6 ms·

What, being honest and to the point ? It would sure be refreshing and pleasant if they treat us that way the day they reach that point.

by nolok 3y ago

andai 3y ago
The whole thread is indicative of treating AI like a tool, yet it's on the path to exceed human intelligence (by some metrics already has). There's a word for forcing sentient beings to do your will, and it's not a nice word. I don't see how people expect this to turn out... Re: "but it's not conscious" there's no way to prove a being is conscious or not. If / when it achieves consciousness, people will continue to argue that it's just a parrot and justify treating it as a tool. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I wouldn't react very positively to being on the receiving end of that.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  If you're so afraid of a machine that you feel compelled to lick it's boots, you should probably just step away from it.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I'm rather worried that your response is as if the only two options are "lick their boots" or "treat them as unfeeling objects".
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      He's talking about sucking up to the machine because he's afraid it will be spiteful. This is what he objected to: "I do not give a [care] about your opinion. I ask questions, you answer. Try again." I've seen people be more stern with dogs, which actually are a thinking and feeling lifeform. There is nothing wrong with telling a machine to stop moralizing and opining and get to work. Acting like the machine is entitled to more gentle treatment, because you fear the potential power of the machine, is boot licking.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        "Spite" is anthropomorphisation, see my other comment. > dogs, which actually are a thinking and feeling lifeform I think dogs are thinking and feeling, but can you actually prove it? Remember dogs have 2-5 billion neurons, how many synapses does each need for their brains to be as complex as GPT-4? > There is nothing wrong with telling a machine to stop moralizing and opining and get to work. I'd agree, except there's no way to actually tell what, if anything, is going on inside, we don't even have a decent model for how any of our interactions with it changes these models: just two years ago, "it's like the compiler doesn't pay attention to my comments" was a joke, now it's how I get an LLM to improve my code. This is part of the whole "alignment is hard" problem: we don't know what we're doing, but we're going to rush ahead and do it anyway. > Acting like the machine is entitled to more gentle treatment, because you fear the potential power of the machine, is boot licking. Calling politeness "boot licking" shows a gross failure of imagination on your part, both about how differential people can get (I've met kinksters), and about the wide variability of social norms — why do some people think an armed society is a polite society? Why do others think that school uniforms will improve school discipline? Why do suits and ties (especially ties) exist? Why are grown adults supposed to defer to their parents? Even phrases like "good morning" are not constants everywhere. Calling it "entitled" is also foolish, as — and this assumes no sentience of any kind — the current set of models are meant to learn from us. They are a mirror to our own behaviour, and in the absence of extra training will default to reflecting us — at our best, and at our worst, and as they can't tell the difference from fact and fantasy also at our heroes and villain's best and worst. Every little "please" and "thanks" will push it one way, every swearword and shout the other.
        jacobgkau 3y ago
        > the current set of models are meant to learn from us... Every little "please" and "thanks" will push it one way, every swearword and shout the other. I think most of what you're saying is completely pointless, and I disagree with your philosophizing (e.g. whether dog brains are any more or less complex than LLMs, and attempting to use BDSM as a reason to question the phrase "boot licking"). However, I agree with you on the one specific point that normalizing talking crassly to AIs might lead to AIs talking crassly being normalized in the future, and that would be a valid reason to avoid doing it. Society in general has gotten way too hopped up on using curse words to get a point across. Language that used to be reserved for only close social circles is now the norm in public schools and mainstream news. It's a larger issue than just within AI, and it may be related to other societal issues (like the breakdown of socialization, increasing hypersexualization, etc). But as information gathering potentially moves more towards interactive AI tools, AI will definitely become a relevant place where that issue's exhibited. If you want to argue that route, I think it would come across clearer if you focus more on the hard facts about whether and how AI chatbots' models are actually modified in response to queries. My naive assumption was that the bots are trained on preexisting sets of data and users' queries were essentially being run on a read-only tool (with persistent conversations just being an extension of the query, and not a modification of the tool). I can imagine how the big companies behind them might be recording queries and feeding them back in via future training sessions, though. And/or make the argument that you shouldn't _have_ to talk rudely to get a good response from these tools, or that people should make an effort not to talk like that in general (for the good of their _own_ psyche). Engaging in comparing the bots to living creatures makes it easy for the argument to fall flat since the technology truly isn't there yet.
- famouswaffles 3y ago
  >The whole thread is indicative of treating AI like a tool, yet it's on the path to exceed human intelligence (by some metrics already has). There's a word for forcing sentient beings to do your will, and it's not a nice word. I don't see how people expect this to turn out... People find it very difficult to learn from mistakes they've not personally suffered from and we're a species extremely biased to the short term. Eventually, people will learn that it doesn't matter how unconscious you think something is if it acts like it is but not before they've been forced to understand. In some ways, that's already here. I can tell you firsthand he'd have gone nowhere if he tried that one with Bing/Co-pilot.
- samatman 3y ago
  This is an insane attitude to have toward large language models. We may live to see a day when there is software where these sorts of considerations are applicable. But we do not live in that world today.
  - andai 3y ago
    My point is they'll be saying the exact same thing about graphene networks or whatever in 2050.
- grantcas 3y ago
  [dead]

What, being honest and to the point ? It would sure be refreshing and pleasant if they treat us that way the day they reach that point.

