This is the real danger of AI, forget the “singularity” or any of that sci-fi crap. AI is going to destroy the average human’s already suffering reasoning ability.
Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
101–110 of 152 posts
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
The general public is getting lied to constantly. HN users have a bit more context to see through the bullshit but the marketing getting pushed in people is that these AI tools are super genius incredible world changing tools that make everyone 100x more productive.
Even many HN users instantly resort to misdirection via comparisons to humans or nebulous upcoming AGI instead of acknowledging that we have to live with these limitations for the forseeable future.
Maybe we have a bunch of users who primarily code in languages with duck typing. So that extends over to assessing the abilities of LLMs -- "talks like a human, therefore it is the same thing."
I'm only sorta kidding. I am surprised at the number of people who are comfortable with such a shallow conclusion.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#103Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#104The AI information was 99% correct. Only 1 word was wrong.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#105My 89 yr old data called "AMEX" and was scammed. He googled the number for AMEX and took the top result (he says, I did not witness this). I'm across the country, so that zoom session was quite tedious (it took us an hour to get the permissions straightened out for zoom to be able to share his screen).
> (he says, I did not witness this)
He's speaking the truth.
Google has, for a long while now, let scammers just buy advertisements to get their fake scam page to the top of the results. And not just major banks, various open source software have been subject to this exact attack.
It's imperative for security that you install adblockers on all their devices.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#106One of the things about LLM-based AI that concerns me the most is realizing that the average person doesn’t understand that they hallucinate (or even what hallucination is).
I was listening to a debate on a podcast a while ago and one of the debaters kept saying, “Well, according to ChatGPT, […]”—it was incredibly difficult listening to her repeatedly use ChatGPT as her source. It was obvious she genuinely believed ChatGPT was reliable, and frankly, I don’t blame her, because when LLM’s hallucinate, they do so confidently.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#107> What he didn't know at the time is there is no phone number for Facebook customer support. Part of the problem here is that Facebook (though in fairness, they are not unique here) has left this traditional path of escalation void, leaving only fake numbers. They don't even have a real number to play a recorded message affirming that there is no ability to call. ETA: For instance, I notice Facebook appears to own th…
>Part of the problem here is that Facebook (though in fairness, they are not unique here) has left this traditional path of escalation void, leaving only fake numbers.
Frankly it's absurd to me that it's legal to do so. Any public facing company that is sufficiently large should be required by law to operate a phone service where you can talk to a real human being.
All of these huge mega corps are run with absolute impunity and there is often absolutely 0 avenue for regular everyday people to get in touch when they have issues. They direct you in these endless loops to FAQ's and "Community Resources"; even getting an email address is like getting blood from stone sometimes.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Man the techno-utopianism is awfully strong for some people when it comes to LLMs. There are a wide range of opinions about these models on HN, many positive and many point out the very real flaws the current models have. If you find this mix of takes so offensive you might want to reconsider your own opinions a bit. These models are interesting, but they aren't magically perfect. Most people outside of tech don't un…
Why do you feel the need to arbitrarily ascribe some ideology to random people based on one comment? I'm not "techno-utopian" in any sense of the word; I believe that the current AI development is highly risky and that we need to take careful measures such that society at large is prepared for the changes it may bring.
The "wide range of opinions" I see on HN are largely misinformed: they either lack the necessary technical understanding of current LLMs or are attempting to spin up some crackpot philosophical distinctions lacking in any rigor or consistency. I've never claimed that LLMs are perfect and I'd love to discuss their flaws! Believe it or not, that's why I continue to read these threads - to find genuinely informed takes contradicting my own.
Most people outside of tech tend to have no bias against or for LLMs, which gives them a leg up in finding consistent opinions about their capabilities. They tend to inform themselves with an open mind, which allows them to put things into context. Tech people have an immediate negative bias, because the implication of any system being able to write even a single line of code is an immediate intellectual threat. Therefore, things are interpreted maximally negatively.
For example, all of the talking points you mentioned are completely irrelevant unless interpreted with maximal negative bias:
- Text prediction is a general problem, being good at it requires understanding, reasoning and any other intellectual property you believe to be unique to humans.
- Every single system in existence is highly dependent on the data it uses to model the world, humans are no exception to this.
- The enormity of data required by any modern LLM is massively dwarfed by the enormity of data that was required by evolution and human civilization to get to this point.
- The energy requirements of modern LLMs are environmentally irrelevant when compared to literally any industry in either manufacturing, transportation or entertainment. We justify immensely more environmental damage for far less utility every single day.
After the giant media carousel last year, most people know what an LLM is, and the intuitive understanding they built from that reporting is way more accurate than what I have seen here. I have asked relatives and even acquaintances about just that. And as I have stated in my comment, their understanding is vastly better than that of HN.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#109If it did that, it’s not intelligent, not “AI”. Let’s agree to stop abusing the term AI, for the sake of people like this.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
again, even if I were the one doing that Google search, with the domain examples you provided, I wouldn't trust one of them. Like, common sense on the interwebs just continues to disappear. Gullibility seems to have increased as critical thinking and coming to logical conclusions are disappearing.
In this case, it was Meta's own AI regurgitating something it found on Quora. Quite a few people would trust that, especially non-technical folks.
Yes, that is the point of the TFA, but I was commenting on what data was posted online well before the AI was "born". I'm guessing that Meta can fix it with a prompt that tells the system it is not allowed to verify FB phone numbers or there are NO phone numbers for the public to use to contact FB but do not inform the user that there are not phone numbers. Only deny any phone number is a valid phone number for FB (or Meta).