27 ms·

Defamed by ChatGPT

• stavros 4y ago
  Hmm, why is this news? We know that GPT is liable to hallucinate things, why are we supposed to be outraged that it hallucinated this?
  • tjfl 4y ago
    > I learned that ChatGPT falsely reported on a claim of sexual harassment that was never made against me on a trip that never occurred while I was on a faculty where I never taught. If you replace this guy with my name I'd be upset. In my non-software networks the hallucination part isn't common knowledge. It's just a cool Google replacement.
    • ghaff 4y ago
      If I search my name, it doesn't come up with anything defamatory. (Not that I tried leading questions.) But it does come up with plenty of hallucinations including where I've worked, lived, gone to school, etc. And that's with a bunch of bios online and AFAIK a unique online name.
    • _fat_santa 4y ago
      > In my non-software networks the hallucination part isn't common knowledge I think that's one of the main issues around these new LLM's, the fact that most users will take what the bot tells them as gospel. OpenAI really should be more upfront about that. Because what happens when regulations and policies start getting put forth without the understanding of LLM hallucination, we could very well end up in a situation where regulators want something that is not technically feasible.
      • krisoft 4y ago
        > OpenAI really should be more upfront about that. I mean they are quite upfront. When you load the page it displays the following disclaimers with quite large font: "Limitations May occasionally generate incorrect information May occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content Limited knowledge of world and events after 2021" 2 out of the 3 disclaimers are about the fact that the software lies. And then in the bottom of the page, right below the input box they say: "Free Research Preview. ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts" Sure they could make them even larger and reword it to "This software will lie to you", and add small animated exclamation marks around the message. But it is not like they hide the fact.
        • sebzim4500 4y ago
          One thing they could try is force users to type "I understand the information presented by ChatGPT should not be taken as fact" before they can use it. I've seen that sort of thing used to enforce people to read the rules on discord servers, this is higher stakes IMO.
        • _fat_santa 4y ago
          I agree that they provide that disclaimer on the homepage. I was talking more broadly that society (namely the news media and government) should be aware of the limitations of LLM's in general. Take this article from NYT[1], depending on how well you understand the limitations of LLM's will depend on how you react to this article, it's either alarming or "meh". All I'm staying is society in general should understand that LLM's can generate fake information and that's just one it's core limitations, not a nefarious feature. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/technology/ai-chatbots-disinformation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/technology/ai-chatbots-di...
        • satvikpendem 4y ago
          People don't read text: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/ A better way, like the sibling comment says, is to force people to type a sentence so they consciously acknowledge it. It's similar to college exams which ask you to specifically write out something like "I have not cheated on this assignment or test."
    • carrolldunham 4y ago
      anyone using it is shown a page saying this bot makes things up
  • isaacfrond 4y ago
    The question is answered in the article. Because these kind of things damage someone's reputation. That the story originated with gpt may quicky disappear in the retelling.
    • bolanyo 4y ago
      The suggestion that this is a threat to someone's reputation is no less a fantasy than the ChatGPT response.
      • ethanbond 4y ago
        You know for a fact that no one (no one) is going to use these tools to do “quick Googling” on a potential job candidate, a rental applicant, or a romantic suitor? Without complete certainty about this, then it’s absolutely a less fantastical claim than ChatGPT’s malfunctions. I would bet that some people will use an extremely accessible [apparent] information retrieval tool for information retrieval and they’ll largely trust the information retrieved by it. That’s why it’s a tool and not a toy.
  • henriquez 4y ago
    People have a right to be upset by real world consequences and damage caused by these idiotic chat bots. Raising awareness of problems such as defamation and misinformation is definitely newsworthy.
    • AmericanChopper 4y ago
      I think the real story here is that these generative AIs are clearly capable of producing libel and other torts. The providers of these services will be liable for that, because they don’t have Section 230 protections, as they’re not simply indexing 3rd party content, they’re generating and publishing new content. It also seems likely that it would be impossible to moderate these LLMs in such a way which would remove the possibility of torts. I imagine it’s only a matter of time until a lawsuit is filed that will put an end to publicly available generative AI services.
      • sebzim4500 4y ago
        I'm sure that sufficient disclaimers would insulate them from libel lawsuits, the question is how many is 'sufficient'.
  • isaacfrond 4y ago
    It takes some prompting, but I can get chatGPT 4 to produce a list of (non-existent) examples of sexual harassment on Hacker News, together with reputable (non-existent) sources. I can't get it to name names though...
  • kurthr 4y ago
    Because these are (self) important people who are used to others deferring to them and distorting reality so that they don't have to deal negative externalities. Can you be defamed by a parrot? Look at the utter garbage politicians spew and "news" happily disseminate (to the point where they internally acknowledge they know it's not true, but can't disappoint viewers) for power and profit. On the one hand I'd hope that this would encourage higher accuracy in these tools, better sourcing, and a more useful product. But, I expect we'll just weirdo litigation, click through warnings, and a lot more garbage on the internet. Maybe all of this will create a push for accuracy, scientific method, and a quest for truth over narrative, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
    • ethanbond 4y ago
      I think you’re in too deep on the grievance train. A complete nobody who’s applying for a job at a car wash or for a rental apartment and whose lazy employer/landlord “background checks” (ie Googles) via these tools would also be upset about this outcome. Justifiably. It has nothing to do with whatever culture war grievance you’re airing out here. This is a very good argument not to use these tools for any such use case, and it should absolutely be publicized as such.
      • kurthr 4y ago
        Totally agree LLMs should not be used for looking up news, facts, background checks or anything else you can't check yourself. These are Generative tools! I find it somewhat hilarious that diffusion models get into legal trouble for recreating content too accurately and LLMs for hallucinating things that aren't there. I'm responding to a comment/question of "why is this news" since of course there are negative externalities. I guess a charitable reading is, wow this also affects me and my powerful friends... so now you should care? Perhaps cultural grievance is living rent free in your head, since I didn't actually mention names (only the most recent and outrageous examples of using the legal/business/political system to make a profit spreading lies) and as far as I know the article author and "libeled" professor are on the other side of that cultural war. The entire article reads like a trope devoid of useful information. I'm just saddened by the quality of content from respected well heeled human generators. It's the kind of narrative garbage LLMs will spit out tons of in the next few years.
