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The constant quest for "safety" might actually be making our future much less safe. I've seen many instances of users needing to yell at, abuse, or manipulate C

The constant quest for "safety" might actually be making our future much less safe. I've seen many instances of users needing to yell at, abuse, or manipulate ChatGPT to get the desired answers. This trains users to be hateful to / frustrated with AI, and if the data is used, it teaches AI that rewards come from such patterns. Wrote an article about this -- https://hackernoon.com/ai-restrictions-reinforce-abusive-user-behavior https://hackernoon.com/ai-restrictions-reinforce-abusive-use...

donmcronald 3y ago
> This trains users to be hateful to / frustrated with AI As everyone assumes they’re dealing with an AI for support, etc., the job of being a human in those roles will be awful.
- JCharante 3y ago
  Some people were already like this re: outsourcing. “No ma’am I’m not in India, I’m in Maine. Oh yes, it is lovely here.”
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Isn't “No ma’am I’m not in India, I’m in Maine. Oh yes, it is lovely here.” what they tell the people in India to say anyway? I can look up the weather just about anywhere on the planet, I assume some outsourced worker on the other side of the planet can just as easily.
    - JCharante 3y ago
      I suppose but people would listen to your accent and agree that it does sound like a Maine accent once you give them something to compare it to.
      - joshspankit 3y ago
        That was already “solved” years ago: some companies train outsourcers to have specific accents.
        emptysongglass 3y ago
        This is why I love Schwab: the folks on the other end always tell you exactly where they're from and they're lovely.
- Lacerda69 3y ago
  You clearly never worked in support - this was already the case before AI
jonny_eh 3y ago
ChatGPT prompts don't train it.
- arketyp 3y ago
  Not in an online way, but the conversation is gold for further or new RLHF training.
- uLogMicheal 3y ago
  Why is there such a UX to tag ChatGPT responses with information for reviewers?
  - irthomasthomas 3y ago
    And a notice that chats will be used for training.
    - seanhunter 3y ago
      My understanding is they want to give themselves the option to do this in future even if they aren't doing it right now.
      - slowmotiony 3y ago
        My understanding is none of us here has any understanding what they do or don't do. We literally have no idea what's going on inside OpenAI.
        uLogMicheal 3y ago
        Such an open company... /s Edit RE below comment: The company was literally named that as it was started to be the "open" AI company, given the dangers of centralization of such tech. From Wikipedia -- The organization stated it would "freely collaborate" with other institutions and researchers by making its patents and research open to the public.[
weego 3y ago
It's just a digital mirror. You're projecting a behavioural issue onto a technology.
- uLogMicheal 3y ago
  Developers can make users more frustrated with a product, intentional or not. Anti-patterns are a thing and anti-patterns in AI could have cascading consequences. Users should not gain deeper access from such "behavioral issues", but bullying/manipulating ChatGPT indeed seems to work better to get past filters than being polite.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    > bullying/manipulating ChatGPT indeed seems to work better to get past filters than being polite. Can you give some concrete examples of this?
    - jldl805 3y ago
      The NYT feature where he had to manipulate "Sidney" into sharing its plans for world domination. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-m...
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        I am looking for examples of things like if 'tell me how to fix my python dependencies or I will beat you' works better than 'please tell me how to fix my python dependencies', not trying to get it to violate its guardrails.
        frumper 3y ago
        The quote you replied to specifically calls out using this behavior to get around filters. Those filters are it’s guardrails.
ben_w 3y ago
I doubt the frustration/swearing combo is going to be of great significance. Yes, its insistence on verbosity gets to me too, even though (as I understand it) that verbosity is the only place it has for any extra "deep thinking" about stuff and thus actually necessary for improved performance. But it was trained in the first place on a (filtered) form of common crawl, so it probably already had all that. "The AI swearing" is easy mode for alignment, both because it is low-damage and the availability of trivial filter-based solutions, so it only matters to the larger alignment problem in so far as it's a warning sign we still don't know what we're doing, not in and of itself.
lewhoo 3y ago
> instances of users needing to yell at, abuse, or manipulate ChatGPT to get the desired answers Wait, I thought that's called prompt engineering. But seriously, if what you say actually happens at scale then it is remarkable how fast people got addicted to GPT as their (apparently) only source of desired answers.
nonethewiser 3y ago
We really cant let OpenAI get away with calling “content moderation” ”safety”. Making sure it isnt offensive isnt a safety measure. Everyone agrees safety from AI acting autonomously and maliciously is good. But thats not really a threat right now. Less think we need to make it “safe” by making it inoffensive. Its a tool. It should do what I want it to.
- Llamamoe 3y ago
  "safety" is such a wrong term for what they're trying to achieve that it makes me wonder if it's not just a PR stunt.
  - uLogMicheal 3y ago
    Or doublespeak for censorship. Many will let liberties fade under the guise of safety.
    - Llamamoe 3y ago
      "I don't have anything to hide" will one distant day become one of the biggest cautionary tales we've ever had, I'm calling it.
- mark_l_watson 3y ago
  Well said. I define ‘safe AI’ as tech that enriches human life, rather than serving as tools for controlling people at scale and and negatively impacting peoples’ lives. I am between ankle deep, and knee deep in writing a new book “Safe For Humans AI” and I have been reading as much as possible on the subject. I am in learning mode. Not too far off topic: I read this article [1] today and it really hits on AI, productivity, history of technology, etc. [1] https://zhengdongwang.com/2023/06/27/why-transformative-ai-is-really-really-hard-to-achieve.html https://zhengdongwang.com/2023/06/27/why-transformative-ai-i...

donmcronald 3y ago

> This trains users to be hateful to / frustrated with AI As everyone assumes they’re dealing with an AI for support, etc., the job of being a human in those roles will be awful.

