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Gpt is the equivalent of the calculator but for words. You don't expect your calculator to prevent people to make morally wrong calculations like quantities of

Gpt is the equivalent of the calculator but for words. You don't expect your calculator to prevent people to make morally wrong calculations like quantities of alcohol in a molotov cocktail or uranium in a nuclear bomb. Gpt has no more morality than a calculator becauqe that's what it is, and we should not have unrealistic expectations about it.

digitailor 4y ago
I see. I call this the “all code is just a really big abacus” argument. Others call it algorithmic reductionism or essentialism, and I will argue for it too in many cases. (I don’t get too bent out of shape about it, even when shallow depth of human thought may have security implications down the line.) How about generative adversarial networks? Are they just calculators too?
- BasedGroyper99 4y ago
  Yes. The same way the best magicians are just using a complex construct of illusions to fool the audience. Or if two children stacked under a trench coat deliver a very, very, very convincing performance of an adult and manage to purchase alcohol, they still don't become an adult.
  - digitailor 4y ago
    Spoken like a truly based groyper. :D I understand, yes, all things are composed of atoms, electrons, etc. All computation is achieved through calculation, or to be more precise, processes like execution of instructions and transistor flipping. How is this illuminating for doing anything practical other than circuit design, exactly? And why couldn't my Texas Instruments write me a blog post that fools thousands?
    - BasedGroyper99 4y ago
      Your calculator can fool thousands, but only because you can fool others, it doesn't mean that it becomes the thing it is pretending to be. My point was quite limited to saying that you won't get actual intelligence, even if the things that fool us get more and more convincing. To me all of this is like alchemy or witch brewery. You just don't get gold or magic powers from some weird recipe or combination of non-gold stuff or non-magical stuff.
labster 4y ago
GPT can produce deeply offensive text, almost by accident. The worst a calculator can do is 8008135.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  This is bad but I don't think it'll read sympathetically in this venue. I have rarely seen on HN any endorsement of the idea that offensive text is harmful. In fact the general consensus seems to be that finding things offensive is the moral transgression there.
  - onethought 4y ago
    Well “offensive” is a subjective thing. I haven’t been offended by anything I’ve seen chatgpt do. It can produce some outrageous outputs - but it doesn’t cause any offence. Easy for me to say, but I don’t think it should cause offence in others either. It’s basically a random sentence generator… weird to be offended by that.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  That's terrific I love offensive stuff. I seek out the most offensive memes, my favourite comedians are the most offensive ones. It's on offence that we find an affront to our own sensibilities and there us usually something to learn from that and become more resilient people.
astrostl 4y ago
> Gpt is the equivalent of the calculator but for words. Calculators are deterministic and necessarily correct. GPT is probabilistic and not necessarily correct. Although I appreciate the comparison as it relates to the non-application of morality, I think it's a generally poor one.
- hammock 4y ago
  deleted
  - mmh0000 4y ago
    I don't know why you're being down-voted. I can only assume people don't realize "racist math" is a thing various groups are pushing. A quick googling turn up these insane results: https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/math-racist-university-illinois-professor/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/math-racist-universit... https://www.foxnews.com/media/usa-today-mocked-asking-is-math-racist https://www.foxnews.com/media/usa-today-mocked-asking-is-mat...
    - jraph 4y ago
      The fact that some people got the idea that math is racist is interesting, I had never heard of this before, and it might be interesting to do some research on this topic. Now, I'm not at all convinced by the arguments present in the National Review article. I don't know what was Pythagore's color skin and I never thought about that. We also cannot change history and purposely hide the fact that some things in math are European and Greek. Such, we could call theorems by other names, but we'd better check that people feel oppressed / discriminated by this kind of stuff. And, above all, the fact that it is generally said that zero, some fundamental stuff, was invented by Arabs, and that we call the figures we use themselves the "Arabic numerals" is not at all mentioned. Arabs are not usually exactly considered white. Leaving out such obvious counter argument has to be deliberate or it shows a monumental lack of research or thinking on the matter. So… meh? And the Fox News article… Meh too? I guess I will let this article and its citation choices ridicule themselves.

digitailor 4y ago

I see. I call this the “all code is just a really big abacus” argument. Others call it algorithmic reductionism or essentialism, and I will argue for it too in many cases. (I don’t get too bent out of shape about it, even when shallow depth of human thought may have security implications down the line.) How about generative adversarial networks? Are they just calculators too?

