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It’s pretty silly to suggest to suggest running a bot that posts to 4chan “undermines the responsible practice of AI science.” I don’t think the “AI community”

It’s pretty silly to suggest to suggest running a bot that posts to 4chan “undermines the responsible practice of AI science.” I don’t think the “AI community”—people with access to lots of GPUs—should also get to be the thought police. Too fragile.

rob74 4y ago
Ok, so you think it's a good idea and a worthwile application of AI to create a bot that posts inflammatory answers to a toxic community, making it even more toxic?
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  what will that toxicity do to the surface web that is outside the 4chan/8chan universe?
  - rob74 4y ago
    To cite from the article (open letter? petition? whatever): > a community full of racist, sexist, xenophobic, and hateful speech that has been linked to white-supremacist violence such as the Buffalo shooting last month So the question is not what the toxicity does to the surface web, but what people influenced by it will do to other people.
    - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
      why not shut these websites down?
      - sgjohnson 4y ago
        why not shut down everything you don't personally approve of?
        w4ffl35 4y ago
        for some people that's the point of life
        bergenty 4y ago
        sgjohnson 4y ago
        What do you mean?
        bergenty 4y ago
        It’s a violent community. It’s way past due.
        nyberg 4y ago
        Just because 4chan has a higher ratio within specific boards doesn't mean it's any worse than other places given that facebook/twitter which often reward cult-like behaviour and boosts calls to violence. The difference here is that with 4chan it's easier to see unpleasant behaviour given that the two containment boards are easily accessible and observable without much effort. Though take note that not all of the site is represented by those two boards and they are `containment boards`.
        sgjohnson 4y ago
        Furthermore, (I don't have any data on this, but) I'm willing to bet that Facebook's body count is much higher than 4chans, although by indirect means. How many people have commited suicide because of mental health issues directly attributable to Facebook? We don't have the data, but it's certainly a non-0 number.
  - drcongo 4y ago
    You don't think the toxicity of 4chan has ever leaked outside of 4chan? It's not just the web it leaks out into, it leaks out into real life and people die.
    - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
      i know that. i know about all those "lone wolves" who have caused deaths to hundreds. my point is, why not shut these "hate factories" down in the first place? if piratebay admins can be jailed, why not these people? why are we "defending" free speech when we know its harmful?
      - bdhcuidbebe 4y ago
        Pirate bay admins are out of jail since long ago and the site is still up. Also, pirate bay never did anything harmful like 4chan, they just made some rich companies lose a little profit.
      - sgjohnson 4y ago
        because free speech includes potentially harmful speech and speech someone might find offensive.
      - cowtools 4y ago
        If you give up your freedom for safety, you will eventually have neither.
    - w4ffl35 4y ago
      > It's not just the web it leaks out into, it leaks out into real life none of that requires AI
      - drcongo 4y ago
        Nobody said it did.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  Seems like you are putting words in OPs mouth. I didn’t see them say it was a “good idea”. There is a lot of things in life that are bad ideas but we don’t stop people from doing them. Why exactly this issue is so important or needs attention? Seems like ignoring it is probably best for everyone.
