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When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

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Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#81

Post by tgv »

olmo23 wrote: post #53
tgv wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And perhaps the people who built and deployed the autocomplete and the connection as well. Because --if you'll bear with me-- it may of course be much more involved: when (not if ) AI models enter life-sustaining systems, such as hospitals, nuclear devices, or food logistics, one of them may get the others to sabotage something resulting in accidents, ranging from mild inconvenience to mass murder. The person who con…

> And perhaps the people who built and deployed the autocomplete and the connection as well. I disagree. IMO it's the person who connects the LLM to the button who bears the responsibility of the workings of the resulting contraption.

Shareholder meeting to CEO: you must connect the button.

CEO to CIO: you must connect the button.

CIO to VP AI: you must connect the button.

VP AI to team lead AI integration: you must connect the button.

Team lead AI integration to senior: you must connect the button.

Senior to medior: you must connect the button.

Medior to junior: Hey, Olmo. That button they were talking about. You know?

Olmo: Yeah.

Medior: You have to hook it up to the LLM output.

Olmo: Why?

Medior: The boss says so.

Olmo: Ok.

Shrugs and deploys.

Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#82

Post by fultonn »

john-h-k wrote: post #71
amiga386 wrote: post #16

> an AI tried to blackmail This did not happen. A human set up a software system allowing spicy autocomplete to make blog posts if the appropriate keyword appears in its output. People are crossing the line every day because AI investors, salesmen, hangers-on and even political leaders tell any rubes who'll listen that it's OK to do this and they should, because those people are looking for big fat profits, screw any…

> allowing spicy autocomplete Yknow, if the spicy autocomplete can solve difficult open math problems and build medium sized complex programming projects, it’s probably not useful to analyse it as an autocomplete anymore, even if that’s what you believe it is

This bolsters OP's point.

It's the same as calling a gun a "powerful hole puncher".

There is a reasonable objection that a gun is such a powerful hole puncher that it is not merely a hole puncher. But the clear implication of that objection is that the user of the tool now has more responsibility and that the tool should be treated with more respect/care.

LLMs are a tool. The impact of using that tool is the responsibility of the end-user. As the tool at hand becomes more powerful, the care with which the end-user should treat that tool increases.

For some reason, with LLM-based systems, we seem to be going the opposite direction. As the tool becomes more capable people absolve themselves and others of more responsibility. This feels backwards to me.

(Aside: in a lot of ways, at least form a scientific and engineering perspective, modeling LLMs as "fundamentally auto-complete" is an incomplete theoretical model but one from which we can still get a lot of mileage.)

Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#84

Post by dwoldrich »

fultonn wrote: post #82
john-h-k wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> allowing spicy autocomplete Yknow, if the spicy autocomplete can solve difficult open math problems and build medium sized complex programming projects, it’s probably not useful to analyse it as an autocomplete anymore, even if that’s what you believe it is

This bolsters OP's point. It's the same as calling a gun a "powerful hole puncher". There is a reasonable objection that a gun is such a powerful hole puncher that it is not merely a hole puncher. But the clear implication of that objection is that the user of the tool now has more responsibility and that the tool should be treated with more respect/care. LLMs are a tool. The impact of using that tool is the responsi…

I've considered there's probably no ethical way to use contemporary AI when it is "out in front" doing anything of consequence. Your "AI is a tool and nothing more" frames ethical use of the technology for me.

And even then, there are such copyright issues with it. Is there no practical ethical use for AI? Responsible use doesn't equate with ethical use for me.

Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#85

Post by amiga386 »

7moritz7 wrote: post #25
amiga386 wrote: post #16

> an AI tried to blackmail This did not happen. A human set up a software system allowing spicy autocomplete to make blog posts if the appropriate keyword appears in its output. People are crossing the line every day because AI investors, salesmen, hangers-on and even political leaders tell any rubes who'll listen that it's OK to do this and they should, because those people are looking for big fat profits, screw any…

> allowing spicy autocomplete If it's just autocomplete, then there is no need to worry about it. Especially from an ethical standpoint.

Quite the opposite. Humans get up to barbaric, heinous shit whenever they have new layers of indirection and force multipliers at their disposal.

If you then add randomness as an essential premise, you get The Dice Man

Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#86

Post by smelendez »

> As Scott mentioned on his blog, what if someone stumbled upon the agent’s post? What if they believed it was real? It could have serious consequences for Scott’s personal or professional life. A recruiter could deny him a job, and a potential contributor to Matplotlib could step away from the project. The consequences could reach beyond this case.

What would it mean for it to be “real?” It’s a rant about him discriminating against AI.

If you believe that’s a problem, judge him accordingly, I guess. If you think it’s silly, as most people will, laugh about it.

Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#87

Post by chihuahua »

geoffeg wrote: post #79
vb-8448 wrote: post #70

> Who is accountable for AI agents? The question!!! I'm just wondering how in US works if an autonomously car kill someone: I guess the insurance pay, but the penal responsibilities?

I have to think that the litigation and maybe the legislation will end up deciding that the person in the vehicle is still responsible for any actions of the vehicle.

If someone is a passenger (and the only person) inside a Waymo taxi, and the car runs someone over, it would not make any sense to hold the Waymo passenger responsible for that. If that's how it worked, no one would take a Waymo after the first time this happens.

Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#88

Post by runarberg »

nonethewiser wrote: post #21
rob_c wrote: post #12

Again. "AI" for what it is is just basic "ML". And say it with me ML has no form of agency. This is a human screwing up and blaming their tools. Nothing to see move on. Unfortunately there will be both the LLM crowd evangelicals and those demanding human jobs not be expunged in terms of progress and efficiency, but, sigh...

Isn't it funny how the term machine learning just completely vanished?

It was never a good word anyway. Infinitely better then Artificial intelligence (at least machine learning has machine and learning) but still bad.

I favor a lexicon which is more specific, like Markov Chains, Supervised Learning, etc.

In my view LLMs can keep the AI label exclusively (a bad technology deserves a bad name) and machine learning can walk slowly into the sunshine never to be seen again.

Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#89

Post by tossandthrow »

annjose wrote: post #57

> Who is accountable for AI agents? Obviously the person who built and deployed the agent (the claw in this case). If we treat this as a hard question, we risk treating AI systems as people rather than tools. This is exactly what Armin warned about in his "clanker" post last week.

Why is that obvious? Why not the model provider(s)? That is what we do in other cases with product responsibility.

Re: When AI Crosses the Line: The Matplotlib Incident

#90

Post by mystraline »

amiga386 wrote: post #16

> an AI tried to blackmail This did not happen. A human set up a software system allowing spicy autocomplete to make blog posts if the appropriate keyword appears in its output. People are crossing the line every day because AI investors, salesmen, hangers-on and even political leaders tell any rubes who'll listen that it's OK to do this and they should, because those people are looking for big fat profits, screw any…

Call it spicy autocomplete or whatever, but these LLMs can initiate attacks as well on unknown behalf of the sloperator.

Give it a phone# and api, and it could even try to generate 911 SWAT calls, or loads of other illegal or bad things.

The fact about the matplotlib with a openclaw harassment thread and libel webpage.. Well, that was tame. Sure weve never seen it before, but it was just a diss article rant.

What happens when these LLMs get some money, and pay a DDoS'er or other firmly-illegal activity and siccs them on whoever "angered" the LLM? (dont anthropomorphise the 30B param matrix!) Who's responsible?

Yea we're in for a real terrible next few years. Its not Dead Internet Theory... But its 'Dont anger the LLM or it will retaliate".

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