Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

americansunlight.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 302 posts

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#231

Post by sevensor »

agentcoops wrote: post #153
wiseowise wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m still stunned to wander into threads like this where all the same talking points of AI being “pushed” on people are parroted. Where else would AI haters find an echo chamber that proves their point?

It's wild -- I've never seen such a persistent split in the Hacker News audience like this one. The skeptics read one set of AI articles, everyone else the others; a similar comment will be praised in one thread and down-voted to oblivion in another.

I think of the two camps like this: one group sees a lot of value in llms. They post about how they use them, what their techniques and workflows look like, the vast array of new technologies springing up around them. And then there’s the other camp. Reading the article, scratching their heads, and not understanding what this could realistically do to benefit them. It’s unprecedented in intensity perhaps, but it’s not unlike the Rails and Haskell camps we had here about a dozen years ago.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#232

Post by anal_reactor »

agentcoops wrote: post #209
anal_reactor wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two problems: 1. AI is a genuine threat to lots of white-collar jobs, and people instinctively deny this reality. See that very few articles here are "I found a nice use case for AI", most of them are "I found a use case where AI doesn't work (yet)". Does it sound like tech enthusiasts? Or rather people terrified of tech? 2. Current AI is advanced enough to have us ask deeper questions about conscio…

On the second point, it’s worth noting how many of the most vocal and well-positioned critics of LLMs (Marcus/Pinker in particular) represent the still academically dominant but now known to be losing side of the debate over connectionism. The anthology from the 90s Talking Nets is phenomenal to see how institutionally marginalized figures like Hinton were until very recently. Off-topic, but I couldn’t find your cont…

Thanks for the advice. Currently I have a €100k job where I sit and do nothing. I'm wondering if I should coast while it lasts, or find something more meaningful

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#233

Post by suspended_state »

andrepd wrote: post #206
suspended_state wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, but does it mean that my argument is flawed? You're just shifting the discourse, without disproving anything. Do you claim that the web was useful for everyone on day one, or as useful as it is today for everyone? I could just do the same as GP, and qualify MUDs and BBS as poor proxies for social interactions that are much more elaborate and vibrant in person.

As I pointed out in a different comment, the Internet at least was (and is) a promise of many wondrous things: video call your loved ones, talk in message boards, read an encyclopedia, download any book, watch any concert, find any scientific paper, etc etc; even though it has been for the last 15 years cannibalised by the cancerous mix of surveillance capitalism and algorithmic social media. But LLMs are from the ge…

> [...] LLMs are from the get-go a bad idea, a bullshit generating machine.

Is that a matter of opinion, or a fact (in which case you should be able to back it up)?

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#234

Post by imiric »

k__ wrote: post #127
imiric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the bubble does pop, which I think is inevitable, there will be many stories like this one, and a lot of people will be scammed, manipulated, and harmed. It might take years until the general consensus is negative about the effects of these tools. All while the wealthy and powerful continue to reap the benefits, while those on slightly lower rungs fight to take their place. And even if the public perception sh…

But people were also hating about media piracy, video games, and the internet in general. The dotcom bubble popped, but the general consensus didn't become negative.

Sure. I was referring more to the general consensus about products from companies that are currently riding the AI hype train, not about machine learning in general.

When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, and after the video game crash in 1983, most of the companies within the bubble folded, and those that didn't took a large hit and barely managed to survive. If the technology has genuine use cases then the market can recover, but it takes a while to earn back the trust from consumers, and the products after the crash are much more practical and are marketed more fairly.

So I do think that machine learning has many potentially revolutionary applications, but we're currently still high around the Peak of Inflated Expectations. After the bubble pops, the Plateau of Productivity will showcase the applications with actual value and benefit to humanity. I just hope we get there sooner rather than later.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#235

Post by imiric »

thunky wrote: post #196
imiric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the bubble does pop, which I think is inevitable, there will be many stories like this one, and a lot of people will be scammed, manipulated, and harmed. It might take years until the general consensus is negative about the effects of these tools. All while the wealthy and powerful continue to reap the benefits, while those on slightly lower rungs fight to take their place. And even if the public perception sh…

> Before the bubble does pop, which I think is inevitable Curious what you think a popping bubble looks like? A stock market crash and recession, where innocent bystanders lose their retirements? Or only AI speculators taking the brunt of the losses? Will Google, Meta, etc stop investing in AI because nobody uses it post-crash? Or will it be just as prevalent (or more) than today but with profits concentrated in the…

We've seen this before in 1983 and 2000. Many companies will fold, and those that don't will take a substantial hit. The public sentiment about "AI" will sour, but after that a new breed of more practical tools will emerge under different and more fairly marketed branding.

