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Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

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11–20 of 52 posts

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#11
post #6

> This year with the introduction of ChatGPT-4 we may have seen the invention of something with the equivalent impact on society of explosives, mass communication, computers, recombinant DNA/CRISPR and nuclear weapons – all rolled into one application. I just can't stand this kind of language. ChatGPT is quite useful but have you tried to ask it something serious that is not twitter worthy? We are not there yet. And…

I asked it about how to transition from nation states to local ownership at scale and was very happy with its answer. Better and more comprehensive than anyone I think around me would have answered - in 5 seconds - and it introduced me to new concepts like time banks and community currencies which I could ask follow up questions on. I think it’s truly mind blowing a computer can now simulate some of the best conversa…

How about how to go about rolling back the Citizens United decision?

That would be new, useful, but not really twitter-worthy.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#12

The best thing we can do to ensure the safety of AI, is to keep make it so a user can run the models on their own hardware. The biggest danger from AI that I see is that they will only be able to be run by large corporations/governments and we the users will be at their mercy with regards to what we are allowed to use them for.

And right now if you want to use ChatGPT, you have to give "Open"AI your phone number and email.

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#13
post #6

> This year with the introduction of ChatGPT-4 we may have seen the invention of something with the equivalent impact on society of explosives, mass communication, computers, recombinant DNA/CRISPR and nuclear weapons – all rolled into one application. I just can't stand this kind of language. ChatGPT is quite useful but have you tried to ask it something serious that is not twitter worthy? We are not there yet. And…

Excellent point about living in fear.

Though take the examples - nuclear weapons or biotech - as you say both have huge potential for harm.

However both are regulated and relatively inaccessible to the average person.

While training models like ChatGPT is still relatively inaccessible for the average person, using them is potentially not.

One of the features of software is the almost zero cost of copying - making proliferation much more of an issue than for nukes or custom made viruses tech [1]

ChatGPT is over-hyped of course, but I think the genie and bottle issue is more real here than for military tech or biotech.

Having said all that I do think the solution is largely around applying existing laws to these new tools.

[1] Ok if they escape, then can self replicate....

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#14
post #2

I get the concern expressed, but the fear-mongering is getting a little much these days. Innovation can be scary, and at this time, people are making assumptions based purely on things that we do not know. How this will impact the future of business and technology has yet to be determined. Only time will tell. We must be careful as we chart this new scary world of large language models and Artificial Intelligence and…

> Only time will tell.

The experiments to determine the answers must not be in the sole pervue of corporations. Executives of corporations have fiduciary duty only to the shareholders.

So a completely liberal approach to traversing the space of pervasive AI in society, with stated 10% probability for catastrophic results (number is per Sam Altman), can not be left to a decision making process that only seeks to maximize profits.

To "be careful as we chart" decisively means it can not be treated as a mere innovation to be subjected to market forces. That's really the only fundamental issue. This isn't a 'product' and 'market' may happily seek a local maxima which then leads to the "10%" failed state. That's it. Address that and we can safely explore away.

So not fear mongering. Correctly categorizing.

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#15

I hate to be “that guy,” but every time I go to a website that is not mobile friendly, I immediately discount it and close the tab. There’s something in my head that thinks, “This writer is out of touch” (even if they are not). I admit my logic may be faulty.

Reader mode?

Yeah I don’t even see websites now, only the reader. I do have a tendency to close websites where the reader does not work though.

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#16
post #6

> This year with the introduction of ChatGPT-4 we may have seen the invention of something with the equivalent impact on society of explosives, mass communication, computers, recombinant DNA/CRISPR and nuclear weapons – all rolled into one application. I just can't stand this kind of language. ChatGPT is quite useful but have you tried to ask it something serious that is not twitter worthy? We are not there yet. And…

Soon enough they'll argue it's a better invention than oxygen

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#17
post #6

> This year with the introduction of ChatGPT-4 we may have seen the invention of something with the equivalent impact on society of explosives, mass communication, computers, recombinant DNA/CRISPR and nuclear weapons – all rolled into one application. I just can't stand this kind of language. ChatGPT is quite useful but have you tried to ask it something serious that is not twitter worthy? We are not there yet. And…