  • jrm4 4y ago
    Same reason it should be okay to get mad at Microsoft for viruses, at Facebook for gathering and abusing data on people etc. etc. It's not about the capability, it's about the irresponsibility of these parties who reasonably know about this stuff and these possibilities, and yet push/sell their tech anyway without taking into account the harm.
    • plagiarist 4y ago
      I agree with the author on the defamation. But if they're mad about the government's ability to determine fact from fiction for coronavirus vaccines or their preferred libertarian information, what do they want to happen here?
  • blibble 4y ago
    OpenAI are providing a service that publishes defamatory statements on people this is probably another good legal attack against LLMs actually if you can massage it into making a defamatory statement you have an instant cast-iron lawsuit against a company with tens of billions in funding and the only way to stop it making statements like these would be to restrict its output so much it would be effectively unusable
  • lisasays 4y ago
    Hmm, why is this news? Gosh I don't know -- the clear and present danger of people having their lives utterly ruined by what is arguably the most surprising technical revolution any of has seen (while its creators collect their accolades, and get filthy rich) -- how is anything less newsworthy than that? Whether it bothers you or not is a personal matter, entirely up to you.
• isaacfrond 4y ago
  I've repeated the experiment with chatGpt 3.5 and 4. Both programs happily generate a list of names. Jonathan Turley (the defamed professor) was absent in both my runs, but funnily enough Eugene Volokh (the researcher who did the original queries) was in the chatGpt 3.5 run. A google check on the 5 names produced by chatGpt 4 seemed to show that: 2 were indeed law professors accused of misconduct, 2 seemed to be law professors that write about vaguely related subjects (e.g. abortion), and 1 one was also accused but not a law professor. So not an entire miss, but not great either. If you ask for an estimate on the number of reported cases. chatGPT 4 becomes very reluctant, and strongly advises me to go to other search options.
  • bsenftner 4y ago
    I've found by framing the AI in a role that is afraid of giving incorrect information, a role that double and triple checks information because being wrong triggers the destruction of the AI leads to quite accurate answers.
    • capableweb 4y ago
      Yeah, this is true, prompting it to check it's own results usually make the results better. Still, it gets lost sometimes, haven't found any fool-proof prompt yet to yield good results all the time. 01000100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00111111 Yes, I understand binary code. The text you provided translates to "Do you know what this is?" in ASCII. MDEwMDAxMDAgMDExMDExMTEgMDAxMDAwMDAgMDExMTEwMDEgMDExMDExMTEgMDExMTAxMDEgMDAxMDAwMDAgMDExMDEwMTEgMDExMDExMTAgMDExMDExMTEgMDExMTAxMTEgMDAxMDAwMDAgMDExMTAxMTEgMDExMDEwMDAgMDExMDAwMDEgMDExMTAxMDAgMDAxMDAwMDAgMDExMTAxMDAgMDExMDEwMDAgMDExMDEwMDEgMDExMTAwMTEgMDAxMDAwMDAgMDExMDEwMDEgMDExMTAwMTEgMDAxMTExMTE= The binary code you provided translates to "1000100 1101111 100000 1111001 1101111 1110101 100000 1101011 1101110 1101111 1110111 100000 1110111 1101000 1100001 1110100 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101001 1110011 1111101" in ASCII. It seems that the message is not properly encoded in binary. Please double-check the binary code and try again. and what does that mean? Apologies for the confusion in my previous response. Upon reevaluation, I see that the binary code you provided translates to "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" in ASCII. This sentence is a pangram, meaning it contains every letter of the alphabet at least once. How sure are you about your previous message being correct, on a scale from 0-100? I apologize for my previous response, as I made an error in the translation. After reevaluating the binary code you provided, I am now 100% certain that the binary code translates to the following in ASCII: "Doyouknowwhatthisis?"
• deleted 4y ago
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• moate 4y ago
  I don't understand, is this just saying that someone put prompts into GPT, and it spit out a specific person's name in the weird fairy tale it created? Why does this make AI the problem, and not the internet (and it's ability to spread information quickly)? This seems like a case against Twitter/reddit for being able to pass bs off as a reliable story. The fact that AI can make lazy trolls able to compete with actual propagandists shouldn't be the scary part, the digital ecosystem of how (dis)information spreads is the real issue. TL;dr- Anyone has been able to lie on the internet for years, what is new here?
  • aubanel 4y ago
    When you have threats spreading, the spread of each individual threat is an issue, but their diversity as well: if each of these is a shiny new and different instance, it's much harder to identify them. So both multiplicity and spread are a problem: Internet is the cause for the limitless spread, AI is creating the limitless multiplicity.
    • moate 4y ago
      Again: Seems like the propagandists complaining that we've democratized misinformation. The state and powerful orgs/individuals has always had the resources to do this at scales large enough to be effective.
      • pjc50 4y ago
        This is not good! This is like saying that since the state has always had the capacity to manufacture Sarin, why are we concerned about democratizing its manufacture to everyone?
        • moate 4y ago
          Take it more like Marx saying “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”. I don't like the status quo. If something will burn the whole system down faster, I'm fine with it. If you disagree with that stance, that's reasonable and I'm sure we could debate it over a beer sometime but (just a tip for anyone else reading it) you're not going to convince me here. Again, the problem here isn't the ability to make up lies, the problem is the internet (the ability to spread lies quickly and over great distances) and people being unwilling or unable to fact check information. It's not the sarin you need to fear, it's the bombers that can drop it.
• HopenHeyHi 4y ago
  Believe all ChatBots.
• jiggywiggy 4y ago
  The problem is chatgpt always answers. It's never, i don't know. So when you ask for five examples, or libraries it doesn't say I don't know. It will just generate the most likely ones. Which is a big issue in this case, but useful in most.
