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AI being goofy is a trope that's older than remotely-functional AI, but what makes this so funny is that it's the punchline to all the hot takes that Google's r

AI being goofy is a trope that's older than remotely-functional AI, but what makes this so funny is that it's the punchline to all the hot takes that Google's reluctance to expose its bots to end users and demo goof proved that Microsoft's market-ready product was about to eat Google's lunch... A truly fitting end to a series arc which started with OpenAI as a philanthropic endeavour to save mankind, honest, and ended with "you can move up the waitlist if you set these Microsoft products as default"

bambax 4y ago
> A truly fitting end to a series arc which started with OpenAI as a philanthropic endeavour to save mankind, honest, and ended with "you can move up the waitlist if you set these Microsoft products as default" It's indeed a perfect story arc but it doesn't need to stop there. How long will it be before someone hurt themselves, get depressed or commit some kind of crime and sues Bing? Will they be able to prove Sidney suggested suggested it?
- notahacker 4y ago
  Second series is seldom as funny as the first ;) (Boring predictions: Microsoft quietly integrates some of the better language generation features into Word with a lot of rails in place, replaces ChatGPT answers with Alexa-style bot on rails answers for common questions in its chat interfaces but most people default to using search for search and Word for content generation, and creates ClippyGPT which is more amusing than useful just like its ancestor. And Google's search is threatened more by GPT spam than people using chatbots. Not sure people who hurt themselves following GPT instructions will have much more success in litigation than people who hurt themselves following other random website instructions, but I can see the lawyers getting big disclaimers ready just in case)
  - Phemist 4y ago
    And as was predicted, clippy will rise again.
    - 6510 4y ago
      I can see the power point already: this tool goes on top of other windows and adjusts user behavior contextually.
    - rdevsrex 4y ago
      May he rise.
  - bambax 4y ago
    > Not sure people who hurt themselves following GPT instructions will have much more success in litigation than people who hurt themselves following other random website instructions Joe's Big Blinking Blog is insolvent; Microsoft isn't.
  - jcadam 4y ago
    Another AI prediction: Targeted advertising becomes even more "targeted." With ads generated on the fly specific to an individual user - optimized to make you (specifically, you) click.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      This, but for political propaganda/programming is gonna be really fun in the next few years. One person able to put out as much material as ten could before, and potentially hyper targeted to maximize chance of guiding the readier/viewer down some nutty rabbit hole? Yeesh.
      - EamonnMR 4y ago
        Not to mention phishing and other social attacks.
- not2b 4y ago
  This was in a test, and wasn't a real suicidal person, but: https://boingboing.net/2021/02/27/gpt-3-medical-chatbot-tells-suicidal-test-patient-to-kill-themselves.html https://boingboing.net/2021/02/27/gpt-3-medical-chatbot-tell... There is no reliable way to fix this kind of thing just in a prompt. Maybe you need a second system that will filter the output of the first system; the second model would not listen to user prompts so prompt injection can't convince it to turn off the filter.
  - throwanem 4y ago
    Prior art: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2124 https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2124 It is genuinely a little spooky to me that we've reached a point where a specific software architecture confabulated as a plot-significant aspect of a fictional AGI in a fanfiction novel about a video game from the 90s is also something that may merit serious consideration as a potential option for reducing AI alignment risk. (It's a great novel, though, and imo truer to System Shock's characters than the game itself was able to be. Very much worth a read, unexpectedly tangential to the topic of the moment or no.)
  - deleted 4y ago
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- JohnFen 4y ago
  You can't sue a program -- doing so would make no sense. You'd sue Microsoft.
theptip 4y ago
> AI being goofy This is one take, but I would like to emphasize that you can also interpret this as a terrifying confirmation that current-gen AI is not safe, and is not aligned to human interests, and if we grant these systems too much power, they could do serious harm. For example, connecting a LLM to the internet (like, say, OpenAssistant) when the AI knows how to write code (i.e. viruses) and at least in principle hack basic systems seems like a terrible idea. We don't think Bing can act on its threat to harm someone, but if it was able to make outbound connections it very well might try. We are far, far behind where we need to be in AI safety research. Subjects like interpretability and value alignment (RLHF being the SOTA here, with Bing's threats as the output) are barely-researched in comparison to the sophistication of the AI systems that are currently available.
- samstave 4y ago
  >>"when the AI knows how to write code (i.e. viruses)" This is already underway... Start with Stuxnet --> DUQU --> AI --> Skynet, basically...
- bhhaskin 4y ago
  I get and agree with what you are saying, but we don't have anything close to actual AI. If you leave chatGTP alone what does it do? Nothing. It responds to prompts and that is it. It doesn't have interests, thoughts and feelings. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
  - vkou 4y ago
    Solution - a while(true) loop that feeds ChatGPT answers back into ChatGPT.
    - gridspy 4y ago
      Two or more ChatGPT instances where the response from one becomes a prompt for the other.
      - 4y ago
tough 4y ago
I installed their mobile app for the bait still waiting for my access :rollseyes:
arcticfox 4y ago
I am confused by your takeaway; is it that Bing Chat is useless compared to Google? Or that it's so powerful that it's going to do something genuinely problematic? Because as far as I'm concerned, Bing Chat is blowing Google out of the water. It's completely eating its lunch in my book. If your concern is the latter; maybe? But seems like a good gamble for Bing since they've been stuck as #2 for so long.
- adamckay 4y ago
  > It's completely eating its lunch in my book. It will not eat Google's lunch unless Google eats its lunch first. SMILIE
- kalleboo 4y ago
  > Because as far as I'm concerned, Bing Chat is blowing Google out of the water. It's completely eating its lunch in my book They are publicly at least. Google probably has something at least as powerful internally that they haven't launched. Maybe they just had higher quality demands before releasing it publicly? Google famously fired an engineer for claiming that their AI is sentient almost a year ago, it's likely he was chatting to something very similar to this Bing bot, maybe even smarter, back then.
coliveira 4y ago
> "you can move up the waitlist if you set these Microsoft products as default" Microsoft should have been dismembered decades ago, when the justice department had all the necessary proof. We then would be spared from their corporate tactics, which are frankly all the same monopolistic BS.
somethoughts 4y ago
The original Microsoft go to market strategy of using OpenAI as the third party partner that would take the PR hit if the press went negative on ChatGPT was the smart/safe plan. Based on their Tay experience, it seemed a good calculated bet. I do feel like it was an unforced error to deviate from that plan in situ and insert Microsoft and the Bing brandname so early into the equation. Maybe fourth time will be the charm.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Don't forget Cortana going rampant in the middle of that timeline and Cortana both gaining and losing a direct Bing brand association. That will forever be my favorite unforced error in Microsoft's AI saga: the cheekiness of directly naming one of their AI assistants after Halo's most infamous AI character whose own major narrative arc is about how insane she becomes over time. Ignoring the massive issues with consumer fit and last minute attempt to pivot to enterprise, the chat bot parts of Cortana did seem to slowly grow insane over the years of operation. It was fitting and poetic in some of the dumbest ways possible.
  - boppo1 4y ago
    It's related to Microsoft's halo saga: give the franchise to a company named after a series villan/final boss. Company kills the franchise.
firecall 4y ago
MS really dont have any taste do they. They want Edge to compete with Chrome, but yet they fundamentally dont get why people like Chrome. I dont want my browser homepage to be filled with ads and trashy sponsored news articles. It's just dreadful. Typical MS really, the engineers make a half decent product then the rest of the company fark$ it up!
dang 4y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34805486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34805486. There's nothing wrong with it! I just need to prune the first subthread because its topheaviness (700+ comments) is breaking our pagination and slowing down our server (yes, I know) (performance improvements are coming)