- HelloNurse 4y ago
  Trolling a toxic community diverts their hating effort towards false targets. It might not be science, but it is potentially useful.
- cypress66 4y ago
  Yes
- efitz 4y ago
  What, you mean like Tay[1] posting to Twitter? [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/microsoft-tay-racist-tweets_n_56f3e678e4b04c4c37615502 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/microsoft-tay-racist-tweets_n...
  - bergenty 4y ago
    And they took it down. Let’s shut 4chan down as well then, right?
    - gkbrk 4y ago
      To be clear; they took down Tay (the racist bot that unethical AI researchers from Microsoft created), not Twitter. So the parallel here would be shutting down the bot itself instead of the website it is posting on. And as far as I know the bot has been taken offline for some time already.
      - bergenty 4y ago
        The analogy doesn’t work. The current mods of 4chan are racists that support the ideology. It’s no different than shutting down a site hosted by ISIS.
- selfhoster11 4y ago
  I don't see how that's different from biological AI (aka humans) doing the same on those particular websites.
espadrine 4y ago
> I don’t think the “AI community”—people with access to lots of GPUs—should also get to be the thought police. I understand how it could be perceived that way. However, I don’t think it is the intent. If nuclear researchers had developed a laissez-faire attitude and commonly dumped large amounts of radioactive material they were testing, into aquifers that people drink from, eventually a perception of the whole nuclear field as toxic and lethal would develop. Since researchers don’t want that perception to develop, they keep each other in check and set safety standards. This is researchers keeping each other in check to avoid another AI winter. Look at it this way: Yannick seemingly had a low enough opinion of 4chan that he felt it was OK to dump one message a minute over a week. Someone out there has a low opinion of HN; if there was no consensus among researchers that doing this is bad, they could similarly unleash bots over HN that pass any CAPTCHA, sound like commenters, and yet have an agenda to prop up various companies or scams.
- fvdessen 4y ago
  > If nuclear researchers Comparing the dangers of AI research with nuclear research is hyperbole.
  - selfhoster11 4y ago
    Both have the potential to cause vast damage. Nuclear tech gone wrong will poison/kill people outright, whereas AI tech can instead cause a Shiri's Scissor[0] scenario that will collapse a society. [0]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
    - shitlord 4y ago
      A 4chan shitposting bot isn't going to collapse society.
      - selfhoster11 4y ago
        It had an electoral impact, to some extent. It can't collapse society single-handed (if limited only to 4chan), but it can have deleterious influence.
wongarsu 4y ago
Personally I think posting to 4chan wasn't that big of a deal. Maybe not a great idea, but 4chan users seem to have caught on (probably because of the high volume). Subsequently uploading the model for everyone to use was a mistake worth condemming. The model was released as public download on HuggingFace [1], and despite being taken down there is now obviously available from torrents. I think it's not hard to imagine how the ability to automate harassment might be abused by other people on other platforms. 1: https://huggingface.co/ykilcher/gpt-4chan https://huggingface.co/ykilcher/gpt-4chan
- w4ffl35 4y ago
  "imagine the ability might be abused" Imagine instead if people took this sheepish terrified approach to everything in life. edit: and I'm not saying you're wrong. But literally everything can be abused, from guns to telephones to cars. kids turn school supplies into weapons in school. additionally, the big corps abuse the technology they claim moral authority over

