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AI will never be ethical or safe

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Re: AI will never be ethical or safe

#31

Post by undecisive »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #21

This article is nothing, but the title is probably right. At least if you consider it unethical to source training data without informed consent, because generating code is inherently unsafe. Of course, you have to have a very narrow definition of AI for even that to be true.

I think that's where most people thought that this article was going.

Shall we just have that debate anyway? :D

The big question that I hoped the article might address: Can AI ever be ethical (within the norms of what the average Jo(e) considers ethical), or have we forever poisoned the well?

If the technology and mathematical underpinnings have been created on fundamentally immoral grounds (IP theft, energy / water excesses, etc) what would we have to do to produce an entirely - or even mostly - ethical AI stack?

Is it even possible, given the dependencies on (Lithium / Israel / fossil fuels / conflict mining / capitalistic exploitation / any other morally questionable underpinning you might think of) to re-do the work to such a point that we could "black box" our way to decently function LLMs?

Assuming that comes with a caveat of rolling back the technological progress, how far back do we have to go? It feels like the bronze age is a step too far, at least on the basis of my "average Jo(e)" test above - but what is considered reasonable?

Then - and only then - would it make sense to ask how to make the content generation itself ethical.

It feels like the Nazi medical science issue all over again, except nobody really cares as much about this one. But socially, it feels like an anti-capitalistic uprising is on the horizon, so maybe if that happens, a moral aversion to the state of AI might piggyback onto it?

Not that I want it to. Quite like AI really. Feels like the background immorality radiation of the earth is quite high anyway, maybe AI isn't the thing to fluff our feathers about. But it's certainly an interesting thing to mull as we weep over our non-gm oat milk babyccinos, pitying at the state of the world.

(I'm really an upbeat person, honest...)

Re: AI will never be ethical or safe

#32

Post by marshray »

This argument is so bad that I have to wonder if it's an intentional a strawman. (I don't think it deserves to be flagged, however.)

It leads with "AI Will Never Be Ethical or Safe".

The first sentence is "AI will never be *entirely* ethical or safe."

It concludes with "AI is a tool, and it can be used in ethical and unethical, safe and unsafe ways" and compares them to "hardware store clerks".

Hardware stores are *specifically* places where society has had a centuries-long conversation about risk and the products on sale represent a very intentional set of choices. In some parts of the US hardware stores used to sell dynamite, they don't anymore. That's the 'social contract' functioning in daily life.

"AI is like a tool one might buy from the hardware store" is, in most people's minds, the opposite of the opening premise.

Re: AI will never be ethical or safe

#33

Post by marshray »

tombert wrote: post #11
ckastner wrote: post #4

> The reason is this: > Both ethical and safe conduct depend on context and intent. The same apples to knives, and they can be plenty useful, and used in a safe manner.

I suppose that the argument could be made that knives are inherently unsafe, and that no matter what it is important to always treat it like it's unsafe. This doesn't imply that you shouldn't use knives, just that you should be aware of the inherent unsafety of it? I don't know, I didn't really agree with the post, I'm trying my best to steel man it.

"AI will never be entirely ethical or safe because it's like having a knife, a gun, a hardware store, and a medical doctor, all in one convenient interface."

Re: AI will never be ethical or safe

#34

Post by undecisive »

happytoexplain wrote: post #30

I don't think the writeup is very good, but the thesis is not being engaged with honestly in these comments. Knives, books, water, calculators, encyclopedias, search engines: Just a few of the analogies being made with barely a word beyond "it's like X". In fact, the opposite: Demanding that other people make arguments that AI is not like X. Analogies are almost always just a pithy, empty distraction. They are the fo…

Analogies are not the problem. In fact, an analogy is like a good knife; sharp, removes problematic parts, and totally unethical unless it knows the motivations of its wielder.

Seriously though, yes it is obvious why analogies are so often used, but I think you have it the wrong way round. They are a form of proof by negation; you don't have to find a thing exactly like the subject of the argument.

It's a way of fighting against bad arguments; If I say China is bad because X, Y and Z and also, their flag is red! They must be evil. If you then tell me that this argument could also be applied to the Red Cross/Crescent, you have negated my argument by analogy. You don't have to negate every argument I made; but at least then we can treat X, Y and Z on their own.

The problem with this writeup is, there really are no other powerful arguments in it.

And I'm pretty sure C4 is great for controlled demolition of highly dangerous buildings. Or do you want adventurous people to hurt themselves?

Re: AI will never be ethical or safe

#35

Post by cindyllm »

josefritzishere wrote: post #26
dzink wrote: post #19

Water can never be safe. Water in large quantities can drown anyone. When mixed with the wrong things it can turn into chemical reactions. Water safety depends on context and intent. So if we consider AI a chemical substance - if inserted in with limited context in tools with specific intent, can it be useful beyond tools available at this moment? You can trust just any liquid that looks like water, just as you can t…

That's a bit of a polemic argument. Water is required to live. AI is a word guessing machine we often use as a fun toy.

[dead]

Re: AI will never be ethical or safe

#36

Post by strogonoff »

undecisive wrote: post #31
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #21

This article is nothing, but the title is probably right. At least if you consider it unethical to source training data without informed consent, because generating code is inherently unsafe. Of course, you have to have a very narrow definition of AI for even that to be true.

I think that's where most people thought that this article was going. Shall we just have that debate anyway? :D The big question that I hoped the article might address: Can AI ever be ethical (within the norms of what the average Jo(e) considers ethical), or have we forever poisoned the well? If the technology and mathematical underpinnings have been created on fundamentally immoral grounds (IP theft, energy / water…

Technically, any given technology by itself is neutral. However, it tends to amplify some human tendencies or others. Great power, great responsibility, all that.

(Depending on various definitions, to some people specifics of this amplification could warrant taking a mental shortcut and just considering that tech as harmful in itself. After all, if it is neutral and helpful under unattainable circumstances, and harmful under real-world conditions, then it is pointless to draw that distinction.)

Personally, I believe that technological and mathematical underpinnings of LLMs by themselves do not at all imply IP theft or detriment to the environment and society, but the way this technology is being adopted should raise serious questions in anyone with such capability.

Re: AI will never be ethical or safe

#37

Post by cadamsdotcom »

Raw AI output is dangerous to just use. And yet - we do, because that’s 2026’s state of the art.

It’s like your raw thoughts - you wouldn’t act on them, you’d pass them through many filters you’ve designed over the course of your life.

This is a tricky harness engineering problem - but it’s solvable. We need deterministic shells around these things.

Don’t use raw AI output. Paste it back with feedback, or build tools and scripts that automate that self-reflection loop. Don’t ask it for financial advice; instead have it build - and then populate - financial models. Request that it use symbolic modeling to reason about problems (this nudge was all it took for Gemini to ace the “walk 50m to the car wash” question.) Ask it to contemplate its essay in the context of Wikipedia’s “signs of AI writing” article and clean it up a bit. Have it build you a tool that automates the “clean this essay up” step for you, so you only see cleaned up essays.

We all refine our work until it’s ready - the culture of AI use needs to mirror that.

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