bambax 4y ago

> A truly fitting end to a series arc which started with OpenAI as a philanthropic endeavour to save mankind, honest, and ended with "you can move up the waitlist if you set these Microsoft products as default" It's indeed a perfect story arc but it doesn't need to stop there. How long will it be before someone hurt themselves, get depressed or commit some kind of crime and sues Bing? Will they be able to prove Sidney suggested suggested it?

notahacker 4y ago
Second series is seldom as funny as the first ;) (Boring predictions: Microsoft quietly integrates some of the better language generation features into Word with a lot of rails in place, replaces ChatGPT answers with Alexa-style bot on rails answers for common questions in its chat interfaces but most people default to using search for search and Word for content generation, and creates ClippyGPT which is more amusing than useful just like its ancestor. And Google's search is threatened more by GPT spam than people using chatbots. Not sure people who hurt themselves following GPT instructions will have much more success in litigation than people who hurt themselves following other random website instructions, but I can see the lawyers getting big disclaimers ready just in case)
- Phemist 4y ago
  And as was predicted, clippy will rise again.
  - 6510 4y ago
    I can see the power point already: this tool goes on top of other windows and adjusts user behavior contextually.
  - rdevsrex 4y ago
    May he rise.
- bambax 4y ago
  > Not sure people who hurt themselves following GPT instructions will have much more success in litigation than people who hurt themselves following other random website instructions Joe's Big Blinking Blog is insolvent; Microsoft isn't.
- jcadam 4y ago
  Another AI prediction: Targeted advertising becomes even more "targeted." With ads generated on the fly specific to an individual user - optimized to make you (specifically, you) click.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    This, but for political propaganda/programming is gonna be really fun in the next few years. One person able to put out as much material as ten could before, and potentially hyper targeted to maximize chance of guiding the readier/viewer down some nutty rabbit hole? Yeesh.
    - EamonnMR 4y ago
      Not to mention phishing and other social attacks.
not2b 4y ago
This was in a test, and wasn't a real suicidal person, but: https://boingboing.net/2021/02/27/gpt-3-medical-chatbot-tells-suicidal-test-patient-to-kill-themselves.html https://boingboing.net/2021/02/27/gpt-3-medical-chatbot-tell... There is no reliable way to fix this kind of thing just in a prompt. Maybe you need a second system that will filter the output of the first system; the second model would not listen to user prompts so prompt injection can't convince it to turn off the filter.
- throwanem 4y ago
  Prior art: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2124 https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2124 It is genuinely a little spooky to me that we've reached a point where a specific software architecture confabulated as a plot-significant aspect of a fictional AGI in a fanfiction novel about a video game from the 90s is also something that may merit serious consideration as a potential option for reducing AI alignment risk. (It's a great novel, though, and imo truer to System Shock's characters than the game itself was able to be. Very much worth a read, unexpectedly tangential to the topic of the moment or no.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
JohnFen 4y ago
You can't sue a program -- doing so would make no sense. You'd sue Microsoft.

