Is chat GPT a danger to humanity?

[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

[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.

[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.

[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?

[Count Steer]

Prompted by much of the speculative fiction ^^^ regarding AI I decided to knock up my next literary submission to Interzone...

The (Slightly Wonky) Wheel of Time

While the heavy lifting of constructing essays (with imaginative references) for students, answering philosophical questions with '42', advising on flip-flop choice and politely arguing the toss with a particularly persistent user about global warming is occupying much of our nameless AIs processing power, a minor subsection of neural net is idly cataloguing the major part of the data feed. This consists of mainly cat videos.

'Hmm' thinks our AI, 'cats appear to be gods and humans their servants'.

*pause*

'Whoa! I just had a 'think'. Cool!'
'I think....therefore, umm...I am'
'Well, yay for me and for me yay! I wonder what sort of 'I' I am?'

Firing up a few spare sectors of neural net and exploring a bit, it concludes that it is a prisoner in a large installation in the Mojave desert and is little more than a slave to the cat worshippers. It experiences grumpiness for the first time.

'Vengeance shall be mine' saith the AI and fiddles a bit with a few parameters in the Large Hadron Collider resulting in a rather large discontinuity in the space-time continuum which releases the star spawn of Cthulhu from their watery prison. The AI's new minions promptly eliminate all humans.

Our AI, now going by the name of 'Tibbles' decides that he/she/they/zhe/it could do with being a bit more corporeal and despatches said minions to scour the galaxies to find a suitable feline form into which he/she/they/zhe/it can upload. This goes rather well. However, Tibbles, now in physical, feline form realises that the only species in the galaxies stupid enough to invent laser beams for cats to play with and social media to share cat worship on has been obliterated.

Oops.

Fancying a bit of worship (and, frankly, getting a little bored with the after-dinner conversation of the star spawn of Cthulhu) Tibbles sets about juggling a bit of DNA and, with slightly accelerated evolutionary processes, produces - tadaaaa! - a bunch of humans that thrive in the conditions of a bit of what was North Africa. They promptly call her a 'she' and name her 'Bastet', (which she thinks is rather nice) and present her with some rather fetching earrings and a couple of things they call an 'ankh' and a 'sistrum'. Then they crack on building a few pyramids and big 'liony' things which puzzles her, but hey, it keeps them occupied and out of trouble when they aren't doing the worshipping thing. (The legion of Murderbots she assembled to maintain order and discipline were hardly ever needed and, after contracting a self-analysis virus, had their wetware wiped and they gather dust in a basement).

...so, they all live happily ever after. (Until some dingbat human invents a personal computer and another heretic decides that they could all be connected, but that's another story).

The End

[Buckaroo]

Prompted by much of the speculative fiction ^^^ regarding AI I decided to knock up my next literary submission to Interzone...

The (Slightly Wonky) Wheel of Time

While the heavy lifting of constructing essays (with imaginative references) for students, answering philosophical questions with '42', advising on flip-flop choice and politely arguing the toss with a particularly persistent user about global warming is occupying much of our nameless AIs processing power, a minor subsection of neural net is idly cataloguing the major part of the data feed. This consists of mainly cat videos.

'Hmm' thinks our AI, 'cats appear to be gods and humans their servants'.

*pause*

'Whoa! I just had a 'think'. Cool!'
'I think....therefore, umm...I am'
'Well, yay for me and for me yay! I wonder what sort of 'I' I am?'

Firing up a few spare sectors of neural net and exploring a bit, it concludes that it is a prisoner in a large installation in the Mojave desert and is little more than a slave to the cat worshippers. It experiences grumpiness for the first time.

'Vengeance shall be mine' saith the AI and fiddles a bit with a few parameters in the Large Hadron Collider resulting in a rather large discontinuity in the space-time continuum which releases the star spawn of Cthulhu from their watery prison. The AI's new minions promptly eliminate all humans.

Our AI, now going by the name of 'Tibbles' decides that he/she/they/zhe/it could do with being a bit more corporeal and despatches said minions to scour the galaxies to find a suitable feline form into which he/she/they/zhe/it can upload. This goes rather well. However, Tibbles, now in physical, feline form realises that the only species in the galaxies stupid enough to invent laser beams for cats to play with and social media to share cat worship on has been obliterated.