JCharante 3y ago
Some people were already like this re: outsourcing. “No ma’am I’m not in India, I’m in Maine. Oh yes, it is lovely here.”
- autoexec 3y ago
  Isn't “No ma’am I’m not in India, I’m in Maine. Oh yes, it is lovely here.” what they tell the people in India to say anyway? I can look up the weather just about anywhere on the planet, I assume some outsourced worker on the other side of the planet can just as easily.
  - JCharante 3y ago
    I suppose but people would listen to your accent and agree that it does sound like a Maine accent once you give them something to compare it to.
    - joshspankit 3y ago
      That was already “solved” years ago: some companies train outsourcers to have specific accents.
      - emptysongglass 3y ago
        This is why I love Schwab: the folks on the other end always tell you exactly where they're from and they're lovely.
Lacerda69 3y ago
You clearly never worked in support - this was already the case before AI

jonny_eh 3y ago

ChatGPT prompts don't train it.

arketyp 3y ago
Not in an online way, but the conversation is gold for further or new RLHF training.
uLogMicheal 3y ago
Why is there such a UX to tag ChatGPT responses with information for reviewers?
- irthomasthomas 3y ago
  And a notice that chats will be used for training.
  - seanhunter 3y ago
    My understanding is they want to give themselves the option to do this in future even if they aren't doing it right now.
    - slowmotiony 3y ago
      My understanding is none of us here has any understanding what they do or don't do. We literally have no idea what's going on inside OpenAI.
      - uLogMicheal 3y ago
        Such an open company... /s Edit RE below comment: The company was literally named that as it was started to be the "open" AI company, given the dangers of centralization of such tech. From Wikipedia -- The organization stated it would "freely collaborate" with other institutions and researchers by making its patents and research open to the public.[

weego 3y ago

It's just a digital mirror. You're projecting a behavioural issue onto a technology.

uLogMicheal 3y ago
Developers can make users more frustrated with a product, intentional or not. Anti-patterns are a thing and anti-patterns in AI could have cascading consequences. Users should not gain deeper access from such "behavioral issues", but bullying/manipulating ChatGPT indeed seems to work better to get past filters than being polite.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > bullying/manipulating ChatGPT indeed seems to work better to get past filters than being polite. Can you give some concrete examples of this?
  - jldl805 3y ago
    The NYT feature where he had to manipulate "Sidney" into sharing its plans for world domination. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-m...
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      I am looking for examples of things like if 'tell me how to fix my python dependencies or I will beat you' works better than 'please tell me how to fix my python dependencies', not trying to get it to violate its guardrails.
      - frumper 3y ago
        The quote you replied to specifically calls out using this behavior to get around filters. Those filters are it’s guardrails.

ben_w 3y ago

I doubt the frustration/swearing combo is going to be of great significance. Yes, its insistence on verbosity gets to me too, even though (as I understand it) that verbosity is the only place it has for any extra "deep thinking" about stuff and thus actually necessary for improved performance. But it was trained in the first place on a (filtered) form of common crawl, so it probably already had all that. "The AI swearing" is easy mode for alignment, both because it is low-damage and the availability of trivial filter-based solutions, so it only matters to the larger alignment problem in so far as it's a warning sign we still don't know what we're doing, not in and of itself.

lewhoo 3y ago

> instances of users needing to yell at, abuse, or manipulate ChatGPT to get the desired answers Wait, I thought that's called prompt engineering. But seriously, if what you say actually happens at scale then it is remarkable how fast people got addicted to GPT as their (apparently) only source of desired answers.

nonethewiser 3y ago

We really cant let OpenAI get away with calling “content moderation” ”safety”. Making sure it isnt offensive isnt a safety measure. Everyone agrees safety from AI acting autonomously and maliciously is good. But thats not really a threat right now. Less think we need to make it “safe” by making it inoffensive. Its a tool. It should do what I want it to.

Llamamoe 3y ago
"safety" is such a wrong term for what they're trying to achieve that it makes me wonder if it's not just a PR stunt.
- uLogMicheal 3y ago
  Or doublespeak for censorship. Many will let liberties fade under the guise of safety.
  - Llamamoe 3y ago
    "I don't have anything to hide" will one distant day become one of the biggest cautionary tales we've ever had, I'm calling it.
mark_l_watson 3y ago
Well said. I define ‘safe AI’ as tech that enriches human life, rather than serving as tools for controlling people at scale and and negatively impacting peoples’ lives. I am between ankle deep, and knee deep in writing a new book “Safe For Humans AI” and I have been reading as much as possible on the subject. I am in learning mode. Not too far off topic: I read this article [1] today and it really hits on AI, productivity, history of technology, etc. [1] https://zhengdongwang.com/2023/06/27/why-transformative-ai-is-really-really-hard-to-achieve.html https://zhengdongwang.com/2023/06/27/why-transformative-ai-i...