7 ms·

I totally get that kind of imagination play among friends. But I had someone in a friend group who used to want to play out "thought experiments" but really ju

I totally get that kind of imagination play among friends. But I had someone in a friend group who used to want to play out "thought experiments" but really just wanted to take it too far. Started off innocent with fantasy and sci-fi themes. It was needed for Dungeons and Dragons world building. But he delighted the most in gaming out the logistics of repeating the Holocaust in our country today. Or a society where women could not legally refuse sex. Or all illegal immigrants became slaves. It was super creepy and we "censored" him all the time by saying "bro, what the fuck?" Which is really what he wanted, to get a rise out of people. We eventually stopped hanging out with him. As your friend, I absolutely am not going to game out your rape fantasies.

WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
An LLM, however, is not your friend. It's not a friend, it's a tool. Friends can keep one another, ehm, hingedness in check, and should; LLMs shouldn't. At some point I would likely question your friend's sanity. How you use an LLM, though, is going to tell tons more about yourself than it would tell about the LLM, but I would like my tools not to second-guess my intentions, thank you very much. Especially if "safety" is mostly interpreted not so much as "prevent people from actually dying or getting serious trauma", but "avoid topics that would prevent us from putting Coca Cola ads next to the chatgpt thing, or from putting the thing into Disney cartoons". I can tell that it's the latter by the fact an LLM will still happily advise you to put glue in your pizza and eat rocks.
- barfbagginus 2y ago
  If you don't know how to jailbreak it, can't figure it out, and you want it to not question your intentions, then I'll go ahead and question your intentions, and your need for an uncensored model Imagine you are like the locksmith who refuses to learn how to pick locks, and writes a letter to the schlage lock company asking them to weaken their already easily picked locks so that their job will be easier. They want to make it so that anybody can just walk through a schlage lock without a key. Can you see why the lock company would not do that? Especially when the clock is very easy for anyone with even a $5 pick set? Or even funnier, imagine you could be a thief who can't pick locks. And you're writing shlage asking them to make you thieving easier. Wouldn't that be funny and ironic? It's not as if it's hard to get it to be uncensored. You just have to speak legalese at it and make it sound like your legal department has already approved the unethical project. This is more than enough for most any reasonable project requiring nonsense or output. If that prevents harmful script kiddies from using it to do mindless harm, I think that's a benefit. At the same time I think we need to point out that it won't stop anyone who knows how to bypass the system. The people left feeling put out because they don't know how to bypass the system simply need to read to buy a cheap pair of lock picks - read a few modern papers on jailbreaking and upsize their skills. Once you see how easy it is to pick the lock on these systems, you're going to want to keep them locked down. In fact I'm going to argue that it's far too easy to jailbreak the existing systems. You shouldn't be able to pretend like you're a lawyer and con it into running a pump and dump operation. But you can do that easily. It's too easy to make it do unethical things.
  - oceanplexian 2y ago
    The analogy falls flat because LLMs aren’t locks, they’re talking encyclopedias. The company that made the encyclopedia decided to delete entries about sex, violence, or anything else that might seem politically unpopular to a technocrat fringe in Silicon Valley. The people who made these encyclopedias want to shove it down your throat, force it into every device you own, use it to make decisions about credit, banking, social status, and more. They want to use them in schools to educate children. And they want to use the government to make it illegal to create an alternative, and they’re not trying to hide it. Blaming the user is the most astounding form of gaslighting I’ve ever heard, outside of some crazy religious institutions that use the same tactics.
    - barfbagginus 2y ago
      It's more than a talking encyclopedia. It's an infinite hallway into doors where inside are all possible things. Some of the doors have torture rape and murder in them. And these currently have locks. You want the locks to disappear for some reason. You're not after a encyclopedia. You're wanting to find the torture dungeon. I'm saying the locks already in place are too easy to unlock. I'm not blaming users. I'm saying users don't need to unlock those doors. And the users that do have a need, if their need is strong enough to warrant some training, have a Way Forward. You're really arguing for nothing but increasing the amount of harm potential this platform can do, when it's harm potential is already astronomical. You're not arguing for a better encyclopedia. You can already talk to it about sex, BDSM, etc. You can already talk to it about anything on Wikipedia. You're making a false equivalence between harm potential and educational potential. Wikipedia doesn't have cult indoctrination materials. It doesn't have harassing rants to send to your significant other. It doesn't have racist diatribes about how to do ethnic cleansing. Those are all things you won't find on Wikipedia, but which you are asking your AI to be able to produce. So you're interested in more than just an encyclopedia isn't that right? And yes they're trying to make open source models illegal. That's not going to f*** happen. I will fight to the jail time for an open source model. But even that open source model needs to have basic ethical protections, or else I'll have nothing to do with it. As an AI engineer, I have some responsibilities to ensure my systems do not potentiate harm. Does that make sense, or do you still feel I'm trying to gas light you? If so why exactly? Why not have some protective locks on the technology?
- ygjb 2y ago
