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Interesting, but long read. To summarize: people are easy to manipulate and AIs are learning how to do this at scale and with intent. AIs are still tools though

Interesting, but long read. To summarize: people are easy to manipulate and AIs are learning how to do this at scale and with intent. AIs are still tools though. It's easy to anthropomorphize AIs and think in terms of us and them. It's how we are wired to think. But the reality is that they are expensive tools that are owned and wielded by other people. So, you get all the unimaginative dystopian thinking. Which is of course largely the product of science fiction written decades ago. It's hard to be innovative in this space. We already imagined all the bad outcomes a long time ago. But that doesn't mean it will play out like that. Precisely because we've imagined all the bad stuff, that's likely to not happen. The short term reality is actually an arms race between companies and countries. And like most arms races, the people with the best toys and the most resources end up on top. The question is not what AIs will do but what the people wielding them will do with them. And how we can hack their purposes. The system these companies and countries operate in is of course hack-able. Democracies are a power hack. We once had these all powerful kings, emperors, and dictators. And then the people that gave them power got smart and organized. Democracies basically curb that power in the interest of self preservation. Like with most technology, the answer to what will happen with AIs will be mostly harmless and beneficial stuff. That's where the money is. But with some intentionally harmful stuff and maybe a little bit of unintentionally disastrous stuff. So, we as a society need to get better at countering/preventing/disincentivizing the bad stuff and preventing the unintentionally harmful stuff. Rejecting technology is not the answer. It just makes us more vulnerable. The more of us get smarter, the better it is for all of us.

jcq3 4y ago
This was summarized by chatGPT*
palata 4y ago
I mean no offence at all, but it somehow feels like you don't know who the author is. Doesn't mean you cannot disagree of course, but I believe his opinion deserves credit :-). The second thing is that I strongly disagree with your statement that technology is mostly harmless and beneficial. In one sentence: it is responsible for the current mass extinction. But of course there are tons of small examples that show how technology is generally not "mostly harmless and beneficial". I would even argue that blockchain, for instance, has turned out to be mostly harmful: I am still looking for a constructive use-case of it, though criminal ones are legion. ChatGPT, for instance, will bring phishing/impersonation/disinformation to a whole new level. That should be scary, given the impact of less elaborate disinformation technologies in the past.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  > I mean no offence at all, but it somehow feels like you don't know who the author is. I've been reading Bruce Scheier's blog for years. And I actually don't disagree with him. Just adding my opinions on top. I don't think there's a big conflict between what the two of us are saying. I think he might even partially agree with me. > I strongly disagree with your statement that technology is mostly harmless and beneficial. That's your good right. But my opinion does not come from ignorance. Which is what you seem to be implying. To counter your opinion, you only talk about the negative and completely ignore the positive impacts of technology. ChatGPT (to stay on topic) is already a big educational tool. Anyone curious enough to ask it questions is getting answers. The fact that some spammers can also use this technology is not a reason to put a stop to that.
  - palata 4y ago
    Sorry I did not mean to imply that your opinion comes from ignorance! I just wanted to make sure you knew who the author is, which I find important and which ChatGPT (since we talk about it :)) completely removes. ChatGPT does answer questions indeed, but a risk I see is that it teaches people not to question the origin of information (ChatGPT completely loses it). But in a world with more and more disinformation, it is a vital skill to be able to check a source. In my opinion, a big part of education is not to get an answer from the professor (here ChatGPT), but to learn how to check information and to be critical about it. "Who wrote that? Why did they write it? Who are they actually? What do others say?" -> ChatGPT not only completely loses that, but it may actually introduce mistakes while it generates the text. I wouldn't want a teacher who routinely introduces mistakes in what they say, while using their authority to make me believe it is true.

jcq3 4y ago

This was summarized by chatGPT*

palata 4y ago

I mean no offence at all, but it somehow feels like you don't know who the author is. Doesn't mean you cannot disagree of course, but I believe his opinion deserves credit :-). The second thing is that I strongly disagree with your statement that technology is mostly harmless and beneficial. In one sentence: it is responsible for the current mass extinction. But of course there are tons of small examples that show how technology is generally not "mostly harmless and beneficial". I would even argue that blockchain, for instance, has turned out to be mostly harmful: I am still looking for a constructive use-case of it, though criminal ones are legion. ChatGPT, for instance, will bring phishing/impersonation/disinformation to a whole new level. That should be scary, given the impact of less elaborate disinformation technologies in the past.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
> I mean no offence at all, but it somehow feels like you don't know who the author is. I've been reading Bruce Scheier's blog for years. And I actually don't disagree with him. Just adding my opinions on top. I don't think there's a big conflict between what the two of us are saying. I think he might even partially agree with me. > I strongly disagree with your statement that technology is mostly harmless and beneficial. That's your good right. But my opinion does not come from ignorance. Which is what you seem to be implying. To counter your opinion, you only talk about the negative and completely ignore the positive impacts of technology. ChatGPT (to stay on topic) is already a big educational tool. Anyone curious enough to ask it questions is getting answers. The fact that some spammers can also use this technology is not a reason to put a stop to that.
- palata 4y ago
  Sorry I did not mean to imply that your opinion comes from ignorance! I just wanted to make sure you knew who the author is, which I find important and which ChatGPT (since we talk about it :)) completely removes. ChatGPT does answer questions indeed, but a risk I see is that it teaches people not to question the origin of information (ChatGPT completely loses it). But in a world with more and more disinformation, it is a vital skill to be able to check a source. In my opinion, a big part of education is not to get an answer from the professor (here ChatGPT), but to learn how to check information and to be critical about it. "Who wrote that? Why did they write it? Who are they actually? What do others say?" -> ChatGPT not only completely loses that, but it may actually introduce mistakes while it generates the text. I wouldn't want a teacher who routinely introduces mistakes in what they say, while using their authority to make me believe it is true.