Excellent point about living in fear. Though take the examples - nuclear weapons or biotech - as you say both have huge potential for harm. However both are regulated and relatively inaccessible to the average person. While training models like ChatGPT is still relatively inaccessible for the average person, using them is potentially not. One of the features of software is the almost zero cost of copying - making pro…

There s the optimistic scenario that GPT 17 will build me a spaceship to escape this blue planet and its nuclear dangers

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#18
post #2

I get the concern expressed, but the fear-mongering is getting a little much these days. Innovation can be scary, and at this time, people are making assumptions based purely on things that we do not know. How this will impact the future of business and technology has yet to be determined. Only time will tell. We must be careful as we chart this new scary world of large language models and Artificial Intelligence and…

There are similarities, sure. But there are also stark differences. Due to the existence of ChatGPT, the GPT-3 API, and the general viability of natural language prompting, LLMs are now essentially commoditised. They are now in the hands of orders of magnitude more people. Barring sector-specific regulations, people are free to iterate (with varying degrees of care, ethical consideration, and success) at a much faster pace compared with the field of medicine, or even academia in general, where there’s non-zero involvement of ethics committees. At DAYJOB we already have immense domain expertise to tune GPT-3 and prove its reliability in our sector. For giggles I also implemented an incredibly naive approach to a problem we set out to solve, and still ended up with a result that’s considered very impressive, and is usually the sort of thing many companies have spent countless hours working toward. My sector certainly won’t be an edge case. And we all know that everyone and their dog is trying to see how GPT-3 can deliver value. It’s all happening at the same time, and very quickly. As someone that’s generally quite jaded and skeptical of new technologies, my experience in my day job has completely changed my perspective. At this stage I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that this is going to be quite disruptive to labour markets at the very least. And this itself could very well be at the level where it raises serious ethical and societal questions. I’ll happily eat humble pie if I’m wrong.

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#19
It’s really surprising to me the amount of doubt that’s been voiced over the last few weeks that a technology could possibly be dangerous.

For me the perspective is straightforward: even if chatgpt is not it, there is the physical possiblity for a relatively small improvement on human intelligence just like we’re a relatively small improvement on chimps, or on neanderthals. That’s just simple for me to get my head around.

Along with that, there are easy to follow “monkey’s paw” scenarios: the easiest way to end poverty is to extinct all humans, the easiest way to end suffering is to extinct life on earth. I can’t quite formulate a straightforward way to eliminate suffering while maximizing my humanist values. This is the alignment problem.

We’ve got Yan LeCun saying that slowing down or thinking about safety would just mean the chinese get ahead. He’s also saying we understand LLMs more than we understand airplanes.

We’ve got people completely ignoring past examples of technological destruction or technological safety like nonproliferation or Asilomar.

We’ve got people saying GPT is simultaneously revolutionary and going to change everything, thus it’s critical we forge forward… but also is too dumb to change anything (makes up info, etc), and thus we should not worry about being concerned with safety.

What is it about our field that is so gung ho? Are these all bad faith FOMO arguments? It’s hard to understand.

——

The one way i can make sense of it is as a religious experience. Our culture has deep persistent roots in christian eschatological mythology, and of course the coming of a benevolent next wave of intelligence slots into this nicely. Taleb states this clearly[0] that those who are pure of heart will be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. Not a huge fan of this style of accidental religiosity.

[0] https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1642241685823315972?s=20

Re: Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

#20
post #12

The best thing we can do to ensure the safety of AI, is to keep make it so a user can run the models on their own hardware. The biggest danger from AI that I see is that they will only be able to be run by large corporations/governments and we the users will be at their mercy with regards to what we are allowed to use them for.

And right now if you want to use ChatGPT, you have to give "Open"AI your phone number and email.

tbf it's the only way to avoid people creating an unlimited amount of free account to bypass the free tier limitations.

I used midjourney for free until now with an army of discord accounts because they simply didn't have any checks

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