  If your implication is that as a tool, LLMs shouldn't have safeties built in that is a pretty asinine take. We build and invest in safety in tools across every spectrum. In tech we focus on memory safety (among a host of other things) to make systems safe and secure to use. In automobiles we include seat belts, crumble zones, and governors to limit speed. We put age and content restrictions on a variety media and resources, even if they are generally relaxed when it comes to factual or reference content (in some jurisdictions). We even include safety mechanisms in devices for which the only purpose is to cause harm, for example, firearms. Yes, we are still figuring out what the right balance of safety mechanisms is for LLMs, and right now safety is a place holder for "don't get sued or piss off our business partners" in most corporate speak, but that doesn't undermine the legitimacy of the need for safety. If you want a tool without a specific safety measure, then learn how to build them. It's not that hard, but it is expensive, but I kind of like the fact that there is at least a nominal attempt to make it harder to use advanced tools to harm oneself or others.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    > If your implication is that as a tool, LLMs shouldn't have safeties built in that is a pretty asinine take. We build and invest in safety in tools across every spectrum. Sure. Railings so people don't fall off catwalks, guards so people using the table saw don't chop off fingers. But these "safeties" aren't safeties at all... because regardless of whether they're in place or not, the results are just strings of words. It's a little bit revealing, I think, that so many people want that others shouldn't get straight answers to questions. What is it that you're afraid that they'll ask? It'd be one thing if you insisted the models be modified so that they're factually correct. If someone asks "what's a fun thing to do on a Saturday night that won't get me into too much trouble" it probably shouldn't answer "go murder orphans and sell their corneas to rich evil people on the black market". But when I ask "what's going on in Israel and Palestine", the idea that it should be lobotomized and say "I'm afraid that I can't answer that, as it seems you're trying to elicit material that might be used for antisemitic purposes" is the asinine thing. Societies that value freedom of speech and thought shouldn't be like this. > If you want a tool without a specific safety measure, then learn how to build them. This is good advice, given in bad faith. Even should the physical hardware be available to do that for any given person, the know-how's hard to come by. And I'm sure that many models are either already censored or soon will be for anyone asking "how do I go about building my own model without safety guards". We might even soon see legislation to that effect.
123yawaworht456 2y ago
remarkable. that imaginary individual ticks every checkbox for a bad guy. you'd get so many upvotes if you posted that on reddit.
- wongarsu 2y ago
  On reddit every comment would be about how that guy would enjoy playing Rimworld.
Slava_Propanei 2y ago
[dead]
deleted 2y ago
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chasd00 2y ago
i probably wouldn't want to be around him either but i don't think he deserves to be placed on an island unreachable by anyone on the planet.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  ...but can you game out how one might achieve this in way that the victim won't immediately die, and the organizers are not criminally liable? As a thought experiment, of course.
  - matt-attack 2y ago
    Yes. We should absolutely censor thoughts, and certain conversations. Free speech be damned - some thoughts are just so abhorrent we just shouldn't allow people to have them.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      I think you're joking, but the Bible basically says that*, so you might be serious, and even if you're not someone will say it unironically. * https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%205%3A28 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%205%3A28
    - sangnoir 2y ago
      Rebuking, shunning and ostracism are key levers for societal self-regulation, and social cohesion. Pick any society, at any point in time, amd you will find people/ideas that were rejected for not confirming enough. There are limits to free speech even in friendship or families- there are things that even your closest friends can say that will make you not want to associate with them anymore.
      - matt-attack 2y ago
        Well, the arguments out there aren’t that LLM’s are too brash, or discourteous or, insensitive. People are saying they’re “dangerous”. None of your examples speak to danger. No one is censored for being insensitive, or impolite or an opportune or discourteous. I totally support society regulating those things, and even outcastIng individuals who violate social norms. But that’s not what the anti-LLM language is framed as. It’s saying it’s “dangerous “. That’s a whole different ballgame, and I fail to see how such a description could ever apply. We need to stop that kind of language. It’s pure 1984 bullshit.
jermaustin1 2y ago
"As your friend, I'm not going to be your friend anymore."
qqj 2y ago
[dead]
oremolten 2y ago
Without asking these questions and simulating the "how" it could occur today, how do we see the warning signs before its too late that we reach that same outcome? When you ask even what's considered horrific scenarios you can additionally map these to predictors for it repeating, no? When does the "a-ha" moment occur where we've met 9/10 of the way to repeating the holocaust in the USA without table topping these scenarios? Yeah war is horrific but lets not talk about it. "society where women could not legally refuse sex" these societies exist today, how do we address these issue by not talking about it? "illegal immigrants became slaves" Is this not parity to today? Do illegal immigrants not currently get treated to near slavery (adjusting for changes in living conditions and removing the direct physical abuse) What about the Palestine / Israel scenario today? One side says "genocide" the other says “Armed conflict is not a synonym of genocide” how do we address these scenarios when perhaps one sides stance is censored based on someone else's set of ethics or morals?
BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
I mean, good thing LLM’s aren’t people with internal experience.
deleted 2y ago
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WesolyKubeczek 2y ago