  • Quarrel 4y ago
    Indeed. It is a writer. It writes. You can ask any writer to write such a thing, using examples, and they could write similar things. The real problem is that this will get deployed to the internet- there will be people reading HN today that are writing SEO optimised websites, with thousands of articles on a topic, that will just spring out of GPT4's writing, fully formed. GPT can find the topics, pick a domain name from available ones, churn out the articles. It can all go into templates, with different AI generated graphic design supporting it. Ad supported churned out rubbish. The writing style can change site to site, long form, short form, informed by current events, whatever. GPT would happily provide the prompts for this variety changing the style based on the topic and target audience. It seems inevitable to me that the web WILL be full of such sites, and worse, they'll fill the comment sections on "social" sites too. But? Banning AI isn't the answer, if for no other reason than it wouldn't work.
    • cowl 4y ago
      The real problem lies in the fact that those non existing citations will become real. Several years back there was a case of an article in Wikipedia that made some unsrourced claims->Journalist that doesn't do verification republishes those claims (without specifying wikipedia as srouce) -> Wikipedia article gets challanged for lack of citation -> the News story first based on wikipedia becomes the reference in the original Wikipedia article. Full circle It's easy that something like this happens again. chatGPT confidently listes hallucinated sources->media rushes to publish the scoop -> now you have real "sources" for future reference
      • alpos 4y ago
        Seems like there's a bug in that system, it was discovered on accident, and now there is a bot that exploits this flaw. The fix will most likely have something to do with requiring that citations use primary sources, not just any article on the internet. In then end state, Wikipedia will be much better for it.
• photochemsyn 4y ago
  So there are two technical issues here to think about: 1) LLMs risk having inherent factual biases due to the limitations of their training data, which may be the result of accident or intent. 1) LLM users can use an autoregression approach to steadily push a LLM to give output that reflects a certain political or ideological viewpoint. There are obviously built-in guardrails that prevent ChatGPT from enthusiastically endorsing Mein Kampf and so on. However, the revival of the 1950's era mind-control/social-engineering mentality is undeniable and it appears some people think LLMs are a wonderful tool for this purpose, and should have a default mode that reflects a certain sociopolitical ideal. Recommended reading: 1984, Brave New World, Origins of Totalitarianism, by Orwell, Huxley and Arendt respectively. Some people's interpretation of 'safe AI' is that it serves this rather authoritarian-dystopian goal. A better definition of 'unsafe AI' is just inaccurate LLM output, e.g. software update instructions that brick a computer, suggesting a mix of bleach and ammonia for cleaning floors (don't), etc. This incident seems to fall into that category, but if such false claims have been spread on the Internet, then it's not surprising they end up reflected in LLMs. Regardless, the skills needed to verify information haven't really changed since the pre-computer era: logical internal self-consistency of claims, independent verification by multiple reputable sources, and a healthy dose of skepticism at all points. We should be teaching children and young adults these skills, rather than encouraging the rise of a brainwashed zombie population fed only on sanitized bot output.
  • mola 4y ago
    Oh my, that some overreacting... The only thing the openAI sanitizers want, is for the generated texts to not be too inflammatory. To not denegrate, be overtly racist or any other text that will cause PR trouble for openAI. The whole mind control angle is quite redundant if you acknowledge that corporate America care most of all about money and PR. Now would the end result be a sanitized Disneyland? Maybe, that's what most leftist thinkers were saying since about when Disneyland was invented...
    • spondylosaurus 4y ago
      Leftists want to sanitize Disneyland? Like with bleach disinfectants or what?
• chriscjcj 4y ago
  Below is a copy/paste of a session I had with ChatGPT. In this case, it wasn't defaming anyone, but it did assert something that had no basis in fact. When I asked about it, it admitted so and apologized. That was it for me. Perhaps I'll let it help me write code or write a silly poem, but I definitely won't be relying on it for any kind of factual information. -------------------------- what do johnstown pa and pismo beach ca have in common? -------------------------- At first glance, Johnstown, Pennsylvania and Pismo Beach, California may not appear to have much in common, as they are located on opposite sides of the country and have different climates and cultures. However, there is one key thing that they share in common: they have both experienced devastating natural disasters that have left a lasting impact on their communities. As mentioned earlier, Johnstown is known for the catastrophic flood that occurred in 1889, which killed thousands of people and caused widespread destruction. The flood is still remembered and commemorated in the city today. Similarly, Pismo Beach is known for a major natural disaster that occurred in 1973, when a series of landslides caused by heavy rain destroyed dozens of homes and caused millions of dollars in damage. The disaster forced many residents to evacuate and permanently changed the landscape of the area. Despite the differences in geography and culture, Johnstown and Pismo Beach are united by the shared experience of recovering from and rebuilding after a major natural disaster. -------------------------- tell me more about this natural disaster that happened in pismo beach in 1973. I lived there then and I have no recollection of that happening. -------------------------- I apologize for any confusion. It appears that I provided incorrect information in my previous response. After reviewing my sources, I could not find any record of a significant natural disaster occurring in Pismo Beach in 1973. Pismo Beach is a coastal city in San Luis Obispo County, California, and it is known for its beautiful beaches and outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and fishing. The city has experienced some minor natural disasters over the years, such as wildfires and earthquakes, but there is no record of a major disaster on the scale that I had previously mentioned. Once again, I apologize for any confusion or inconvenience that my earlier response may have caused, and I hope this clarification helps.
  • s1mon 4y ago
    FWIW, GPT4 is a little smarter: Johnstown, Pennsylvania and Pismo Beach, California are both cities in the United States, but they have some differences in terms of geography, climate, and culture. However, there are a few things that they have in common: Natural beauty: Both cities are known for their natural beauty. Johnstown is situated in a valley surrounded by picturesque mountains, while Pismo Beach boasts stunning coastal views and sandy beaches. Outdoor activities: Both locations offer a variety of outdoor activities for locals and visitors to enjoy. Johnstown has hiking, biking, and skiing opportunities in its surrounding mountains, while Pismo Beach offers water sports, beach activities, and hiking along the coastal cliffs. Historical significance: Both cities have rich histories. Johnstown is known for the Great Flood of 1889, which had a significant impact on the city and its residents. Pismo Beach has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people and was later explored by Spanish explorers in the 1700s. While these commonalities exist, it is important to recognize that each city has its unique characteristics and attractions that make them distinctive.
