5 ms·

This is mostly my point of view as well. With all the talk of AGI, the immediate threat is real and it is primitive AI. I suspect that primitive AI might become

This is mostly my point of view as well. With all the talk of AGI, the immediate threat is real and it is primitive AI. I suspect that primitive AI might becomes so self destructive to society that we never reach AGI. We are already approaching a point in time of unverifiable reality and truth. This is going to be very destabilizing to society. Another in depth view of the possible issues that may arrive even before AGI that I recently published. https://dakara.substack.com/p/ai-and-the-end-to-all-things https://dakara.substack.com/p/ai-and-the-end-to-all-things

smt88 4y ago
> We are already approaching a point in time of unverifiable reality and truth This is also what terrifies me. You'll never be able to trust any digital medium again. - a chat with your uncle could've been convincingly trained using his hacked emails - someone calling you on the phone with a familiar voice could be using AI voice imitation - any photo or video could be deepfaked, leading to the possibility of everyone's most hated political figure (on both sides) being 100% guilty of ____ (whatever their opponent wants) LinkedIn is already teeming with convincing AI-generated faces that would defy facial recognition because they're novel. The only way I can tell they're fake is that the backgrounds are blurry and the CV doesn't make sense (for example, going to community college in Colorado and then working for Goldman Sachs). Dating apps aren't too bad because the scammers use recognizable patterns, but they could easily get worse. This technology will kill all digital information exchange.
- 13years 4y ago
  It is exceedingly disturbing. I have no answers. The potential solutions will probably be even more disturbing. I can imagine there will be proposals for everyone having some cryptographic ID to use the internet so all data creation can be tracked to an individual. The end of privacy and freedom.
  - zirgs 4y ago
    In my country you already need it if you want to use government services or banking online.
    - 13years 4y ago
      Technology seems to exist on a bell curve in regards to freedom. Much of technology progression has been helpful in making individuals more free for a period of time. I feel that now as we go forward that it is increasingly being used for our control.
  - smt88 4y ago
    > cryptographic ID Verifiable digital IDs can only confirm that you're the holder of a key. The best case scenario is that it proves you are the same person as before, but there's no way to prove that you are who you say you are.
    - 13years 4y ago
      Yes, not saying it is a real solution. Just that solutions will be proposed that will only be mostly onerous.
- ccday 4y ago
  > This technology will kill all digital information exchange. This is a bit hyperbolic. We have strong encryption like PGP for media like email (although I suppose getting people to use it is the issue), and there will be plenty of incentive to develop other tech to counter the problems you mentioned.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    PGP tells you you're talking to an entity which could set up PGP, it doesn't help you determine if the account ben_w is merely one of many government sock puppet accounts trying to push a specific meme into the minds of the general population. Knowing who to trust… was already hard-to-impossible with just normal social media; cheap LLMs will definitely make this harder, as more groups will be able to afford what was once limited to government budgets.
    - ccday 4y ago
      I was referring to PGP as a solution for being potentially MITM’d by an AI when trying to communicate with an entity you already trust.
    - zirgs 4y ago
      So we need to go back to talking to people irl. And basically assume that anything you read online is not written by real people unless proven otherwise.
      - smt88 4y ago
        > So we need to go back to talking to people irl This is a fundamental breakdown of society. It is literally societal collapse. It's not going to happen. We'd give up the telephone and even the telegraph. > assume that anything you read online is not written by real people unless proven otherwise You can't prove otherwise. It's literally impossible without watching a human write it and publish it, and even then you'd have to compare it to what you saw them type.
    - benlivengood 4y ago
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  > This technology will kill all digital information exchange. ....actually, you know what? I think that might be the best possible case scenario for humanity as a whole.
  - wankle 4y ago
    Breaking news, ChatGPT sends humanity back to the stone age. News broken by the town crier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier
  - smt88 4y ago
    So you don't want to be able to call your relatives with certainty? You don't want to read what's going on that isn't right in front of your face? Even local news would become unreliable.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
      What makes you so sure it is reliable now? Or in the past for that matter? The same dynamics of trust existed before as exist now, it's just that we have a lot more sources than we used to.
      - smt88 4y ago
        > What makes you so sure it is reliable now? The technology to fake it isn't in widespread use. > Or in the past for that matter? The technology to fake it didn't exist. > The same dynamics of trust existed before as exist now No they didn't.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        There's a reason the words "post-truth era" have been thrown around a lot in the past decade or so you know. It isn't like we suddenly developed the ability to lie, have blind spots, biases, and inhabit echo chambers, we only developed the technology that made it obvious that we were doing that all the time. News in the past wasn't actually more trustworthy, it just felt that way because we had far fewer sources of it. All that changes with AI here is volume.
lumost 4y ago
ChatGPT is a boon to surveillance and censorship. By controlling chatGPT you get access to what arguments sway the user, and likely in the near future the ability to scrub/remove information. On the other hand, the models are small enough to ship around - you could run chatgpt on a moderately powerful server if performance wasn’t a concern. I suspect we’ll see a huge number of bit torrents for “trusted” llms
WJW 4y ago
> approaching a point in time of unverifiable reality and truth Malicious groups spreading misinformation to destabilize society has been a thing since at least the ancient Greeks. Unverifiable reality has been the topic of religious debate for centuries as well. The recent language models are cool but they are not better at lying than humans.
- 13years 4y ago
  They have never such power to do so convincingly with such little effort. Yes, it has always been a problem, but no where close to the extent it is about to become.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    >> Malicious groups spreading misinformation to destabilize society has been a thing since at least the ancient Greeks. Unverifiable reality has been the topic of religious debate for centuries as well. The recent language models are cool but they are not better at lying than humans. > They have never such power to do so convincingly with such little effort. Yes, it has always been a problem, but no where close to the extent it is about to become. And at such scale. The annoying pro-tech trope of "the ancient Greeks had problems sort of like this, so these problems aren't new (so they're not problems), so full speed ahead" refuses to acknowledge how technology has drastically changed things and how we should judge technology using the previous situation as a reference, not the situation 2000 years ago. A long time ago, everyone had to be pretty mistrustful of strangers, and spend a lot energy avoiding lies and cheating (to the point of tolerating a high false positive rate). Relatively recently, society changed in ways that allowed people to reap the benefits of letting their guard down and trust strangers to a large degree (reduced effort, greater efficiency and effectiveness). Now we might be reverting back to the original condition, which is a bad thing.
    - 13years 4y ago
      Indeed. I often question the logic of containing an ASI and most of the time the best a proponent can offer is that "we will figure it out". I counter that your entire premise is based on a paradox, a logical contradiction. I never get a response to this other than to side step. I finally put all of my thoughts into a publication on the matter and have attempted to solicit a strong argument that would counter my view points, but as of yet I have not received any. https://dakara.substack.com/p/ai-singularity-the-hubris-trap https://dakara.substack.com/p/ai-singularity-the-hubris-trap
nico 4y ago
> the immediate threat is real and it is primitive AI Even before AI, humanity was already addicted to technology, then the Internet and now also pretty much any screen. I don’t think we will ever get to AGI as one entity/ego. But in some ways we could call AGI the sort of hive mind produced by the huge globally distributed and interconnected interactions of humans with their technology. As a species, we’ve become a sort of simbiosis with our tech, and this happened way before computers.
- 13years 4y ago
  Indeed we are addicted. It will get worse. AI will be able to data mine everything that triggers that dopamine response by your interactions. Eventually it will invoke that perfect response such that AI will be the best drug you have ever known.