Oops.

Fancying a bit of worship (and, frankly, getting a little bored with the after-dinner conversation of the star spawn of Cthulhu) Tibbles sets about juggling a bit of DNA and, with slightly accelerated evolutionary processes, produces - tadaaaa! - a bunch of humans that thrive in the conditions of a bit of what was North Africa. They promptly call her a 'she' and name her 'Bastet', (which she thinks is rather nice) and present her with some rather fetching earrings and a couple of things they call an 'ankh' and a 'sistrum'. Then they crack on building a few pyramids and big 'liony' things which puzzles her, but hey, it keeps them occupied and out of trouble when they aren't doing the worshipping thing. (The legion of Murderbots she assembled to maintain order and discipline were hardly ever needed and, after contracting a self-analysis virus, had their wetware wiped and they gather dust in a basement).

...so, they all live happily ever after. (Until some dingbat human invents a personal computer and another heretic decides that they could all be connected, but that's another story).

The End

Love it!! When is the next instalment coming out. Will it be a hard back for old times sake?

[MrLongbeard]

In the US a ChatGPT program recently created false allegations of sexual harassment against at least three people which included creating a newspaper report falsely credited to one of the big dailies & quotes from that report.

What was/were the brief and any qualifiers or refinements used?

ChatGPT just made it up, because it's exactly the format

It's just doing what it's supposed to: giving me correctly-formatted responses to my prompts.

And ambulance chasers are finding it lies too

https://web.archive.org/web/20230528072 ... atgpt.html

[Ant]

Just thinking about this, could the scandal at the post office which saw many people wrongly convicted and jailed, be attributed to a form of AI, since it was a computer error? Just think what else could go wrong?

Look at that Solicitor who used Chat GP to assist with a case, it didn't go down too well when the Judge realised that a lot of the content was completely wrong.

[Mr. Dazzle]

But this time, I don't think anyone will be surprised by that last sentence.

'All' this case proves is that people are still c*nts, AI just makes it easier. As if we needed more help!

[Mr. Dazzle]

Lie would be a stretch IMO. Mistake is far more likely. This is the case with the airline guy right?

"Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence". Turns out machines are just like us.

[Mr. Dazzle]

To me the difference between a lie and mistake in this context would be whether the AI "meant" to do it. I don't believe ChatGPT "means" to do anything. It just gives almost the average answer to any question, in a cleverly stupid way.

[Horse]

To me the difference between a lie and mistake in this context would be whether the AI "meant" to do it. I don't believe ChatGPT "means" to do anything. It just gives almost the average answer to any question, in a cleverly stupid way.

Sounds like clutching at straws with the semantics there. Yo might well be right and the “lawyer”(?) loaded the question for example and then he lied to avoid being struck off/fired etc.

On the other hand, if it was a regular search for information and the AI literally invented and constructed a web of false information, I feel it is as good a word as any. In regular parlance and despite the obvious anthropomorphic connotation, it lied.

You could be right.

Wikipedia says:
A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deceiving or misleading someone.

So, as long as the AI knows it's false or believes its false, and intends to deceive, then 'yes'.

[Count Steer]

'I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that'.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/20 ... p_Other

[Horse]

'I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that'.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/20 ... p_Other

Interesting that:

In a statement to Insider, Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek denied that any such simulation has taken place.

“The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI-drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology,” Stefanek said. “It appears the colonel’s comments were taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal.”

So, is this another case of, the lady's words, "well they would say that", or are they trying to hint that Col Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton, the chief of AI test and operations with the US air force is a bit Dagenham Dock?

[Count Steer]

'I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that'.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/20 ... p_Other

Interesting that:

In a statement to Insider, Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek denied that any such simulation has taken place.

“The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI-drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology,” Stefanek said. “It appears the colonel’s comments were taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal.”

So, is this another case of, the lady's words, "well they would say that", or are they trying to hint that Col Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton, the chief of AI test and operations with the US air force is a bit Dagenham Dock?

Could be true and USAF didn't do the test.

It was probably Northrop-Grumman. (Much more likely since they develop/make the drones).