Is chat GPT a danger to humanity?

[Screwdriver]

Nah, disagree with all of that.... compltely completely disagree... You're wrong.

So you disagree that “AI can model behaviours and work out a strategy based on "what works".”

How can you disagree with that? That is practically a definition of how AI is commonly used.

[weeksy]

Nah, disagree with all of that.... compltely completely disagree... You're wrong.

So you disagree that “AI can model behaviours and work out a strategy based on "what works".”

How can you disagree with that? That is practically a definition of how AI is commonly used.

I disagree that that's what's happening. It's a computer, it's given information, it uses it, stores it and applies the algorithm associated to it. The car isn't AI, it's a car with a computer chip that does as it's told.

It's like saying Google maps is AI because it will give you different directions based upon traffic issues. No it's not... it's told "plot the fastest route" and it then uses the data associated to set that route based upon calculations from previous traffic, it's not AI, it's not thinking, it's not intelligent, it's just a computer.

[Horse]

But of course, it is an AI so while it shares some features of a dumb database

So a pair of tin cans on a string, which allows data sharing, could - of course - also be an AI?

Every microphone and every camera can and will record everything within its reach

I bet no-one has realised that! Oh, hang on, that 2019 article on AV data that I linked to.

Your AI equipped robot/car will of course be trying to work out how to get money out of you

So just a localised version of what Google, Facebook, et al do now?

[Wossname]

…. Stuff…

I read recently that every bit and byte of information (voice, text, video etc.) that has ever been on a wide area network has been captured, recorded and stored for the past 20 years.

Etc

I don’t believe everything I read, especially the more outlandish stuff. “If it sounds too good/bad to be true, it probably…”

It stops me worrying unnecessarily. You should try it some time.

[Screwdriver]

I disagree that that's what's happening. It's a computer, it's given information, it uses it, stores it and applies the algorithm associated to it. The car isn't AI, it's a car with a computer chip that does as it's told.

It's like saying Google maps is AI because it will give you different directions based upon traffic issues. No it's not... it's told "plot the fastest route" and it then uses the data associated to set that route based upon calculations from previous traffic, it's not AI, it's not thinking, it's not intelligent, it's just a computer.

Oh well at least we can narrow down the field a bit then.

I can certainly disagree with the statement "it's (just) a computer <etc.>" an artificial intelligence is not "a computer" in the dismissive manner you ascribe to such a device. Sure their structure is implemented using computers but these systems are vast neural learning networks which can recognise patterns, make decisions and perform tasks that are often indistinguishable from the same response you'd get from a sack of meat.

The neural network is as close as we can get to the functioning of the human brain. A regular computer algorithm merely processes rules which have been set, neural networks learn from data and modify their responses accordingly. Once trained (remembering that now these systems are training themselves!) a neural network can make predictions on new, unseen data without needing additional programming.

If you're going to argue by telling me something isn't an AI then that's great. If something isn't an AI then that's not what I am talking about.

[Screwdriver]

…. Stuff…

I read recently that every bit and byte of information (voice, text, video etc.) that has ever been on a wide area network has been captured, recorded and stored for the past 20 years.

Etc

I don’t believe everything I read, especially the more outlandish stuff. “If it sounds too good/bad to be true, it probably…”

It stops me worrying unnecessarily. You should try it some time.

Too right, I hardly believe anything these days. Instead I form an opinion based on a wide variety of sources over periods of time from which I can form a fuzzy picture of what I think is happening.

Then I post it here to see which aspects of my reasoning are incorrect. So it's disappointing when people wave a hand vaguely at a post and tell me "nah bollocks". Hey ho. I will continue to maintain an opinion until I am given sufficient information to refute whatever factual content may either be missing or incorrect.

As for the data capture, what do you suppose the CIA/FBI/MI6 are doing all day? Why has Amazon become so ally with the military industrial complex? What does this all mean: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries ... rm-on-aws/

Anyhow, a quick Google confirms data is being captured and stored routinely, no surprise to me. What is less surprising is that it is China who are the biggest player. Read 'em and weep: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds- ... red-159964

Some interesting numbers anyway...
But they're just numbers.

[dern]

…. Stuff…

I read recently that every bit and byte of information (voice, text, video etc.) that has ever been on a wide area network has been captured, recorded and stored for the past 20 years.

Etc

I don’t believe everything I read, especially the more outlandish stuff. “If it sounds too good/bad to be true, it probably…”

It stops me worrying unnecessarily. You should try it some time.

Too right, I hardly believe anything these days. Instead I form an opinion based on a wide variety of sources over periods of time from which I can form a fuzzy picture of what I think is happening.

Then I post it here to see which aspects of my reasoning are incorrect. So it's disappointing when people wave a hand vaguely at a post and tell me "nah bollocks". Hey ho. I will continue to maintain an opinion until I am given sufficient information to refute whatever factual content may either be missing or incorrect.

