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What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

nytimes.com

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Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#341

Post by Planktonne »

Zobat wrote: post #320
DanielVZ wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think we need to be hyper focused on this. We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. This is a huge misalignment of objectives and we do not know what other misalignment issues are already more silently happening or may appear in the future as AI capabilities evolve. Also we can’t deny the emotional element. Even though it is subjective, knowing that the reason your daughter didn’t seek gui…

> We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. I am convinced (no evidence though) that current LLMs has prevented, possibly lots of, suicides. I don't know if anyone has even tried to investigate or estimate those numbers. We should still strive to make them "safer" but with most tech there's positives and negatives. How many, for example, has calmed their nerves by getting in a car and driven for…

Why are you convinced?

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#342

Post by locallost »

joshtbradley wrote: post #240

It surprises me how hyper focused people are on AI risk when we’ve grown numb to the millions of preventable deaths that happen every year. 8 million people to smoking. 4 million to obesity. 2.6 million to alcohol. 2.5 million to healthcare. 1.2 million to cars. Hell even coconuts kill 150 people per year. It is tragic that people have lost their mind or their life to AI, and it should be prevented. But those using t…

I am somewhat sympathetic of this view because it appears to be rational. But I've heard something similar when the internet was becoming more and more mainstream 25 years ago. A similar rational opinion was that online communities help people connect and reduce loneliness. But if we look at it objectively the outcome was poor in that regard. So buyer beware.

Of course, I don't think anything should be banned. But the influence on society should not be hand waved as automatically positive because it will solve SOME problems.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#343

Post by thfuran »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #336
thfuran wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the coconut industry had trillions of dollars behind advocating placing coconuts above everyone’s beds and chairs, I think more people would be complaining about that.

The auto industry has trillions of dollars spent giving everyone cars, and we don't really dwell much on road safety. And cars kill a crazy number of people.

Locally, that’s a fait accompli. Car ownership has been ubiquitous in the US for decades. Traffic deaths per capita are increasing a bit in the US but are still below where they were in the 90s, and most developed countries have seen significant decreases. I don’t really know what the discourse is like in countries where traffic deaths might actually be increasing significantly from a tiny baseline.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#344

Post by pjc50 »

Zobat wrote: post #320
DanielVZ wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think we need to be hyper focused on this. We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. This is a huge misalignment of objectives and we do not know what other misalignment issues are already more silently happening or may appear in the future as AI capabilities evolve. Also we can’t deny the emotional element. Even though it is subjective, knowing that the reason your daughter didn’t seek gui…

> We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. I am convinced (no evidence though) that current LLMs has prevented, possibly lots of, suicides. I don't know if anyone has even tried to investigate or estimate those numbers. We should still strive to make them "safer" but with most tech there's positives and negatives. How many, for example, has calmed their nerves by getting in a car and driven for…

> convinced (no evidence though)

In LLMs we call this "hallucination".

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#345

Post by Frieren »

joshtbradley wrote: post #240

It surprises me how hyper focused people are on AI risk when we’ve grown numb to the millions of preventable deaths that happen every year. 8 million people to smoking. 4 million to obesity. 2.6 million to alcohol. 2.5 million to healthcare. 1.2 million to cars. Hell even coconuts kill 150 people per year. It is tragic that people have lost their mind or their life to AI, and it should be prevented. But those using t…

> If anything, AI may help us reduce preventable deaths. Even a 1% improvement would save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

And what about energy consumption? What about increased scams, spam and all kinds of fake information?

I am not convinced that LLMs are a positive force in the world. It seems to be driven by greed more than anything else.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#346

Post by pjc50 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #336
thfuran wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the coconut industry had trillions of dollars behind advocating placing coconuts above everyone’s beds and chairs, I think more people would be complaining about that.

The auto industry has trillions of dollars spent giving everyone cars, and we don't really dwell much on road safety. And cars kill a crazy number of people.

The present day is _after_ huge amounts of effort and investment in road safety, and it's an ongoing process. Complete with technological mandates like lane-keeping. It's something which is a major factor in car design and has safety boards such as the NTSP and Euro NCAP.

AI is .. before such an effort.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#347

Post by Dilettante_ »

titanomachy wrote: post #100
hereme888 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When valid reasons are given. Not when OpenAI's legal enemy tries to scare people by claiming adults aren't responsible for themselves, including their own use of computers.

This argument could be used to support almost anything. Gambling, fentanyl, slap fighting, TikTok…

"Yes."

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#348

Post by Planktonne »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #336
thfuran wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the coconut industry had trillions of dollars behind advocating placing coconuts above everyone’s beds and chairs, I think more people would be complaining about that.

The auto industry has trillions of dollars spent giving everyone cars, and we don't really dwell much on road safety. And cars kill a crazy number of people.

We focus a lot more on road safety than we do on AI. Drivers have to have licenses, there are regulations about car construction and trade, etc.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#349

Post by HeinzStuckeIt »

goatlover wrote: post #327
HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent post is getting flack, but it’s hard to see why it is controversial. I have heard “women want a man who will provide and protect” from every single woman I have ever dated or been married to, from every female friend with whom I could have such deep conversations, and from the literature I read in my anthropology-adjacent academic field. At some point one feels one has enough data to reasonably assume it’s…

Because the post is making an unfounded claim about human female evolution along with another unfounded claim about modernity being different from the rest of history, which involves a ton of cultures and societies.

I think the claim that modernity is different is easily defendable. No society during the rest of history had such effective birth control, nor welfare states that removed pressure to produce offspring or even interact so much with family or other members of society. Again, as a man I feel like I am able to live a life very different than I would have been pressured into before, and this surely has ramifications for modern dating and relationships.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#350

Post by cowsandmilk »

roenxi wrote: post #307
DanielVZ wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think we need to be hyper focused on this. We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. This is a huge misalignment of objectives and we do not know what other misalignment issues are already more silently happening or may appear in the future as AI capabilities evolve. Also we can’t deny the emotional element. Even though it is subjective, knowing that the reason your daughter didn’t seek gui…

There are a lot of edge cases where suicide is rational. The experience of watching an 80 year old die over the course of a month or few can be quite harrowing from the reports I've had from people who've witnessed it; most of whom talk like they'd rather die in some other way. It's a scary thought, but we all die and there isn't any reason it has to be involuntary all the way to the bitter end. It is quite difficult…

The stories coming out are about convincing high school boys with impressionable brains into committing suicide, not about having intellectual conversations with 80 year olds about whether suicide to avoid gradual mental and physical decline makes sense.
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