smt88 4y ago

> We are already approaching a point in time of unverifiable reality and truth This is also what terrifies me. You'll never be able to trust any digital medium again. - a chat with your uncle could've been convincingly trained using his hacked emails - someone calling you on the phone with a familiar voice could be using AI voice imitation - any photo or video could be deepfaked, leading to the possibility of everyone's most hated political figure (on both sides) being 100% guilty of ____ (whatever their opponent wants) LinkedIn is already teeming with convincing AI-generated faces that would defy facial recognition because they're novel. The only way I can tell they're fake is that the backgrounds are blurry and the CV doesn't make sense (for example, going to community college in Colorado and then working for Goldman Sachs). Dating apps aren't too bad because the scammers use recognizable patterns, but they could easily get worse. This technology will kill all digital information exchange.

13years 4y ago
It is exceedingly disturbing. I have no answers. The potential solutions will probably be even more disturbing. I can imagine there will be proposals for everyone having some cryptographic ID to use the internet so all data creation can be tracked to an individual. The end of privacy and freedom.
- zirgs 4y ago
  In my country you already need it if you want to use government services or banking online.
  - 13years 4y ago
    Technology seems to exist on a bell curve in regards to freedom. Much of technology progression has been helpful in making individuals more free for a period of time. I feel that now as we go forward that it is increasingly being used for our control.
- smt88 4y ago
  > cryptographic ID Verifiable digital IDs can only confirm that you're the holder of a key. The best case scenario is that it proves you are the same person as before, but there's no way to prove that you are who you say you are.
  - 13years 4y ago
    Yes, not saying it is a real solution. Just that solutions will be proposed that will only be mostly onerous.
ccday 4y ago
> This technology will kill all digital information exchange. This is a bit hyperbolic. We have strong encryption like PGP for media like email (although I suppose getting people to use it is the issue), and there will be plenty of incentive to develop other tech to counter the problems you mentioned.
- ben_w 4y ago
  PGP tells you you're talking to an entity which could set up PGP, it doesn't help you determine if the account ben_w is merely one of many government sock puppet accounts trying to push a specific meme into the minds of the general population. Knowing who to trust… was already hard-to-impossible with just normal social media; cheap LLMs will definitely make this harder, as more groups will be able to afford what was once limited to government budgets.
  - ccday 4y ago
    I was referring to PGP as a solution for being potentially MITM’d by an AI when trying to communicate with an entity you already trust.
  - zirgs 4y ago
    So we need to go back to talking to people irl. And basically assume that anything you read online is not written by real people unless proven otherwise.
    - smt88 4y ago
      > So we need to go back to talking to people irl This is a fundamental breakdown of society. It is literally societal collapse. It's not going to happen. We'd give up the telephone and even the telegraph. > assume that anything you read online is not written by real people unless proven otherwise You can't prove otherwise. It's literally impossible without watching a human write it and publish it, and even then you'd have to compare it to what you saw them type.
  - benlivengood 4y ago
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
> This technology will kill all digital information exchange. ....actually, you know what? I think that might be the best possible case scenario for humanity as a whole.
- wankle 4y ago
  Breaking news, ChatGPT sends humanity back to the stone age. News broken by the town crier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier
- smt88 4y ago
  So you don't want to be able to call your relatives with certainty? You don't want to read what's going on that isn't right in front of your face? Even local news would become unreliable.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    What makes you so sure it is reliable now? Or in the past for that matter? The same dynamics of trust existed before as exist now, it's just that we have a lot more sources than we used to.
    - smt88 4y ago
      > What makes you so sure it is reliable now? The technology to fake it isn't in widespread use. > Or in the past for that matter? The technology to fake it didn't exist. > The same dynamics of trust existed before as exist now No they didn't.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        There's a reason the words "post-truth era" have been thrown around a lot in the past decade or so you know. It isn't like we suddenly developed the ability to lie, have blind spots, biases, and inhabit echo chambers, we only developed the technology that made it obvious that we were doing that all the time. News in the past wasn't actually more trustworthy, it just felt that way because we had far fewer sources of it. All that changes with AI here is volume.

lumost 4y ago

ChatGPT is a boon to surveillance and censorship. By controlling chatGPT you get access to what arguments sway the user, and likely in the near future the ability to scrub/remove information. On the other hand, the models are small enough to ship around - you could run chatgpt on a moderately powerful server if performance wasn’t a concern. I suspect we’ll see a huge number of bit torrents for “trusted” llms

WJW 4y ago

> approaching a point in time of unverifiable reality and truth Malicious groups spreading misinformation to destabilize society has been a thing since at least the ancient Greeks. Unverifiable reality has been the topic of religious debate for centuries as well. The recent language models are cool but they are not better at lying than humans.

13years 4y ago
They have never such power to do so convincingly with such little effort. Yes, it has always been a problem, but no where close to the extent it is about to become.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  >> Malicious groups spreading misinformation to destabilize society has been a thing since at least the ancient Greeks. Unverifiable reality has been the topic of religious debate for centuries as well. The recent language models are cool but they are not better at lying than humans. > They have never such power to do so convincingly with such little effort. Yes, it has always been a problem, but no where close to the extent it is about to become. And at such scale. The annoying pro-tech trope of "the ancient Greeks had problems sort of like this, so these problems aren't new (so they're not problems), so full speed ahead" refuses to acknowledge how technology has drastically changed things and how we should judge technology using the previous situation as a reference, not the situation 2000 years ago. A long time ago, everyone had to be pretty mistrustful of strangers, and spend a lot energy avoiding lies and cheating (to the point of tolerating a high false positive rate). Relatively recently, society changed in ways that allowed people to reap the benefits of letting their guard down and trust strangers to a large degree (reduced effort, greater efficiency and effectiveness). Now we might be reverting back to the original condition, which is a bad thing.
  - 13years 4y ago
    Indeed. I often question the logic of containing an ASI and most of the time the best a proponent can offer is that "we will figure it out". I counter that your entire premise is based on a paradox, a logical contradiction. I never get a response to this other than to side step. I finally put all of my thoughts into a publication on the matter and have attempted to solicit a strong argument that would counter my view points, but as of yet I have not received any. https://dakara.substack.com/p/ai-singularity-the-hubris-trap https://dakara.substack.com/p/ai-singularity-the-hubris-trap

nico 4y ago

> the immediate threat is real and it is primitive AI Even before AI, humanity was already addicted to technology, then the Internet and now also pretty much any screen. I don’t think we will ever get to AGI as one entity/ego. But in some ways we could call AGI the sort of hive mind produced by the huge globally distributed and interconnected interactions of humans with their technology. As a species, we’ve become a sort of simbiosis with our tech, and this happened way before computers.

13years 4y ago
Indeed we are addicted. It will get worse. AI will be able to data mine everything that triggers that dopamine response by your interactions. Eventually it will invoke that perfect response such that AI will be the best drug you have ever known.