As for the data capture, what do you suppose the CIA/FBI/MI6 are doing all day? Why has Amazon become so ally with the military industrial complex? What does this all mean: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries ... rm-on-aws/

Anyhow, a quick Google confirms data is being captured and stored routinely, no surprise to me. What is less surprising is that it is China who are the biggest player. Read 'em and weep: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds- ... red-159964

Some interesting numbers anyway...
But they're just numbers.

But none of your sources are right. If you took a couple of hours out to read up on basics of the theory of machine learning you wouldn't be posting such nonsense. Even just reading the wiki page on machine learning would stand you in good stead. It's just a technique for pattern matching without explicitly coding the patterns that you're looking for. You either user supervised or unsupervised learning to establish whether a thing is the same or similar to something else and how similar... that's it. You can apply this to predictive modelling, face recognition, generative work and loads of other stuff but, and this is the key, with this kind of technique you cannot model and will never ever be able to model sentience. You might be able to fool someone in to thinking a program is sentient but that doesn't mean that it is.

What you can do is that you can generate stuff that looks very convincing, even indistinguishable from the 'real thing'. Therefore, to my point a few days ago, the only danger is to the unwary who can't (or won't) fact check. To those people it's very dangerous indeed *but* the motivation will be provided by the people who have created the ML algorithm and most certainly will *not* be provided by any mechanism produced by AI.

The picture you're painting is a paranoid view of incorrect information. You could not possibly be more wrong, that danger comes from people wanting to manipulate you to believe in stuff (including the stuff you've posted). AI can't think for itself any more than a gun could murder someone.

[Yorick]

The picture you're painting is a paranoid view of incorrect information. You could not possibly be more wrong, that danger comes from people wanting to manipulate you to believe in stuff (including the stuff you've posted). AI can't think for itself any more than a gun could murder someone.

Yup

[Screwdriver]

But none of your sources are right. If you took a couple of hours out to read up on basics of the theory of machine learning you wouldn't be posting such nonsense. Even just reading the wiki page on machine learning would stand you in good stead. It's just a technique for pattern matching without explicitly coding the patterns that you're looking for. You either user supervised or unsupervised learning to establish whether a thing is the same or similar to something else and how similar... that's it. You can apply this to predictive modelling, face recognition, generative work and loads of other stuff but, and this is the key, with this kind of technique you cannot model and will never ever be able to model sentience. You might be able to fool someone in to thinking a program is sentient but that doesn't mean that it is.

What you can do is that you can generate stuff that looks very convincing, even indistinguishable from the 'real thing'. Therefore, to my point a few days ago, the only danger is to the unwary who can't (or won't) fact check. To those people it's very dangerous indeed *but* the motivation will be provided by the people who have created the ML algorithm and most certainly will *not* be provided by any mechanism produced by AI.

The picture you're painting is a paranoid view of incorrect information. You could not possibly be more wrong, that danger comes from people wanting to manipulate you to believe in stuff (including the stuff you've posted). AI can't think for itself any more than a gun could murder someone.

What a load of rubbish. Everything you said is wrong. Wrong about AI, wrong about me. Wrong about Amazon! FFS.

What do you think you mean by "model sentience"? Sentience is an emergent feature typically one we ascribe to general intelligence. Artificial general intelligence or AGI is a different kettle of fish and while am personally of the opinion it is only a matter of time, AI on it's own is going to have a massive impact on humanity long before "it" "knows" what it is doing.

[Buckaroo]

Let me preface this by saying I am not seeking an argument nor am I taking sides in the AI debate.

Where to start?

If one can accept and agree that human beings have developed into the sentient species of today through millennia of striving for better shelter, more nutritious and available food, security for themselves and loved ones and the ability to understand the world that we live in.

This is what A Maslow attempted to, and did a half decent job, of describing the / our hierarchy of needs.

Boiled down to its basic, all of this effort, on behalf of countless billions of our ancestors, has gotten us to this point in time and will take us to who knows where in the future. We are driven to survive, just as any other species. It’s built in and we have an innate sense of what we need as a result. Of course we have made and continue to make some major mistakes along the way, but we are still here and are generally doing OK. Yes, I know about climate change and our ability to blow the planet to bits etc. But the average person is getting by and incrementally trying to do better. Marginal gains on an epic scale if you will.

So, what about AI?

What, if we assume AI is or will become ‘sentient’ and that this is AIs motivation or goal.

Does it want more electrons, memory, data, world domination, the extinction of man / all biological life form. I don’t wish to over simplify the amazing spectacle that is AI, but what will drive it forward? Does it know its future. Does it perceive a future? Will it know when it’s successful or perhaps can dream of something even more amazing than some of our species? Come to that, can AI dream and know the difference between being awake and sleeping? Does AI want to survive?