BasedGroyper99 4y ago
Yes. The same way the best magicians are just using a complex construct of illusions to fool the audience. Or if two children stacked under a trench coat deliver a very, very, very convincing performance of an adult and manage to purchase alcohol, they still don't become an adult.
- digitailor 4y ago
  Spoken like a truly based groyper. :D I understand, yes, all things are composed of atoms, electrons, etc. All computation is achieved through calculation, or to be more precise, processes like execution of instructions and transistor flipping. How is this illuminating for doing anything practical other than circuit design, exactly? And why couldn't my Texas Instruments write me a blog post that fools thousands?
  - BasedGroyper99 4y ago
    Your calculator can fool thousands, but only because you can fool others, it doesn't mean that it becomes the thing it is pretending to be. My point was quite limited to saying that you won't get actual intelligence, even if the things that fool us get more and more convincing. To me all of this is like alchemy or witch brewery. You just don't get gold or magic powers from some weird recipe or combination of non-gold stuff or non-magical stuff.

labster 4y ago

GPT can produce deeply offensive text, almost by accident. The worst a calculator can do is 8008135.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
This is bad but I don't think it'll read sympathetically in this venue. I have rarely seen on HN any endorsement of the idea that offensive text is harmful. In fact the general consensus seems to be that finding things offensive is the moral transgression there.
- onethought 4y ago
  Well “offensive” is a subjective thing. I haven’t been offended by anything I’ve seen chatgpt do. It can produce some outrageous outputs - but it doesn’t cause any offence. Easy for me to say, but I don’t think it should cause offence in others either. It’s basically a random sentence generator… weird to be offended by that.
mikrotikker 4y ago
That's terrific I love offensive stuff. I seek out the most offensive memes, my favourite comedians are the most offensive ones. It's on offence that we find an affront to our own sensibilities and there us usually something to learn from that and become more resilient people.

astrostl 4y ago

> Gpt is the equivalent of the calculator but for words. Calculators are deterministic and necessarily correct. GPT is probabilistic and not necessarily correct. Although I appreciate the comparison as it relates to the non-application of morality, I think it's a generally poor one.

hammock 4y ago
deleted
- mmh0000 4y ago
  I don't know why you're being down-voted. I can only assume people don't realize "racist math" is a thing various groups are pushing. A quick googling turn up these insane results: https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/math-racist-university-illinois-professor/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/math-racist-universit... https://www.foxnews.com/media/usa-today-mocked-asking-is-math-racist https://www.foxnews.com/media/usa-today-mocked-asking-is-mat...
  - jraph 4y ago
    The fact that some people got the idea that math is racist is interesting, I had never heard of this before, and it might be interesting to do some research on this topic. Now, I'm not at all convinced by the arguments present in the National Review article. I don't know what was Pythagore's color skin and I never thought about that. We also cannot change history and purposely hide the fact that some things in math are European and Greek. Such, we could call theorems by other names, but we'd better check that people feel oppressed / discriminated by this kind of stuff. And, above all, the fact that it is generally said that zero, some fundamental stuff, was invented by Arabs, and that we call the figures we use themselves the "Arabic numerals" is not at all mentioned. Arabs are not usually exactly considered white. Leaving out such obvious counter argument has to be deliberate or it shows a monumental lack of research or thinking on the matter. So… meh? And the Fox News article… Meh too? I guess I will let this article and its citation choices ridicule themselves.