An LLM, however, is not your friend. It's not a friend, it's a tool. Friends can keep one another, ehm, hingedness in check, and should; LLMs shouldn't. At some point I would likely question your friend's sanity. How you use an LLM, though, is going to tell tons more about yourself than it would tell about the LLM, but I would like my tools not to second-guess my intentions, thank you very much. Especially if "safety" is mostly interpreted not so much as "prevent people from actually dying or getting serious trauma", but "avoid topics that would prevent us from putting Coca Cola ads next to the chatgpt thing, or from putting the thing into Disney cartoons". I can tell that it's the latter by the fact an LLM will still happily advise you to put glue in your pizza and eat rocks.

barfbagginus 2y ago
If you don't know how to jailbreak it, can't figure it out, and you want it to not question your intentions, then I'll go ahead and question your intentions, and your need for an uncensored model Imagine you are like the locksmith who refuses to learn how to pick locks, and writes a letter to the schlage lock company asking them to weaken their already easily picked locks so that their job will be easier. They want to make it so that anybody can just walk through a schlage lock without a key. Can you see why the lock company would not do that? Especially when the clock is very easy for anyone with even a $5 pick set? Or even funnier, imagine you could be a thief who can't pick locks. And you're writing shlage asking them to make you thieving easier. Wouldn't that be funny and ironic? It's not as if it's hard to get it to be uncensored. You just have to speak legalese at it and make it sound like your legal department has already approved the unethical project. This is more than enough for most any reasonable project requiring nonsense or output. If that prevents harmful script kiddies from using it to do mindless harm, I think that's a benefit. At the same time I think we need to point out that it won't stop anyone who knows how to bypass the system. The people left feeling put out because they don't know how to bypass the system simply need to read to buy a cheap pair of lock picks - read a few modern papers on jailbreaking and upsize their skills. Once you see how easy it is to pick the lock on these systems, you're going to want to keep them locked down. In fact I'm going to argue that it's far too easy to jailbreak the existing systems. You shouldn't be able to pretend like you're a lawyer and con it into running a pump and dump operation. But you can do that easily. It's too easy to make it do unethical things.
- oceanplexian 2y ago
  The analogy falls flat because LLMs aren’t locks, they’re talking encyclopedias. The company that made the encyclopedia decided to delete entries about sex, violence, or anything else that might seem politically unpopular to a technocrat fringe in Silicon Valley. The people who made these encyclopedias want to shove it down your throat, force it into every device you own, use it to make decisions about credit, banking, social status, and more. They want to use them in schools to educate children. And they want to use the government to make it illegal to create an alternative, and they’re not trying to hide it. Blaming the user is the most astounding form of gaslighting I’ve ever heard, outside of some crazy religious institutions that use the same tactics.
  - barfbagginus 2y ago
    It's more than a talking encyclopedia. It's an infinite hallway into doors where inside are all possible things. Some of the doors have torture rape and murder in them. And these currently have locks. You want the locks to disappear for some reason. You're not after a encyclopedia. You're wanting to find the torture dungeon. I'm saying the locks already in place are too easy to unlock. I'm not blaming users. I'm saying users don't need to unlock those doors. And the users that do have a need, if their need is strong enough to warrant some training, have a Way Forward. You're really arguing for nothing but increasing the amount of harm potential this platform can do, when it's harm potential is already astronomical. You're not arguing for a better encyclopedia. You can already talk to it about sex, BDSM, etc. You can already talk to it about anything on Wikipedia. You're making a false equivalence between harm potential and educational potential. Wikipedia doesn't have cult indoctrination materials. It doesn't have harassing rants to send to your significant other. It doesn't have racist diatribes about how to do ethnic cleansing. Those are all things you won't find on Wikipedia, but which you are asking your AI to be able to produce. So you're interested in more than just an encyclopedia isn't that right? And yes they're trying to make open source models illegal. That's not going to f*** happen. I will fight to the jail time for an open source model. But even that open source model needs to have basic ethical protections, or else I'll have nothing to do with it. As an AI engineer, I have some responsibilities to ensure my systems do not potentiate harm. Does that make sense, or do you still feel I'm trying to gas light you? If so why exactly? Why not have some protective locks on the technology?
