ‘The public at large will need to become more sceptical of text they find online, just as the ”deep fakes” phenomenon calls for more scepticism about images.

It ended up just like that.

[0]: https://metro.co.uk/2019/02/15/elon-musks-openai-builds-arti...

Re: OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

#24

Post by bertmuthalaly »

Now that I see this in the light of the recent sama article, I wonder whether the point of the "it's too dangerous" rhetoric is to enable "Open" AI to avoid open-sourcing the weights and process.

A convenient pretext for maintaining a monetizable competitive advantage while claiming a benevolent purpose.

Re: OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

#25

Post by 52-6F-62 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Had a minor conniption until I saw the year. OpenAI just struggled to close a round. And the New Yorker just published an unflattering profile of Altman [1]. So it would make sense they'd go back to the PR strategy of "stop me from shooting grandma." [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may...

> "stop me from shooting grandma."

That is the most succinct manner I've seen this whole thing put.

Re: OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

#26

Post by sam1r »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Had a minor conniption until I saw the year. OpenAI just struggled to close a round. And the New Yorker just published an unflattering profile of Altman [1]. So it would make sense they'd go back to the PR strategy of "stop me from shooting grandma." [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may...

> "stop me from shooting grandma." That is the most succinct manner I've seen this whole thing put.

Absolutely agreed. I am using this term on overdrive the next 24 hours.

Re: OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

#28

Post by selcuka »

make3 wrote: post #5

the thing could barely make full grammatical sentences, it's funny to see that even then they were overclaiming the fuck out of their myself

It was a 1.5B parameter model. It was still impressive for 2019, but yeah, it was nothing to worry about.

Re: OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

#29

Post by bigfishrunning »

cinkhangin wrote: post #6

I think they are right unintentionally. The growing amount of low-quality content everywhere could become a real problem.

It already is a real problem. Large portions of the internet are completely untrustworthy because of the sheer slop volume.

Re: OpenAI says its new model GPT-2 is too dangerous to release (2019)

#30

Post by ramoz »

I fine tuned GPT-2 on the FAR (federal acquisition regulation) and demoed it to a CFO at a 3-letter.

This was shortly after the release when we were building a templating system to automate RFP and RFI creation.

I proclaimed that the customer soon wouldn't have to write any of the mad lip parts themselves, and they can use AI to do it.

It sounded great until I demoed and the model went off the rails with some rhetoric entangling "Trump", "Russia", "China", "CIA", "Voting" -- the demo was for a janitorial procurement at the agency.

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