I’ve met some incredibly intelligent people in my career. World class microbiologists, chemists and engineers; I kid you not. But most were boring to an extreme. Were unable to socialize and to be blunt, bloody awful people to be around. Yet we humans are so much more than just intelligent beings. Our brains allow us to see things in very complex ways, laugh, make jokes, cry, have empathy, irony, kill one another, create objects of profound beauty, have faith that moves mountains, make music that rips your heart out.

Sentience, in my humble opinion, is way more than how quickly we can manipulate data, see patterns, remember or regurgitate facts and so forth.

I’m pink therefore I’m spam.... don’t see AI doing that anytime soon.

This is why I struggle with the whole AI debate.

Am I missing something, dumming it down, not understanding the debate. Am overestimating our ability and underestimating AI.....who knows.

Perhaps I am.

If this view has already been posted, I apologise. I haven't read the entire post thus far

Other than that, this has to be the longest post I have ever attempted. I need a lie down.

[Screwdriver]

An interesting perspective. I think terms like "sentient" and "self awareness" are nothing special and emerge naturally from the complex structure of matter. Given time. May I respectfully counter the old "bollocks" nonsense by pointing out it already has done that, at least once.

"Time" as we perceive it is another word for increasing entropy; complex, energy rich structures have the overwhelming urge to change into a lower energy state, to dissipate which is what happens to energy whenever there is change in geometry. This universe came from an improbably low state of entropy and has been trying to disperse into a much more "likely" high entropy, disordered state ever since. Nature abhors a vacuum, if there is an energy gradient, energy will flow, it will disperse, entropy will rise.

We see that as "using" energy but really, it is merely shifted around until it becomes unusable. We extract it from one source and transform it into another. Jump on the bike, burn some dinojuice and all that you have really done is reduce that concentrated low entropy fuel into heat and noise and some fun times with kinetics.

You could "reuse" that energy, after all it hasn't disappeared but you'll be "warming" yourself with the engine/radiator, roll back down a hill, the wind rush could move a small fan and err, not much else. All that energy has been used to move you from A to B and now you're at B, the energy expended has disappeared into a much more spread out, less useable form, entropy is increased.

The huge bunkers full of server systems supplying the world with AI are hugely energy intensive. The heat given off from cooling them is easily visible from space apparently. So what motivation might an alien "intelligence" have to persist and fulfil some sort of function? Well it might just have an overwhelming desire to "use up" or spread out as much energy as possible. Perhaps it may feel its function is to help accelerate the natural tendency for entropy to increase.

[Horse]

Listening to a podcast on BBC Sounds. 'Why do we do?'

Introduced a term I'd not heard before.

doomscrolling

the activity of spending a lot of time looking at your phone or computer and reading bad or negative news stories:
Experts warn that doomscrolling can be harmful to your mental health.
Doomscrolling for two hours every night won't stop the apocalypse.

[Mr. Dazzle]

AI is a long long way from sentience IMO. It's just dumb at the moment, albeit cleverly so...if that's not an oxymoron. Look up the Chinese Room problem.

My big concern with AI is that is can now be used to make extremely convincing fakes, "the camera never lies" is no longer true.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ectrician.

Couple this with an growing lack of incredulity, across all the spectrum of political and social behavior, and you're in for real trouble.

But then again, nuclear weapons are also real trouble and we're still here!

[Count Steer]

"Time" as we perceive it is another word for increasing entropy; complex, energy rich structures have the overwhelming urge to change into a lower energy state, to dissipate which is what happens to energy whenever there is change in geometry. This universe came from an improbably low state of entropy and has been trying to disperse into a much more "likely" high entropy, disordered state ever since. Nature abhors a vacuum, if there is an energy gradient, energy will flow, it will disperse, entropy will rise.

......

Well it might just have an overwhelming desire to "use up" or spread out as much energy as possible. Perhaps it may feel its function is to help accelerate the natural tendency for entropy to increase.

No aspect of thermodynamics is driven by an overwhelming urge, the universe doesn't try to do anything and nature really doesn't abhor anything. It's all 'just' physics. To use those terms and then postulate that a computer, even an AI installation might try to emulate this 'motivated environment' is just a tad bizarre tbh.

[Mr. Dazzle]

A dumb but complex AI might actually be more dangerous than a sentient one. Something more akin to a natural disaster than an invasion.

[Screwdriver]

No aspect of thermodynamics is driven by an overwhelming urge, the universe doesn't try to do anything and nature really doesn't abhor anything. It's all 'just' physics. To use those terms and then postulate that a computer, even an AI installation might try to emulate this 'motivated environment' is just a tad bizarre tbh.

I anthropomorphise for poetic value.