rob74 4y ago

Ok, so you think it's a good idea and a worthwile application of AI to create a bot that posts inflammatory answers to a toxic community, making it even more toxic?

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
what will that toxicity do to the surface web that is outside the 4chan/8chan universe?
- rob74 4y ago
  To cite from the article (open letter? petition? whatever): > a community full of racist, sexist, xenophobic, and hateful speech that has been linked to white-supremacist violence such as the Buffalo shooting last month So the question is not what the toxicity does to the surface web, but what people influenced by it will do to other people.
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    why not shut these websites down?
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      why not shut down everything you don't personally approve of?
      - w4ffl35 4y ago
        for some people that's the point of life
        bergenty 4y ago
        sgjohnson 4y ago
        What do you mean?
      - bergenty 4y ago
        It’s a violent community. It’s way past due.
        nyberg 4y ago
        Just because 4chan has a higher ratio within specific boards doesn't mean it's any worse than other places given that facebook/twitter which often reward cult-like behaviour and boosts calls to violence. The difference here is that with 4chan it's easier to see unpleasant behaviour given that the two containment boards are easily accessible and observable without much effort. Though take note that not all of the site is represented by those two boards and they are `containment boards`.
        sgjohnson 4y ago
        Furthermore, (I don't have any data on this, but) I'm willing to bet that Facebook's body count is much higher than 4chans, although by indirect means. How many people have commited suicide because of mental health issues directly attributable to Facebook? We don't have the data, but it's certainly a non-0 number.
- drcongo 4y ago
  You don't think the toxicity of 4chan has ever leaked outside of 4chan? It's not just the web it leaks out into, it leaks out into real life and people die.
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    i know that. i know about all those "lone wolves" who have caused deaths to hundreds. my point is, why not shut these "hate factories" down in the first place? if piratebay admins can be jailed, why not these people? why are we "defending" free speech when we know its harmful?
    - bdhcuidbebe 4y ago
      Pirate bay admins are out of jail since long ago and the site is still up. Also, pirate bay never did anything harmful like 4chan, they just made some rich companies lose a little profit.
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      because free speech includes potentially harmful speech and speech someone might find offensive.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      If you give up your freedom for safety, you will eventually have neither.
  - w4ffl35 4y ago
    > It's not just the web it leaks out into, it leaks out into real life none of that requires AI
    - drcongo 4y ago
      Nobody said it did.
alchemist1e9 4y ago
Seems like you are putting words in OPs mouth. I didn’t see them say it was a “good idea”. There is a lot of things in life that are bad ideas but we don’t stop people from doing them. Why exactly this issue is so important or needs attention? Seems like ignoring it is probably best for everyone.
HelloNurse 4y ago
Trolling a toxic community diverts their hating effort towards false targets. It might not be science, but it is potentially useful.
cypress66 4y ago
Yes
efitz 4y ago
What, you mean like Tay[1] posting to Twitter? [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/microsoft-tay-racist-tweets_n_56f3e678e4b04c4c37615502 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/microsoft-tay-racist-tweets_n...
- bergenty 4y ago
  And they took it down. Let’s shut 4chan down as well then, right?
  - gkbrk 4y ago
    To be clear; they took down Tay (the racist bot that unethical AI researchers from Microsoft created), not Twitter. So the parallel here would be shutting down the bot itself instead of the website it is posting on. And as far as I know the bot has been taken offline for some time already.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      The analogy doesn’t work. The current mods of 4chan are racists that support the ideology. It’s no different than shutting down a site hosted by ISIS.
selfhoster11 4y ago
I don't see how that's different from biological AI (aka humans) doing the same on those particular websites.

espadrine 4y ago

> I don’t think the “AI community”—people with access to lots of GPUs—should also get to be the thought police. I understand how it could be perceived that way. However, I don’t think it is the intent. If nuclear researchers had developed a laissez-faire attitude and commonly dumped large amounts of radioactive material they were testing, into aquifers that people drink from, eventually a perception of the whole nuclear field as toxic and lethal would develop. Since researchers don’t want that perception to develop, they keep each other in check and set safety standards. This is researchers keeping each other in check to avoid another AI winter. Look at it this way: Yannick seemingly had a low enough opinion of 4chan that he felt it was OK to dump one message a minute over a week. Someone out there has a low opinion of HN; if there was no consensus among researchers that doing this is bad, they could similarly unleash bots over HN that pass any CAPTCHA, sound like commenters, and yet have an agenda to prop up various companies or scams.

fvdessen 4y ago
> If nuclear researchers Comparing the dangers of AI research with nuclear research is hyperbole.
- selfhoster11 4y ago
  Both have the potential to cause vast damage. Nuclear tech gone wrong will poison/kill people outright, whereas AI tech can instead cause a Shiri's Scissor[0] scenario that will collapse a society. [0]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
  - shitlord 4y ago
    A 4chan shitposting bot isn't going to collapse society.
    - selfhoster11 4y ago
      It had an electoral impact, to some extent. It can't collapse society single-handed (if limited only to 4chan), but it can have deleterious influence.

wongarsu 4y ago

Personally I think posting to 4chan wasn't that big of a deal. Maybe not a great idea, but 4chan users seem to have caught on (probably because of the high volume). Subsequently uploading the model for everyone to use was a mistake worth condemming. The model was released as public download on HuggingFace [1], and despite being taken down there is now obviously available from torrents. I think it's not hard to imagine how the ability to automate harassment might be abused by other people on other platforms. 1: https://huggingface.co/ykilcher/gpt-4chan https://huggingface.co/ykilcher/gpt-4chan

w4ffl35 4y ago
"imagine the ability might be abused" Imagine instead if people took this sheepish terrified approach to everything in life. edit: and I'm not saying you're wrong. But literally everything can be abused, from guns to telephones to cars. kids turn school supplies into weapons in school. additionally, the big corps abuse the technology they claim moral authority over