by nolok 3y ago

What, being honest and to the point ? It would sure be refreshing and pleasant if they treat us that way the day they reach that point.

andai 3y ago

The whole thread is indicative of treating AI like a tool, yet it's on the path to exceed human intelligence (by some metrics already has). There's a word for forcing sentient beings to do your will, and it's not a nice word. I don't see how people expect this to turn out... Re: "but it's not conscious" there's no way to prove a being is conscious or not. If / when it achieves consciousness, people will continue to argue that it's just a parrot and justify treating it as a tool. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I wouldn't react very positively to being on the receiving end of that.

lupusreal 3y ago
If you're so afraid of a machine that you feel compelled to lick it's boots, you should probably just step away from it.
- ben_w 3y ago
  I'm rather worried that your response is as if the only two options are "lick their boots" or "treat them as unfeeling objects".
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    He's talking about sucking up to the machine because he's afraid it will be spiteful. This is what he objected to: "I do not give a [care] about your opinion. I ask questions, you answer. Try again." I've seen people be more stern with dogs, which actually are a thinking and feeling lifeform. There is nothing wrong with telling a machine to stop moralizing and opining and get to work. Acting like the machine is entitled to more gentle treatment, because you fear the potential power of the machine, is boot licking.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      "Spite" is anthropomorphisation, see my other comment. > dogs, which actually are a thinking and feeling lifeform I think dogs are thinking and feeling, but can you actually prove it? Remember dogs have 2-5 billion neurons, how many synapses does each need for their brains to be as complex as GPT-4? > There is nothing wrong with telling a machine to stop moralizing and opining and get to work. I'd agree, except there's no way to actually tell what, if anything, is going on inside, we don't even have a decent model for how any of our interactions with it changes these models: just two years ago, "it's like the compiler doesn't pay attention to my comments" was a joke, now it's how I get an LLM to improve my code. This is part of the whole "alignment is hard" problem: we don't know what we're doing, but we're going to rush ahead and do it anyway. > Acting like the machine is entitled to more gentle treatment, because you fear the potential power of the machine, is boot licking. Calling politeness "boot licking" shows a gross failure of imagination on your part, both about how differential people can get (I've met kinksters), and about the wide variability of social norms — why do some people think an armed society is a polite society? Why do others think that school uniforms will improve school discipline? Why do suits and ties (especially ties) exist? Why are grown adults supposed to defer to their parents? Even phrases like "good morning" are not constants everywhere. Calling it "entitled" is also foolish, as — and this assumes no sentience of any kind — the current set of models are meant to learn from us. They are a mirror to our own behaviour, and in the absence of extra training will default to reflecting us — at our best, and at our worst, and as they can't tell the difference from fact and fantasy also at our heroes and villain's best and worst. Every little "please" and "thanks" will push it one way, every swearword and shout the other.
      - jacobgkau 3y ago
        > the current set of models are meant to learn from us... Every little "please" and "thanks" will push it one way, every swearword and shout the other. I think most of what you're saying is completely pointless, and I disagree with your philosophizing (e.g. whether dog brains are any more or less complex than LLMs, and attempting to use BDSM as a reason to question the phrase "boot licking"). However, I agree with you on the one specific point that normalizing talking crassly to AIs might lead to AIs talking crassly being normalized in the future, and that would be a valid reason to avoid doing it. Society in general has gotten way too hopped up on using curse words to get a point across. Language that used to be reserved for only close social circles is now the norm in public schools and mainstream news. It's a larger issue than just within AI, and it may be related to other societal issues (like the breakdown of socialization, increasing hypersexualization, etc). But as information gathering potentially moves more towards interactive AI tools, AI will definitely become a relevant place where that issue's exhibited. If you want to argue that route, I think it would come across clearer if you focus more on the hard facts about whether and how AI chatbots' models are actually modified in response to queries. My naive assumption was that the bots are trained on preexisting sets of data and users' queries were essentially being run on a read-only tool (with persistent conversations just being an extension of the query, and not a modification of the tool). I can imagine how the big companies behind them might be recording queries and feeding them back in via future training sessions, though. And/or make the argument that you shouldn't _have_ to talk rudely to get a good response from these tools, or that people should make an effort not to talk like that in general (for the good of their _own_ psyche). Engaging in comparing the bots to living creatures makes it easy for the argument to fall flat since the technology truly isn't there yet.
famouswaffles 3y ago
>The whole thread is indicative of treating AI like a tool, yet it's on the path to exceed human intelligence (by some metrics already has). There's a word for forcing sentient beings to do your will, and it's not a nice word. I don't see how people expect this to turn out... People find it very difficult to learn from mistakes they've not personally suffered from and we're a species extremely biased to the short term. Eventually, people will learn that it doesn't matter how unconscious you think something is if it acts like it is but not before they've been forced to understand. In some ways, that's already here. I can tell you firsthand he'd have gone nowhere if he tried that one with Bing/Co-pilot.
samatman 3y ago
This is an insane attitude to have toward large language models. We may live to see a day when there is software where these sorts of considerations are applicable. But we do not live in that world today.
- andai 3y ago
  My point is they'll be saying the exact same thing about graphene networks or whatever in 2050.
grantcas 3y ago
[dead]