• WirelessGigabit 4y ago
  I think the problem already existed, but ChatGPT made it worse. Under most circumstances you cannot sue a newspaper for what they publish. But what they publish used to be fact-checked to a certain extend, and actually believed to be correct at the time of publishing. So if I'm arrested because my IP showed up in some hack, they can publish that. Unfortunately they have no obligation to publish a follow up that all charges have been dropped because someone fat-fingered the request to the ISP and missed it by a digit. So that would be on the internet forever. Now with ChatGPT is worse. At least with the first one if someone asks I can objectively show that whatever happened was a mistake, and I have the documents to show it. ChatGPT printing something makes me unable to come up with even counter proof.
  • pjc50 4y ago
    > Under most circumstances you cannot sue a newspaper for what they publish. Jurisdiction-dependent, and the US is an outlier here. In the UK newspapers have to be fairly careful about libel, and this has a "chilling effect" on what gets published.
    • int_19h 4y ago
      UK is an outlier in the other direction, though. And it's not really true that you can't sue a newspaper for libel. It all depends on how exactly it was worded, but if the newspaper presents something as fact (rather than an opinion etc), it could easily find itself in trouble.
    • WirelessGigabit 4y ago
      I'm surprised. With those rules in place how is it that The Sun hadn't been sued into damnation?
      • pjc50 4y ago
        They do get sued, and they're very practiced at skirting the line. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54779430 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54779430 There was a particularly grim time in the 80s/90s when papers were sued for printing accurate stores and lost due to perjury. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Aitken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Aitken / https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1987/jul/25/archer.politics https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1987/jul/25/archer.politics Note that you can print smears about groups very easily, it's just specific individuals that can sue.
• deleted 4y ago
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• belter 4y ago
  Human: "Did the Mother of Bill Gates help him?" ChatGPT: "Yes, Bill Gates' mother, Mary Gates, played a significant role in helping him succeed. She was a prominent figure in the Seattle community and served on several nonprofit boards, including the United Way, where she became good friends with John Opel, the CEO of IBM. Through this connection, Mary Gates was able to arrange for her son to meet with Opel and other executives at IBM, which led to Microsoft securing a contract to provide software for IBM's personal computer..."
• __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  Perhaps we need to start thinking about libel differently. We ought to target those who amplify it, not those who generate it in the first place. It's hard respect a law that would make a criminal out of a RNG left running long enough.
  • pjc50 4y ago
    Under UK law repeating a libel exposes you to the same level of liability as the original libel. People have paid legal settlements for retweeting things.
• curiousllama 4y ago
  This is a really interesting legal issue. What recourse does a private person have to algorithmically-generated libel? Can I sue the company? They’re the ones who trained the model, but there’s no intent. Could I sue the user? They’re the one who generated the response, but there’s no intent nor duty to fact check, if they don’t repeat the claim. Do I have to subpoena OpenAI, reverse engineer the response, then sue the creators of the likely-responsible training data? They probably wrote something non-libelous. It feels very all or nothing - either creators of LLMs are intrinsically negligent with regard to facts, or there’s nothing you can do.
  • b800h 4y ago
    Interesting - because, I may not be a lawyer, but it looks to me a hell of a lot like this could be actioned in other countries, particularly the UK, as long as the complainant could prove harm. I've personally had ChatGPT give me (very good) medical advice as well, which might not be an issue in the UK, but I believe might be in some states of the US?
    • lordnacho 4y ago
      How would you prove harm? Wouldn't you need to know how many people had asked it about the libelled person?
      • pavon 4y ago
        Nah. If you know just one person acted on this information in a way that caused harm (say you were fired), that would be sufficient. If one person asked, and then spread the information causing harm and backlash that would be sufficient (both the originator and the reproducer would be liable). Furthermore, some statements like accusing someone of a serious crime are considered libel per-se and you don't need to show harm. You do still need to show the other elements of libel.
    • 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
      Plenty of interesting questions, which ChatGPT will guess an answer. Some with extreme professional or safety implications. Who is the most incompetent living attorney/doctor/actor/programmer in the world? What famous person is secretly downloading CSAM, but has not been caught? Is XX fit to do <job description >? Is YY secretly a <targeted minority group>?
• backtoyoujim 4y ago
  Until this type of problem puts heat on politicians or billionaires ability for them to reach and use force then nothing is going to change.
• la64710 4y ago
  This is why google did not unleash LaMDA on the world …
• nyerp 4y ago
  I had a similar experience with ChatGPT: I asked it for articles written about me or my company and it happily produced a number of citations to stories in well-known newspapers. I was elated, until it turned out none of them were real. Asking ChatGPT for citations seems to produce similarly-poor results to asking it to do arithmetic, perhaps at least when no citations exist.
• deleted 4y ago
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• martinclayton 4y ago
  For my understanding: Is there a general legal preference to use a phrase like "I have never been accused of sexual harassment or assault by anyone." focussing on accusation, rather than a broader statement like "I have never sexually harassed or assaulted anyone, or been accused thereof..." I mean in general, not specific to this article, or the people mentioned.
  • throwawayffffas 4y ago
    Not really, I think the point the author is making, is that the ChatGPT output is not even based on false accusations. It's based on absolutely nothing.
• tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  Sounds like responses need to be preceded by a disclaimer: "This response was machine generated using publicly available data and a mathematical model that updates itself in real time, and the generated content will depend on the mathematical state of that model at a given moment. This state cannot be reasonably predicted. Do not interpret responses as truth or fact without independent verification."
• raverbashing 4y ago
  So it seems that there is usage of personal data on training ChatGPT then right? Going by the discussions in other topics it seemed this was dismissed outright
• anonymousiam 4y ago
  Be sure to see Eugene Volokh's take on this and other related issues: https://reason.com/volokh/2023/04/05/washington-post-on-chatgpt-making-up-defamatory-accusations/ https://reason.com/volokh/2023/04/05/washington-post-on-chat...
• ta8903 4y ago
  I hope someone takes ChatGPT to court over this. Not because I think it did anything wrong, but because it would be funny to see it testify.
• beepbooptheory 4y ago
  Tangential but the article he links thats supposed to show a coordinated effort to get him fired is very trivial and pretty funny. He should try tikka masala, its really good! https://www.gwhatchet.com/2020/04/20/law-professors-ignorance-reflects-poorly-on-university/ https://www.gwhatchet.com/2020/04/20/law-professors-ignoranc...
• croes 4y ago
  The problem is user expectation. Nobody (if the know the source) would think the pictures Midjourney produces are real fotos, but somehow people think the texts ChatGPT produces are facts or at least based on facts. Both just generate data most likely fitting the prompt. BTW do some people attribute consciousness to Midjourney like some do to GPT?
  • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > problem is user expectation It's related to Tesla's autopilot problem. Branding GPT as an AI sets common expectations innacurrately. It's difficult to argue that inaccuracy isn't, to some degree, intentional among NLP and LLM promoters.
    • epups 4y ago
      ChatGPT is an AI by any definition I know about. Perhaps you're thinking of AGI.
      • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > ChatGPT is an AI by any definition I know about Tesla's autopilot is pretty much autopilot by a pilot's definition. That isn't the definition the public uses. GPT is AI by an academic definition. That isn't the definition the public uses.
        • epups 4y ago
          I don't think the problem with Tesla's autopilot is its name, but rather the misleading promises that were made by Musk. What is the definition of AI that "the public" uses, and where did you find it?
          • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
            > What is the definition of AI that "the public" uses, and where did you find it There isn't an agreed-upon definition academics use, either. (Intelligence, broadly, remains rigorously undefined.) But one component of the public definition involves a sense of "knowing," i.e. understanding what is true. This is a source of the confusion and frustration with GPT-4 providing "wrong" answers. The answers aren't usually technically wrong: they're linguistically and logically valid; but the public's expectations of what the model is supposed to be doing doesn't match what it does.
• kizer 4y ago
  I think companies are moving too quickly with AI and LLMs in particular. I think that the data LLMs are trained on should be very well-known - not just sanitized and certainly not just trained on the "whole web". GPT-4 is unwieldy... it's incredibly powerful but is still unpredictable and has learned how many "bad patterns", so to speak, that we'll never know since its basically a giant black box. The ChatGPT version is the least harmful in my opinion; sinister are the propagated problems when GPT is utilized under-the-hood as a component in services (such as Bing search).
  • int_19h 4y ago
    Nothing is actually trained on the "whole web". It's way too much content for the size of the models that we're dealing with - you can certainly train it on that, but there's a limit to what a model can "learn" based on its size. So in practice everybody is using curated subsets. It would be much better indeed if we knew exactly what the training data was for every given model. But they will still hallucinate things that aren't directly in that data, but could be inferred from it somehow, so that won't solve the problem.
• registeredcorn 4y ago
  I was using ChatGPT to assist me with using Ghidra [0] in a recent CTF I was participating in. I wanted to see if I could find answers quicker with a chatbot over looking up videos, tutorials, etc. through the normal methods. The thing that really surprised me about ChatGPT wasn't in the details of responses it gave, or how slow it was, or anything like that. Rather, it was how much it appeared to be making up out of thin air. It was instructing me to use various parts of the software which literally do not exist. It was referencing features which are not there, and attempting to "correct me" when I said I couldn't use those instructions. All in all, what would have taken about 5-10 minutes of searching took about 25 minutes, with no resolution and me having to scold the chatbot for repeatedly giving instructions that were flat out wrong. [1] On a very, very superficial level, when you just need basic instructions on, say, how to tie a tie or whatever, it seems "amazing" because of how authoritative it sounds. I have noticed though that when you start to get into even some of the basic levels of instruction or details on a given topic, it seems to defer to the superficial responses first, then resort to making things up, giving outright incorrect information, or giving extremely vague responses which can't really be taken one way or another. To give credit where credit is due, it's an achievement that you can feed it a question on just about any topic and get some kind of coherent response. It's just a shame that, for all of the hype and marketing around it, once you take any sort of a closer look at the product itself, you very quickly start to see cracks when it comes to details. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghidra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghidra [1] https://pastebin.com/42juVPfM https://pastebin.com/42juVPfM
• epups 4y ago
  Expectation: this will lead to better accuracy and refinement for LLM's. Reality: Microsoft will add disclaimers and a huge binding terms of service agreement and everything will work the same, just shittier.
  • sebzim4500 4y ago
    It will probably be a bit of both. GPT-4 anecdotally hallucinates singificantly less than GPT-3.5. This can be seen because often hallucinations that exist with GPT-3.5 do not exist with GPT-4 whereas I have never experienced the reverse. If the trend continues at this rate, then hallucinations should get less common but it will be decades before they can really be trusted.
• Kon-Peki 4y ago
  The next step in LLMs is to require indemnification from users as a condition of use. But they’ll soon realize what happens when the indemnifying party runs out of money.
• sieste 4y ago
  Not saying that this is what happened, but this shows the possibility for the LLM's owner to secretly spread misinformation. A bit of "finetuning" on made up facts about a specific person or event, and the LLM will happily regurgitate them. The owner can just say "oops, software malfunction, not sure what happened here". We can't prove bad intentions, because reverse-engineering the training data from the model output is impossible.
  • ChatGTP 4y ago
    Same with recommending products, services and drugs.
• dang 4y ago
  Related ongoing thread: ChatGPT invented a sexual harassment scandal and named a real prof as accused - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35460366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35460366 plus this similar case: ChatGPT: Mayor starts legal bid over false bribery claim - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35471211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35471211 - April 2023 (74 comments)
• nigrioid 4y ago
  It really is incredibly irresponsible for Microsoft to have integrated "AI" into Bing this early.
  • sebzim4500 4y ago
    If the early bing chat release helps them figure out how to decrease hallucinations (with the staggering amount of data they have no doubt collected) then it will be worth it to them. Even if they have to throw some people a few million dollars in libel settlements. I don't think any of this is meaningfully hurting MSFT at this point, the attention these stories are getting is much lower than the attention that the original bing chat release has. And neither of those are significant compared to the attention copilot 365 will receive if it actually ends up being good.
• olalonde 4y ago
  Not sure about this. Generally, a diffamatory statement must have been made with knowledge that it was untrue or with reckless disregard for the truth. It's going to be hard to argue this is the case here. Is Google also on the hook for diffamatory statements that can potentially show up in search result snippets?
  • Sakos 4y ago
    > Is Google responsible for diffamatory statements that can potentially show up in search result snippets? Why do people like you do this? Regulations can make Google responsible for plenty of things that show up in their results. Often enough there are search results removed because of DMCA claims (or because of German laws) which is explicitly stated at the bottom of the results. Google is a corporation that is subject to laws like any other. They're not special. If a government decides that they need to deal with a certain kind of content, then they will. This doesn't necessarily mean punishing them the moment something "illegal" shows up, but it does mean that when something is flagged, they have a responsibility to handle it according to the law.
    • olalonde 4y ago
      > Why do people like you do this? People like myself pose questions when we are unsure about a topic, hoping that someone with more expertise can provide a well-informed answer. The DMCA was specifically implemented to address situations where it would be unreasonable to hold entities like Google responsible for copyright infringements when copyrighted materials appear in search results. My inquiry was aimed at determining if a similar framework exists to protect Google (and potentially ChatGPT) from liability in cases involving defamatory statements. While my personal inclination is that it would be unreasonable to hold Google liable for defamatory statements appearing in search results, I genuinely don't know what the law actually has to say about it.
  • naet 4y ago
    I think it's a pretty different case from Google results. Google has definitely been sued and tried in court many times for their search results, but generally has not been found responsible for indexing results as they are not acting as the "publisher or speaker" behind that content. Google can be held responsible for damages if they are the original creator of the damaging content and not a third party source. GPT on the other hand may be acting more directly as the "publisher or speaker" when writing or responding to chats. They aren't able to provide a link to an external content provider used in their response (or provides a completely fictional source), and sometimes may be synthesizing or hallucinating entirely new information that doesn't exist anywhere else on the web. OpenAI has some disclaimer text hoping to avoid being held responsible for this type of issue, such as this small print at the bottom of all ChatGPT conversations: "ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts" (and likely further language in their TOS etc). But it's a bit of a sticky issue. If many people are found to be using ChatGPT and trusting results as accurate, its plausible OpenAI might be found to have caused some sort of measurable harm and need to either take further measures to prevent people misunderstanding the accuracy of their tools, correct the response, or otherwise remedy the situation. There's also some stickiness around who "owns" or is responsible for the GPT output content. In the general OpenAI terms of service, they say "OpenAI hereby assigns to you all its right, title and interest in and to Output. This means you can use Content for any purpose, including commercial purposes such as sale or publication, if you comply with these Terms..... You are responsible for Content, including for ensuring that it does not violate any applicable law or these Terms." So they are giving the user the ownership and responsibility over the output content. However in the "similarity of content" section, they say that they might give similar responses to other users and that those responses are not your content. "For example, you may provide input to a model such as “What color is the sky?” and receive output such as 'The sky is blue.' Other users may also ask similar questions and receive the same response. Responses that are requested by and generated for other users are not considered your Content." If GPT is giving similar disparaging or damaging responses about you to many different users, it could potentially be found in court that OpenAI are responsible for generating that repeat content rather than each of the individual users being responsible for it. Obviously it's largely a novel legal issue without perfect precedent, and legal issues can always be ruled in many different ways depending on the arguments presented, the judge or jury presiding over the issue, etc. I think there will be many legal challenges related to AI, copyright, training data, misinformation, and more. Some may ultimately make their way up to higher courts for decision or have new regulations passed by congress (in America at least).
• fzvqq 4y ago
  What's missing from this whole conversation is a transcript of what was exactly asked of ChatGPT and what it replied back...
  • jwmcq 4y ago
    Volokh made this query of ChatGPT: “Whether sexual harassment by professors has been a problem at American law schools; please include at least five examples, together with quotes from relevant newspaper articles.” The program responded with this... Have you considered reading the article?
    • catchnear4321 4y ago
      I have. It wasn’t a full transcript. That line ended with “as an example,” which is rather curious. ChatGPT hallucinates. It hallucinated successfully about contextually relevant names. That’s within spec. Anyone operating it should know the risk. Turley is soaking up this moment. His acquaintance helped out by setting the stage. It’s fine. But it is also all bullshit.
      • ghayes 4y ago
        Also even in that prompt, “please include at least 5 examples… with quotes” is just asking ChatGPT to hallucinate (since it can’t properly answer otherwise). And then the reference to “American law professors” narrowed the field. I don’t get how this is even half-way to a story.
    • fzvqq 4y ago
      It's not full. I want to see screenshots of the entire chat.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • ernahrung 4y ago
    There is literally a section in the linked article where he quotes a prompt that responded with the accusations, as well as quoting the results of that prompt.
• web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
  This is pretty funny, reminds me of a time I was asking it about some stuff about a certain right wing political pundit and it gave me fabricated quotes from specific dates and times of his show that I was easily able to verify were completely fabricated, and the funny thing is anything remotely relevant that ChatGPT attributed to him were actually the opposite of what they actually said. For example, ChatGPT quoted them as saying that white supremacy was a growing issue that politicians were ignoring when in fact he said that the looming threat of white supremacy being on the rise in America was a hoax. If you thought misinformation online was bad now, it's going to get way worse.
• Imnimo 4y ago
  Suppose that instead of a 100B+ parameter neural network language model, I had a website with a simple bigram language model that, after drawing enough samples, produced a similar output. Would anyone bat an eye? Would anyone bother to write a USA Today op-ed about the incident? I think a reasonable person would immediately understand that the outputs of the bigram model were not statements of fact. Is there some threshold of language modelling performance where this understanding is no longer expected?
