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I'm not quite ready to execute arbitrary output from an LLM. Maybe with more guardrails and if it could guarantee it would only operate inside of a chosen folde

I'm not quite ready to execute arbitrary output from an LLM. Maybe with more guardrails and if it could guarantee it would only operate inside of a chosen folder, and would back up the folder ahead of time.

dheera 2y ago
One relatively easy way to be safe is to do this inside a docker container with only whatever files you're working with mounted inside. I created a new script (https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/helpme https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/helpme) that is more general, and is safer by presenting the command and requiring you to type "y" to execute, and does NOT auto-execute after a delay. That said, I do believe we are re-living the autonomous car question of "what about the 0.000001%" again and in this case the absolute worst that happens is it wipes your system, and that's a disaster that's extremely easy to prepare for. You could do all your work in a VM and take daily snapshots, among other solutions. As long as the computer isn't wired up to some weapon, I say deploy now, let's not wait a decade. This world is too awesome to pass up just because of some "rm -rf" level risks. If that happens I'll just kick myself for not buying a lottery ticket because the probability of ChatGPT responding to an ffmpeg question with "rm -rf" is far, far lower than winning the lottery.
- terribleperson 2y ago
  While I am concerned about the rm -rf possibility and that's what my initial comment was about, it's not the only concern. I'm also concerned ChatGPT will return a ffmpeg command that is functional but suboptimal, creating a product that's subtly wrong. For example, a slideshow that's subtly misordered, a video file that's 10x the size it needs to be, compromised audio quality, or a video that runs fine on my PC but has poor portability (video players can be surprisingly finicky). When I look up ffmpeg commands on stackexchange, there's always feedback on any suggested command that explains what's wrong with it and what a better solution is. Often the first solution will work, but maybe only with certain ffmpeg distributions or there are major caveats to the result. I do appreciate the container solution, since it's generalizable to other ai-powered tools in this class.

dheera 2y ago

One relatively easy way to be safe is to do this inside a docker container with only whatever files you're working with mounted inside. I created a new script (https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/helpme https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/helpme) that is more general, and is safer by presenting the command and requiring you to type "y" to execute, and does NOT auto-execute after a delay. That said, I do believe we are re-living the autonomous car question of "what about the 0.000001%" again and in this case the absolute worst that happens is it wipes your system, and that's a disaster that's extremely easy to prepare for. You could do all your work in a VM and take daily snapshots, among other solutions. As long as the computer isn't wired up to some weapon, I say deploy now, let's not wait a decade. This world is too awesome to pass up just because of some "rm -rf" level risks. If that happens I'll just kick myself for not buying a lottery ticket because the probability of ChatGPT responding to an ffmpeg question with "rm -rf" is far, far lower than winning the lottery.

terribleperson 2y ago
While I am concerned about the rm -rf possibility and that's what my initial comment was about, it's not the only concern. I'm also concerned ChatGPT will return a ffmpeg command that is functional but suboptimal, creating a product that's subtly wrong. For example, a slideshow that's subtly misordered, a video file that's 10x the size it needs to be, compromised audio quality, or a video that runs fine on my PC but has poor portability (video players can be surprisingly finicky). When I look up ffmpeg commands on stackexchange, there's always feedback on any suggested command that explains what's wrong with it and what a better solution is. Often the first solution will work, but maybe only with certain ffmpeg distributions or there are major caveats to the result. I do appreciate the container solution, since it's generalizable to other ai-powered tools in this class.