I do think that the industry and this technology will survive, and we'll enjoy many good applications of it, but it will take a few more years of hype and grifting to get there.

Unless, of course, I'm entirely wrong and their predicted AI 2027 timeline[1] comes to pass, and we have ASI by the end of the decade, in which case the world will be much different. But I'm firmly in the skeptical camp about this, as it seems like another product of the hype machine.

[1]: I just took a closer look at ai-2027.com and here's their prediction for 2029 in the conservative scenario:

> Robots become commonplace. But also fusion power, quantum computers, and cures for many diseases. Peter Thiel finally gets his flying car. Cities become clean and safe. Even in developing countries, poverty becomes a thing of the past, thanks to UBI and foreign aid.

Yeah, these people are full of shit.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#236

Post by imiric »

morngn wrote: post #158
imiric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the bubble does pop, which I think is inevitable, there will be many stories like this one, and a lot of people will be scammed, manipulated, and harmed. It might take years until the general consensus is negative about the effects of these tools. All while the wealthy and powerful continue to reap the benefits, while those on slightly lower rungs fight to take their place. And even if the public perception sh…

The bubble won’t pop on anything that’s correlated with scammers. Exhibit A: bitcoin. The problem is not one of public knowledge or will of the people, it’s congress being irresponsible because it’s captured by the 2 parties. You can’t politicize scamming in a way that benefits either party so nothing happens. And the scammers themselves may be big donors (eg SBF’s ties to the dem party, certain ai players purchase o…

Good point. I suppose that if grifters can get in positions of power, then the bubble can just keep growing.

Though cryptocurrencies are slightly different because of how they work. They're inherently decentralized, so even though there have been many smaller bubble pops along the way (Mt. Gox, FTX, NFTs, every shitcoin rug pull, etc.), inevitably more will appear with different promises, attracting others interested in potential riches.

I don't think the technology as a whole will ever burst, particularly because I do think there are valid and useful applications of it. Bitcoin in particular is here to stay. It will just keep attracting grifters and victims, just like any other mainstream technology.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#237

Post by tokioyoyo »

Lu2025 wrote: post #217
tokioyoyo wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter data point — my surroundings use ChatGPT basically for anything and say it’s good enough.

> say it’s good enough How do they know?

Doesn’t matter. If they feel “good enough” that’s already “good enough”. Super majority of the world doesn’t revolve around truth seeking, fact -checking or curiosity.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#238

Post by tokioyoyo »

amalcon wrote: post #213
glotzerhotze wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, people use it like google for searching answers. It‘s a shortcut for them to not have to screen results and reason about them.

This is precisely the problem: users still need to screen and reason about results of LLMs. I am not sure what is generating this implied permission structure, but it does seem to exist. (I don't mean to imply that parent doesn't know this, it just seems worth saying explicitly)

It’s only a problem for people who care about its precision. If it’s right about 80-90% of stuff, it’s good enough.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#239

Post by sofixa »

yurish wrote: post #211
mjburgess wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can give you the relevant facts here that will undermine your confidence in this position, but I'm not talking about ukraine -- i'm talking about LLMs and the base of facts they use; and how people feel about sets of alleged claims. I invite you to reflect that this sensation your feeling is not about the status of facts in the world, its about "morality" as you say -- you have connected, in your mind, a sensation…

Ii is rare to encounter such an opinion on HN. Thanks.

It's rare because it's wrong.

Re: Bad Actors Are Grooming LLMs to Produce Falsehoods

#240

Post by [deleted] »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #136
imiric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the bubble does pop, which I think is inevitable, there will be many stories like this one, and a lot of people will be scammed, manipulated, and harmed. It might take years until the general consensus is negative about the effects of these tools. All while the wealthy and powerful continue to reap the benefits, while those on slightly lower rungs fight to take their place. And even if the public perception sh…

We got the boring version of the cyberpunk future. No cool body mods, neon city scapes and space travel. Just megacorps manipulating the masses to their benefit.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN