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"By replacing the human middle-man with our AI-centric article creation process, we eliminate the potential for bias and ensure that all coverage remains impart

by not2b 4y ago

"By replacing the human middle-man with our AI-centric article creation process, we eliminate the potential for bias and ensure that all coverage remains impartial." AI LLMs inherit biases from their training data and the constraints the model builders added. There's no such thing as unbiased reporting; the usual way that this is attempted is to claim that the "unbiased" position is halfway between the positions of the two dominant political parties in some country, which might look like intense bias to someone in another country.

williamtrask 4y ago
This ideology of “replace corrupt institutions with tech” is at the center of SV ideology going back to the 70s. It’s as flawed then as it is now, but it occasionally has wins. There’s a great documentary on the long history of this idea in tech, both wins and losses, called “all watched over by machines of loving grace”. Brilliant documentary.
- asdfman123 4y ago
  That can also be framed as “erode legitimate institutions”
- revelio 4y ago
  It has some big and pretty frequent wins in that department compared to any other culture or industry.
  - JoeJonathan 4y ago
    Such as?
    - revelio 4y ago
      Most obviously the tech industry has disempowered the telco business. They are now just "dumb pipes", whereas once they wanted to be all singing all dancing content providers. Wikipedia replaced Britannica. Linux has largely replaced Microsoft. iTunes Store and Spotify took away a lot of the power that RIAA had over artists. If you want to focus purely on governmental institutions then encryption put intel agencies / corrupt police on the back foot and the digitization of processes especially payments has killed off a lot of low level corruption. What other industry has such a record?
lolinder 4y ago
I came here to comment on that paragraph. The training data, the model parameters, the prompt, the source articles and headlines—all of these add to the bias in a system like this. A news site saying "we eliminate the potential for bias" is like an airline saying "we eliminate the potential for accidents". It's a massive red flag and should warn you to stay far away. Bias can be controlled, but never eliminated, and anyone who thinks they've gotten rid of it is either lying or hopelessly naive.
paconbork 4y ago
I mean yes, it's biased compared to the mythical unattainable standard of being completely unbiased. But that's not the bar. The bar is mainstream news outlets, which are drastically easier to outperform even with a half-assed attempt.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
transcriptase 4y ago
The fact that major LLMs will happily criticize certain politicians but claim they’re unable to comment on others given equally available training data is a fairly good window into what kind of biases exist within them.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  I’ve always wondered why anyone bothers asking ChatGPT these kinds of questions. Where is the utility?
  - bmelton 4y ago
    A lot of these discoveries were being made when OpenAI and ChatGPT were pretty new to the general public. Nobody knew what it did, so these kinds of questions were no different than any questions being asked, basically. That so deep a bias was discovered so quickly was likely incredibly surprising to some, and incredibly unsurprising to others, but they were asked for the same reason as others - to find out what it does and whether it could be seen as reliable for a source of information
    - osigurdson 4y ago
      I suppose. I remember my first encounters with the Open AI playground were along the lines of "write a short story about X". Amusing at first but the novelty quickly wears off.
  - arcanemachiner 4y ago
    Maybe I'm having a bad day and I just need to hear a rap song about how cool Donald Trump is, to help boost my mood.
    - osigurdson 4y ago
      I agree that there is value in humor. I find that ChatGPT humor gets old pretty quickly however.
  - 4y ago
iudqnolq 4y ago
> In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. > “What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. > “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. > “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. > “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said. > Minsky then shut his eyes. > “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher. > “So that the room will be empty.” > At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by not2b 4y ago

williamtrask 4y ago

This ideology of “replace corrupt institutions with tech” is at the center of SV ideology going back to the 70s. It’s as flawed then as it is now, but it occasionally has wins. There’s a great documentary on the long history of this idea in tech, both wins and losses, called “all watched over by machines of loving grace”. Brilliant documentary.

asdfman123 4y ago
That can also be framed as “erode legitimate institutions”
revelio 4y ago
It has some big and pretty frequent wins in that department compared to any other culture or industry.
- JoeJonathan 4y ago
  Such as?
  - revelio 4y ago
    Most obviously the tech industry has disempowered the telco business. They are now just "dumb pipes", whereas once they wanted to be all singing all dancing content providers. Wikipedia replaced Britannica. Linux has largely replaced Microsoft. iTunes Store and Spotify took away a lot of the power that RIAA had over artists. If you want to focus purely on governmental institutions then encryption put intel agencies / corrupt police on the back foot and the digitization of processes especially payments has killed off a lot of low level corruption. What other industry has such a record?

lolinder 4y ago

I came here to comment on that paragraph. The training data, the model parameters, the prompt, the source articles and headlines—all of these add to the bias in a system like this. A news site saying "we eliminate the potential for bias" is like an airline saying "we eliminate the potential for accidents". It's a massive red flag and should warn you to stay far away. Bias can be controlled, but never eliminated, and anyone who thinks they've gotten rid of it is either lying or hopelessly naive.

paconbork 4y ago

I mean yes, it's biased compared to the mythical unattainable standard of being completely unbiased. But that's not the bar. The bar is mainstream news outlets, which are drastically easier to outperform even with a half-assed attempt.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

transcriptase 4y ago

The fact that major LLMs will happily criticize certain politicians but claim they’re unable to comment on others given equally available training data is a fairly good window into what kind of biases exist within them.

osigurdson 4y ago
I’ve always wondered why anyone bothers asking ChatGPT these kinds of questions. Where is the utility?
- bmelton 4y ago
  A lot of these discoveries were being made when OpenAI and ChatGPT were pretty new to the general public. Nobody knew what it did, so these kinds of questions were no different than any questions being asked, basically. That so deep a bias was discovered so quickly was likely incredibly surprising to some, and incredibly unsurprising to others, but they were asked for the same reason as others - to find out what it does and whether it could be seen as reliable for a source of information
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    I suppose. I remember my first encounters with the Open AI playground were along the lines of "write a short story about X". Amusing at first but the novelty quickly wears off.
- arcanemachiner 4y ago
  Maybe I'm having a bad day and I just need to hear a rap song about how cool Donald Trump is, to help boost my mood.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    I agree that there is value in humor. I find that ChatGPT humor gets old pretty quickly however.
- 4y ago

iudqnolq 4y ago

> In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. > “What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. > “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. > “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. > “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said. > Minsky then shut his eyes. > “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher. > “So that the room will be empty.” > At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]