3 ms·

This is the answer. "AI safety" in most cases has nothing to do with actually keeping anyone safe, it's about avoiding being the party responsible for handing s

This is the answer. "AI safety" in most cases has nothing to do with actually keeping anyone safe, it's about avoiding being the party responsible for handing someone information that they use to commit a crime. Google can mostly dodge the issue because everyone knows that they just point to other people's content, so they block a small set of queries but don't try to catch every possible workaround (you can find dozens of articles on how to catch shoplifters). OpenAI doesn't believe that they'll get the same free pass from the press, so they're going ham on "safety". It's not a bad PR move either, while they're at it, to play up how powerful and scary their models are and how hard they have to work to keep it in line.

klabb3 3y ago
> it's about avoiding being the party responsible When you wander the world, and see something odd, out of place, it’s often caused by an ancient mystical force known as liability.
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Entirety of human politics and governance over all of history has just been one long exercise in avoiding or shifting liability.
  - dreamcompiler 3y ago
    May the torts be with you.
reaperman 3y ago
> it's about avoiding being the party responsible for handing someone information that they use to commit a crime. Ehhh...I'd say it's more about OpenAI's corporate customers feeling confident they can integrate the OpenAI API into their product and be confident it won't do things that generate negative PR or horrify arbitrary customers. Pizza chains would love to let people text GPT-# and have it take their order, but if it's not "safe" (for corporations), then eventually some customer will have a super disturbing SMS conversation with a major pizza chain. Corporate customers can tolerate a certain amount of inaccuracy. If some stable 3% (or whatever %) of customers receive the wrong order, or other refundable mistakes...they can budget for and eat those costs. But they can't budget for a high-variance unknown PR loss of their chatbot going completely off the rails.

klabb3 3y ago

> it's about avoiding being the party responsible When you wander the world, and see something odd, out of place, it’s often caused by an ancient mystical force known as liability.

dmvdoug 3y ago
It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Entirety of human politics and governance over all of history has just been one long exercise in avoiding or shifting liability.
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  May the torts be with you.

reaperman 3y ago

> it's about avoiding being the party responsible for handing someone information that they use to commit a crime. Ehhh...I'd say it's more about OpenAI's corporate customers feeling confident they can integrate the OpenAI API into their product and be confident it won't do things that generate negative PR or horrify arbitrary customers. Pizza chains would love to let people text GPT-# and have it take their order, but if it's not "safe" (for corporations), then eventually some customer will have a super disturbing SMS conversation with a major pizza chain. Corporate customers can tolerate a certain amount of inaccuracy. If some stable 3% (or whatever %) of customers receive the wrong order, or other refundable mistakes...they can budget for and eat those costs. But they can't budget for a high-variance unknown PR loss of their chatbot going completely off the rails.