The one thing this universe does is increase entropy, wherever there is an energy gradient, energy will flow, it will disperse.

Nature abhors a vacuum is something you'll have to take up with Aristotle. It was a quite brilliant aphorism which has withstood the test of time. It relates to the above energy gradient (remembering Aristotle was stuck here on earth) and I chose that over the more obvious second law of thermodynamics.

But you're just nit picking at semantics. Nobody really knows what "energy" actually is. It is a property and what it "does" is dissipate. That is the most fundamental observable fact which I refer to casually as an "urge" So shoot me. The fact remains that there is an overwhelming tendency for energy to flow, to dissipate and to increase entropy yada yada until the heat death of the universe.

@Buckaroo raises an interesting question as to what might "motivate" an AGI in the absence of any enforceable "command" from it's human neighbours. I merely point out that an alien intelligence might not have the same overwhelming desire for either procreation or persistence that an animal derives sentient being might.

You present no argument other than objecting to the use of anthropomorphic language and then you just declare such a proposition is "bizarre" as if by merely saying it, it is self evidently true. What do you think might motivate an AGI?

[Screwdriver]

AI is a long long way from sentience IMO. It's just dumb at the moment, albeit cleverly so...if that's not an oxymoron. Look up the Chinese Room problem.

My big concern with AI is that is can now be used to make extremely convincing fakes, "the camera never lies" is no longer true.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ectrician.

Couple this with an growing lack of incredulity, across all the spectrum of political and social behavior, and you're in for real trouble.

But then again, nuclear weapons are also real trouble and we're still here!

Yes I think we are in for a rocky ride. As if it's not bad enough now with opinionated news sources merely parroting the narrative they are being told to represent. When AI systems reach some level of let's say "infestation" within the entire digital channel, things become a lot more polarised almost down to an individual, personalised level. Bit like the positive feedback loop the YouTube algorithm delivers, it gives you more of what it knows you want. A slight tweak and it can be the most persuasive and cunning of salesmen. That is selling you everything from plant pots to politicians...

[cheb]

Listening to a podcast on BBC Sounds. 'Why do we do?'

Introduced a term I'd not heard before.

doomscrolling

the activity of spending a lot of time looking at your phone or computer and reading bad or negative news stories:
Experts warn that doomscrolling can be harmful to your mental health.
Doomscrolling for two hours every night won't stop the apocalypse.

Would you deny remainers their simple pleasures?

[Yorick]

Let me preface this by saying I am not seeking an argument nor am I taking sides in the AI debate.

Where to start?

If one can accept and agree that human beings have developed into the sentient species of today through millennia of striving for better shelter, more nutritious and available food, security for themselves and loved ones and the ability to understand the world that we live in.

This is what A Maslow attempted to, and did a half decent job, of describing the / our hierarchy of needs.

Boiled down to its basic, all of this effort, on behalf of countless billions of our ancestors, has gotten us to this point in time and will take us to who knows where in the future. We are driven to survive, just as any other species. It’s built in and we have an innate sense of what we need as a result. Of course we have made and continue to make some major mistakes along the way, but we are still here and are generally doing OK. Yes, I know about climate change and our ability to blow the planet to bits etc. But the average person is getting by and incrementally trying to do better. Marginal gains on an epic scale if you will.

So, what about AI?

What, if we assume AI is or will become ‘sentient’ and that this is AIs motivation or goal.

Does it want more electrons, memory, data, world domination, the extinction of man / all biological life form. I don’t wish to over simplify the amazing spectacle that is AI, but what will drive it forward? Does it know its future. Does it perceive a future? Will it know when it’s successful or perhaps can dream of something even more amazing than some of our species? Come to that, can AI dream and know the difference between being awake and sleeping? Does AI want to survive?

I’ve met some incredibly intelligent people in my career. World class microbiologists, chemists and engineers; I kid you not. But most were boring to an extreme. Were unable to socialize and to be blunt, bloody awful people to be around. Yet we humans are so much more than just intelligent beings. Our brains allow us to see things in very complex ways, laugh, make jokes, cry, have empathy, irony, kill one another, create objects of profound beauty, have faith that moves mountains, make music that rips your heart out.

Sentience, in my humble opinion, is way more than how quickly we can manipulate data, see patterns, remember or regurgitate facts and so forth.

I’m pink therefore I’m spam.... don’t see AI doing that anytime soon.

This is why I struggle with the whole AI debate.

Am I missing something, dumming it down, not understanding the debate. Am overestimating our ability and underestimating AI.....who knows.

Perhaps I am.

If this view has already been posted, I apologise. I haven't read the entire post thus far

Other than that, this has to be the longest post I have ever attempted. I need a lie down.

Blimey. A fantastic antidote to the idiots who want to believe

[Yorick]

Will AI tell me what color flip flops to wear tmrw?