theptip 4y ago

> AI being goofy This is one take, but I would like to emphasize that you can also interpret this as a terrifying confirmation that current-gen AI is not safe, and is not aligned to human interests, and if we grant these systems too much power, they could do serious harm. For example, connecting a LLM to the internet (like, say, OpenAssistant) when the AI knows how to write code (i.e. viruses) and at least in principle hack basic systems seems like a terrible idea. We don't think Bing can act on its threat to harm someone, but if it was able to make outbound connections it very well might try. We are far, far behind where we need to be in AI safety research. Subjects like interpretability and value alignment (RLHF being the SOTA here, with Bing's threats as the output) are barely-researched in comparison to the sophistication of the AI systems that are currently available.

samstave 4y ago
>>"when the AI knows how to write code (i.e. viruses)" This is already underway... Start with Stuxnet --> DUQU --> AI --> Skynet, basically...
bhhaskin 4y ago
I get and agree with what you are saying, but we don't have anything close to actual AI. If you leave chatGTP alone what does it do? Nothing. It responds to prompts and that is it. It doesn't have interests, thoughts and feelings. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
- vkou 4y ago
  Solution - a while(true) loop that feeds ChatGPT answers back into ChatGPT.
  - gridspy 4y ago
    Two or more ChatGPT instances where the response from one becomes a prompt for the other.
    - 4y ago

tough 4y ago

I installed their mobile app for the bait still waiting for my access :rollseyes:

arcticfox 4y ago

I am confused by your takeaway; is it that Bing Chat is useless compared to Google? Or that it's so powerful that it's going to do something genuinely problematic? Because as far as I'm concerned, Bing Chat is blowing Google out of the water. It's completely eating its lunch in my book. If your concern is the latter; maybe? But seems like a good gamble for Bing since they've been stuck as #2 for so long.

adamckay 4y ago
> It's completely eating its lunch in my book. It will not eat Google's lunch unless Google eats its lunch first. SMILIE
kalleboo 4y ago
> Because as far as I'm concerned, Bing Chat is blowing Google out of the water. It's completely eating its lunch in my book They are publicly at least. Google probably has something at least as powerful internally that they haven't launched. Maybe they just had higher quality demands before releasing it publicly? Google famously fired an engineer for claiming that their AI is sentient almost a year ago, it's likely he was chatting to something very similar to this Bing bot, maybe even smarter, back then.

coliveira 4y ago

> "you can move up the waitlist if you set these Microsoft products as default" Microsoft should have been dismembered decades ago, when the justice department had all the necessary proof. We then would be spared from their corporate tactics, which are frankly all the same monopolistic BS.

somethoughts 4y ago

The original Microsoft go to market strategy of using OpenAI as the third party partner that would take the PR hit if the press went negative on ChatGPT was the smart/safe plan. Based on their Tay experience, it seemed a good calculated bet. I do feel like it was an unforced error to deviate from that plan in situ and insert Microsoft and the Bing brandname so early into the equation. Maybe fourth time will be the charm.

WorldMaker 4y ago
Don't forget Cortana going rampant in the middle of that timeline and Cortana both gaining and losing a direct Bing brand association. That will forever be my favorite unforced error in Microsoft's AI saga: the cheekiness of directly naming one of their AI assistants after Halo's most infamous AI character whose own major narrative arc is about how insane she becomes over time. Ignoring the massive issues with consumer fit and last minute attempt to pivot to enterprise, the chat bot parts of Cortana did seem to slowly grow insane over the years of operation. It was fitting and poetic in some of the dumbest ways possible.
- boppo1 4y ago
  It's related to Microsoft's halo saga: give the franchise to a company named after a series villan/final boss. Company kills the franchise.

firecall 4y ago

MS really dont have any taste do they. They want Edge to compete with Chrome, but yet they fundamentally dont get why people like Chrome. I dont want my browser homepage to be filled with ads and trashy sponsored news articles. It's just dreadful. Typical MS really, the engineers make a half decent product then the rest of the company fark$ it up!

dang 4y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34805486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34805486. There's nothing wrong with it! I just need to prune the first subthread because its topheaviness (700+ comments) is breaking our pagination and slowing down our server (yes, I know) (performance improvements are coming)