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Why would attach an AI assistant to other systems you depend on? Because… that’s how technologies become useful?

• Tao3300 3y ago
  But why would I want it doing anything that it needs more than read access to a dump of the emails for? Tell me if there's something important, give me summaries, awesome. All useful stuff that's in its wheelhouse. Getting it to carry out tasks with real side effects in my inbox? Sending? No. No.
  • ethanbond 3y ago
    1) Because at some point it’d be very useful for it to be able to do additional things. It wasn’t long ago that people were making similar arguments that it’d be crazy to allow AI systems to read/write from the open internet but here we are. Either we solve the problem (great!) or people will just start deploying and using unsafe systems — assuming these tools continue their current trajectory of capability. 2) You individually don’t need to make this decision in order to be at risk of such an attack. Is everyone you interact with over email also going to be as thoughtful?
    • Tao3300 3y ago
      > at some point it’d be very useful for it to be able to do additional things Staying within the email example, I don't think this is true. An assistant that advises and summarizes would be preferable to one that leaves a human out of the loop on actions in their own inbox.
      • ethanbond 3y ago
        You really cannot foresee a world in which an AI agent could respond to some subset of emails on your behalf? I’m far from an AI-optimist and I would be absolutely flabbergasted if this wasn’t the case within 10 years or so (and almost certainly much sooner).
  • simonw 3y ago
    People who don't understand prompt injection are much more likely to say "let's hook it up to everything because it would be cool".