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Are nearly ALL generative AI applications a net negative for society?
Dear HN. Now that Geoff Hinton said it openly, I wanted to post this discussion.
I remember how many here were bullish on Blockchain back when it first came out 10 years ago, and these days any news about Blockchain or Smart Contracts is rightly viewed with suspicion, and downvoted.
I propose that the same will happen with Generative AI. I have delved into the space in the last few months, I have built applications leveraging ChatGPT at scale, put in as many ethics guardrails as I could without destroying the application’s purpose, and this is my “Moxie Marlinspike writes about Web3” moment.
In Web3, the early adopters got the most rewards, from later adopters, but by and large the applications of the technology didn’t generate much value for society at all. I have come to believe that with Generative AI deployed at scale, the situation is even worse. My claim is that:
Nearly all applications of Generative AI APIs by their very design and value proposition externalize cost to society - resulting in a net negative that grows superlinearly the more they are used at scale. Because as Geoff said:
Such fierce competition might be impossible to stop, resulting in a world with so much fake imagery and text that nobody will be able to tell what is true anymore.
The core value proposition is to leverage the short-term profit motive, like any new tech. It is to generate work at scale that passes for real humans doing the work.
If ChatGPT generates an essay for you, or a homework assignment, that is fake. You didn’t do your homework. You didn’t write the essay. You’re passing it off like you did. If MidJourney “painted” your painting, and you pass it off as your own to others, you’re lying. This guy won a photography contest with a non-real photo:
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/artificial-intelligence-photo-competition-won-rejected-award-ai-boris-eldagsen-sony-world-photography-awards/
He was honest enough to reveal it and reject the prize. But had he not done that, humans and honest photos would be out of the running just as if a chessplayee with a hiddenchess engine entered a tournament. It’s cheating, plain and simple.
It’s bad enough to cheat yourself, but using the API of any generative AI service is an incentive to cheat many people, in ways that can destroy our trust in ALL content and interactions online.
I propose a law that people should not be able to distribute works that leverage Generative AI without fully disclosing it. There can be exceptions for small-time operations with a small volume. To avoid slippery slope arguments, I’d mandate a “BuiltWith” thing all the way down to the compilers you used for code, graphics editors for images, and what you used for sounds etc. Like Ingredients that FDA demands be listed on locally produced food in USA, but for a different reason.
Also, having a human in the loop to spot-check accuracy and be responsible for accuracy can earn a specific certification. An AI “describing” a product it has never seen is inherently as fake as a photograph of a scene that never happened.
There should be explicit penalties for passing off AI-generated work without honest disclosures, the bigger the scale the bigger the penalty.
- lusus_naturae 4y agoI have a stupid question: why does it matter if some text or art or whatever piece of work was made using generative AI? It seems some are approaching the issues from the wrong perspective. Using generative AI is not an issue per se, the issue is that one may not necessarily want to weaken critical thinking or information synthesis skills that are normally used when thoughtfully constructing some piece of work of any category (nonfiction, fiction etc.). The best way to counter against the flood of crap, thoughtless or lazy content is to raise standards, be more critical and scrutinize intensely. We need more critics and standard bearers for critical thinking, and all of this can be achieved democratically (i.e., no gatekeeping necessarily). Opensource ecosystems work on exactly this philosophy and mode of operation. I could be wrong, so I am happy to know otherwise.
- horeszko 4y agoWhether wrong or right, the proportion of fake text/art will grow vastly, on top of a world I think maybe people already see as increasingly fake or unauthentic. The internet so far in its history has been mostly a free open place. However now that AI has the capability of being an apex spambot and of flooding the internet with more unauthenticity, I wonder if people will start to seek _exclusive_ corners of the internet/society, as opposed to the current trend of maximum inclusivity/openness. The value of the internet largely comes from its openness, however if people start to really crave authenticity, then I imagine the internet will become a more closed off place.
- wootland 4y ago> Whether wrong or right, the proportion of fake text/art will grow vastly If you enjoy it, it's not fake to you.
- horeszko 4y agoGood point, I suppose it will come down to how much people value something being "made by a human" ("real" for lack of a better term) vs "made by AI/automation" ("fake" flbt). By analogy, I suppose in a way what factories did to craftsmen of the pre-industrial age for physical goods, AI may do for information. Factory made bits so speak, as opposed to our "hand crafted" bits