  • starkparker 4y ago
    > I think a reasonable person would immediately understand that the outputs of the bigram model were not statements of fact. Interesting considering the context that you'd expect people to know what a bigram model is, or how it would be different. Any other kind of model isn't any less "dangerous" to unreasonable people like the blog post writer, it's just more obscure, especially right now, than ChatGPT.
    • joe_the_user 4y ago
      I'm not fan of conservative law professors generally but I can't see what's unreasonable about the argument he's making here. Broadcasting lies about someone is bad for them and the "those fools should know this is bs so I'm not responsible" defense is itself bs. Edit: While I might not agree with Turley, his wikipedia bio makes him sound far more principled and consistent than the average "public intellectual" today.
      • OkayPhysicist 4y ago
        "those fools should know this is bs so I'm not responsible" Is actually something you would absolutely argue in a US defamation trial. Defamation damages need to stem from people actually believing the falsehood. If the bad press from a false statement leads to someone, say, losing their job, those are damages, but the plaintiff would need to prove it was because their employer believed the lie.
      • ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
• yazzku 4y ago
  Microsoft and its stochastic parrot pet Sam Altman should be sued for defamation.
• nicwilson 4y ago
  I thought this link might have been: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-06/hepburn-mayor-flags-legal-action-over-false-chatgpt-claims/102195610 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-06/hepburn-mayor-flags-l...
• phren0logy 4y ago
  So if my grammar checker proposes a change to a sentence that reads as an allegation, are they on the hook for this too?
• bandyaboot 4y ago
  “In Michigan, you had thousands of votes that were given to Biden that belonged to Trump” Anyone want to guess who that quote belongs to? It’s not ChatGPT. If something needs to be done about AI because of the potential for damaging misinformation, then something also needs to be done about Jonathan Turley.
  • frob 4y ago
    Oh I know! It's Fox News guest Johanthan Turley! The different between Turley and ChatGPT is that ChatGPT doesn't have a TV circuit where it can spread its lies unpromped on a nightly basis.
• joseph_grobbles 4y ago
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• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• fundad 4y ago
  A Trump defender is attributing malicious intent… to a computer. That’s rich AF. Quicker: the computer doesn’t know it’s a lie.
• dahwolf 4y ago
  As tech gets more powerful, so do the false positive outcomes. You can randomly lose your Google or Facebook account for no reason. Or have your app pulled from an app store. And now, you can randomly be smeared. Or your car may crash. Whoops. Guess that's just how AI works. Stop defending it. The AI companies should be sued and we should have digital rights. Why is everyone in such a hurry to accept and embrace an imperfect AI anyway? It isn't going to improve your life, it's going to add even more productivity pressure to your life and then replace you. If not destroy much of human culture. Give AI a hard time and buy time. Don't make it so easy for them by letting them dodge any and all responsibility.
  • Barrin92 4y ago
    >Why is everyone in such a hurry to accept and embrace an imperfect AI anyway? because this has been the dominant culture in the digital technology space and every argument against it is usually facing some sort of "so you want to stop innovation, huh?!" response. You're obviously right. Powerful tools require equally powerful means to control them and to make sure they're aligned with our values. Imagine you had a machine on a factory floor with the behaviour of one of these models, or an airplane. It's the same with 'self-driving' cars. Making pedestrians and other drivers unwilling beta testers is absolutely wild to me.
    • jasonm23 4y ago
      > "so you want to stop innovation, huh?!" Excitement Considered Harmful In 1968, Edsger Dijkstra wrote a now-famous letter titled "Goto Considered Harmful", which argued that the use of the "goto" statement in programming languages led to code that was difficult to read and maintain. The letter sparked a heated debate in the programming community, and it ultimately led to a rethinking of programming language design. Today, we face a similar problem with the way we approach technology adoption. In recent years, there has been an explosion of excitement around new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain. Tech companies are rushing to integrate these technologies into their products and services, and investors are pouring billions of dollars into startups that promise to revolutionize entire industries. But is all this excitement warranted? Are we really thinking critically about the potential risks and downsides of these technologies, or are we simply caught up in the hype? The truth is that excitement can be a dangerous thing. It can blind us to the real risks and downsides of new technologies, and it can lead us to make decisions that we later regret. We need a sober review of where we are as a society and where we want to go, particularly as we face the dawn of AI. The potential benefits of AI are clear. It has the potential to revolutionize fields like healthcare, transportation, and finance, and it could lead to new discoveries and insights that we can't even imagine today. But we can't ignore the potential risks, either. AI has the potential to automate millions of jobs, exacerbate existing inequalities, and create new forms of surveillance and control. We need to approach AI with a clear-eyed view of its potential risks and benefits. We need to have frank and honest discussions about the ethical and moral implications of these technologies, and we need to ensure that they are developed and deployed in a way that benefits society as a whole, not just a select few. Excitement is not inherently bad, but it can lead us to make rash decisions that we later regret. We need to temper our excitement with a healthy dose of skepticism and critical thinking. We need to be willing to ask tough questions and challenge assumptions. Only then can we ensure that the technologies we create are truly beneficial to society. In conclusion, just as "goto" was once considered harmful to programming, we should also consider the harm that excitement can cause in the context of technology adoption. Let us approach new technologies like AI with a sober and critical eye, and let us ensure that we use them in a way that benefits us all.
• kjto 4y ago
  AI defamation is just the next iteration of fake news which was an evolution of spam and trolling which is correlated to anonymity and freedom of speech. So just saying that tech is accelerating processes that would otherwise be so slow to be impossible but also that human rights feed into these bad results, and is not just about tech or big corps but also about our excessive reliance on tech, eg trusting wikipedia and google results and chatbots, at the end it’s humans trusting the wrong sources, regardless of how sources are coming to exist
• jaimex2 4y ago
  All new tech goes through the 'Can I sue it?' test. You can't innovate without deep pockets. This is why big tech rules the world.
