Playing with Fire – ChatGPT

I get the concern expressed, but the fear-mongering is getting a little much these days. Innovation can be scary, and at this time, people are making assumptions based purely on things that we do not know. How this will impact the future of business and technology has yet to be determined. Only time will tell.

We must be careful as we chart this new scary world of large language models and Artificial Intelligence and their impacts on humanity, but we do need to slow down on using scare tactics.

Please note I do not fault the author or anyone else for this representation of these new technologies. Nonetheless, I find it counterproductive to our discussions about setting guidelines and ensuring accountability in developing these models and their use.

Right now, it sounds more like the CRISPR discussion all over again.

My 2 cents for what it is worth.

I don't get the call to action at the end - do a 6 month moratorium on R&D to focus on safety.

That 6 month call is driven by people who write fanfic about AI.

There's been active research in AI safety for years and years and it hasn't been without controversy, but these groups have done far more to ensure safety in its various forms exists than the fanfic authors. I think that a 6 month pause of "GPT-5" doesn't accomplish anything other than further fuel radicals who buy into the fanfic to take action that harms people who work in AI.

> This year with the introduction of ChatGPT-4 we may have seen the invention of something with the equivalent impact on society of explosives, mass communication, computers, recombinant DNA/CRISPR and nuclear weapons – all rolled into one application.

I just can't stand this kind of language. ChatGPT is quite useful but have you tried to ask it something serious that is not twitter worthy? We are not there yet. And in any case, this is not the first superhuman tool that humans made. Nukes have existed for 70 years and probably become much more accessible. Biotech could create thousands of humanity-ending viruses, today. These are fears that we live with and will forever live with, but we can't live lives only in fear.

National Academy of Sciences must not only take a leading role here in creating the platform for discussions tasked with advising the government and public, it also must spearhead creating a national MI infrastructure for public use.

Department of Energy already runs many high-tech national labratories and we need a Sandia or Los Alamos for AI, for national, public use.

I asked it about how to transition from nation states to local ownership at scale and was very happy with its answer. Better and more comprehensive than anyone I think around me would have answered - in 5 seconds - and it introduced me to new concepts like time banks and community currencies which I could ask follow up questions on.

I think it’s truly mind blowing a computer can now simulate some of the best conversations I’ve ever had on a variety of topics.