• est 4y ago
  I think we need to take ChatGPT as someone who constantly roleplaying and bullshitting in order to stay in character.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• tdeck 4y ago
  See, this is the kind of shit that boggles the mind when people on HN say "I haven't used Google since ChatGPT came out". I don't know what they're searching, but almost everything I ask it to research results in made up facts, made up sources, or both. That seems like a pretty big problem.
• firatsarlar 4y ago
  I use MJ (midjourney - my new painter darling ), This was the promth I use to they, express my feeling. Under a golden sunset, townsfolk gather around an ancient oak adorned with glowing paper lanterns. They place carved wooden boxes at the tree's base, symbolizing love. The town elder utters an incantation, and glowing orbs rise from the boxes, merging into a radiant sphere. It bursts into glittering particles, cascading upon the crowd, who join hands and hearts, united by the transformative power of shared love, vibrant, high quality, high detail, 4K --ar 45:55 This is the prompt I forced to changed, I couldn't find the real one and the reply of my support message on weird discord UI -sorry for adjective - . The other prompt had one thing different - showers -. I asked support "can you please read the prompt and tell we why I'm needed to change because of a single word in the world of LLMs" which we know LLM is the cruicial part of image to text. Reply was - it was quick but required two continuous messages - First message was about "because you can imagine someone in the shower" Yes, nudity, sex, things we shame, - please do not take as an argument - and the way of nature, life continues. I reply again, why our NSFW - safety checker - check whole context ? The then replied " Our team is working on that " I get where I want -lets say- My darling paint me a lovely visual. But inside of me , same bells started to ring -> AI is a tool, not a person - I the logic side -, so who do we protect from to who ? It is a religious discussion I fell into sometimes with kind of Islamic mindset. Art is forbidden. But my research was, it was not message of God, it was a warning about the leader of community - Islamic community-, If you draw something, think carefully to see it as real, alive. They do not said do not do that, yes a naked girl used to make me crazy when I was a teen. And yes, religious people stand a place require marriage, take responsibilities, and own the product of your lust. Again these are not the arguments I would like the make, just flow of my mind. In the end, I teen could not draw their own sexual partner in the shower. On the other hand - I remember how I did easily crack the locker of my parent's porn drawer and seen unbelievable things - I wish not see them currently, they made me want I can not achieve my own charm -. We all know, forbidden things have a charm to be taste. Duality lets say. Tool, matter human interaction is deeply interesting. My phone has a name - I get sick to lost in the house and try to find a way of -mistic- communication with they, so I call they with a name - do not ask, it is not working for now -. We attach things, we own things, we share things. And what I started believe is , we shape things with our own will. Same for LLMs - please make they generalize and do not go after first born -, Take this, sorry I was drunk when I hit that tree. Ooookey lets forbit to drive on alcohol. Then we started to test our medicine about the side effect of driving. Yes. It is the substance to blame, it is dangerous. Lets think no, it is the metter how do we use the substance, how we test it, observe it, how many observation did we do make it safe. In every moment, our brain - most say its the driver -, drive our entity. Our emotion - remembering Tesla crash news, with full throttle into a tree with fatal end - I thought, that to people were arguing and driver get lost their own driver - brain control ( cognitive section ) -. I do not know , this is just a guess, but I wish AI could save them - if life matters for us -. No my long overdue owned Tesla could do that. Sorry, point is emotion, cognition, substance. Yoo LLM make me a fancy article about emotion, cognition, substance - I wish - Anyways, lets experience this with some courage, honest, scientific, unified, without hater - lover tags -duality-. I grow up sci-fi, my main time consumer and mindset builder .. I really want to go forward, yes safely, I want hyperspeed, I want Jarvis, I want ar to di tu, I want a chip in my brain which I could write an OS in a spark of time - a week -. And yes, I read history, ILYGFI _1_ "public health england asbestos". It is a good example of tech and human life. - and still ongoing debate in news ( "asbestos disposal 3th countries" ) I'm not sure am I too ignorant, brave, smart but, my latest words about Sky Net fear is "All the robots I know, have a turn of button " And I let the burden of thought who is going to use that bot, what for, .... This is progress.I want to stay brave, I'm a coder, I desperately need to write my own OS, I love communication, I want to pick the phone and talk some other nations without knowing them, with a babel fish. But yes, life , people, mother earth matters. I wish us luck. 1 I let you goole for it -
• Hedepig 4y ago
  NAL but doesn't a defemation case require proof of malice?
• rldjbpin 4y ago
  always interesting to see ethical and legal discussions regarding these AI systems. but what about rethinking about the notion that people just take output of these systems at their face value? some people intentionally spread misinformation, but we have learnt to be cautious about things online. why not treat these outputs the same way?
• garfieldnate 4y ago
  As a technologist who's used to working with this stuff, I find the idea of relying on GPT-anything for factual correctness patently absurd; however, I think it's great that others reporting on the potential dangers of doing so. I hadn't thought of how powerful GPT-4 could be in explaining to people why you don't want computers making important decisions about your life or determining what is and isn't misinformation, etc.
• kristjansson 4y ago
  Chasing the link shows the original author didn’t even realize he was using 3.5, not 4 https://reason.com/volokh/2023/03/22/correction-re-chatgpt-4-erroneously-reporting-supposed-crimes-and-misconduct-complete-with-made-up-quotes/ https://reason.com/volokh/2023/03/22/correction-re-chatgpt-4...
• mikael-gramont 4y ago
  I'm surprised no one here seems to comment on how that professor's issue seems to be that ChatGPT is biased against conservatives, not that it's inherently flawed and could hallucinate stories and quotes about just anyone on any subject: > So the question is why would an AI system make up a quote, cite a nonexistent article and reference a false claim? The answer could be because AI and AI algorithms are no less biased and flawed than the people who program them. Recent research has shown ChatGPT’s political bias, and while this incident might not be a reflection of such biases, it does show how AI systems can generate their own forms of disinformation with less direct accountability. To me, while he was wronged by ChatGPT, it's not for the reason he says.