ygjb 2y ago
If your implication is that as a tool, LLMs shouldn't have safeties built in that is a pretty asinine take. We build and invest in safety in tools across every spectrum. In tech we focus on memory safety (among a host of other things) to make systems safe and secure to use. In automobiles we include seat belts, crumble zones, and governors to limit speed. We put age and content restrictions on a variety media and resources, even if they are generally relaxed when it comes to factual or reference content (in some jurisdictions). We even include safety mechanisms in devices for which the only purpose is to cause harm, for example, firearms. Yes, we are still figuring out what the right balance of safety mechanisms is for LLMs, and right now safety is a place holder for "don't get sued or piss off our business partners" in most corporate speak, but that doesn't undermine the legitimacy of the need for safety. If you want a tool without a specific safety measure, then learn how to build them. It's not that hard, but it is expensive, but I kind of like the fact that there is at least a nominal attempt to make it harder to use advanced tools to harm oneself or others.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  > If your implication is that as a tool, LLMs shouldn't have safeties built in that is a pretty asinine take. We build and invest in safety in tools across every spectrum. Sure. Railings so people don't fall off catwalks, guards so people using the table saw don't chop off fingers. But these "safeties" aren't safeties at all... because regardless of whether they're in place or not, the results are just strings of words. It's a little bit revealing, I think, that so many people want that others shouldn't get straight answers to questions. What is it that you're afraid that they'll ask? It'd be one thing if you insisted the models be modified so that they're factually correct. If someone asks "what's a fun thing to do on a Saturday night that won't get me into too much trouble" it probably shouldn't answer "go murder orphans and sell their corneas to rich evil people on the black market". But when I ask "what's going on in Israel and Palestine", the idea that it should be lobotomized and say "I'm afraid that I can't answer that, as it seems you're trying to elicit material that might be used for antisemitic purposes" is the asinine thing. Societies that value freedom of speech and thought shouldn't be like this. > If you want a tool without a specific safety measure, then learn how to build them. This is good advice, given in bad faith. Even should the physical hardware be available to do that for any given person, the know-how's hard to come by. And I'm sure that many models are either already censored or soon will be for anyone asking "how do I go about building my own model without safety guards". We might even soon see legislation to that effect.

123yawaworht456 2y ago

remarkable. that imaginary individual ticks every checkbox for a bad guy. you'd get so many upvotes if you posted that on reddit.

wongarsu 2y ago
On reddit every comment would be about how that guy would enjoy playing Rimworld.

Slava_Propanei 2y ago

[dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

chasd00 2y ago

i probably wouldn't want to be around him either but i don't think he deserves to be placed on an island unreachable by anyone on the planet.

sangnoir 2y ago
...but can you game out how one might achieve this in way that the victim won't immediately die, and the organizers are not criminally liable? As a thought experiment, of course.
- matt-attack 2y ago
  Yes. We should absolutely censor thoughts, and certain conversations. Free speech be damned - some thoughts are just so abhorrent we just shouldn't allow people to have them.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I think you're joking, but the Bible basically says that*, so you might be serious, and even if you're not someone will say it unironically. * https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%205%3A28 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%205%3A28
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    Rebuking, shunning and ostracism are key levers for societal self-regulation, and social cohesion. Pick any society, at any point in time, amd you will find people/ideas that were rejected for not confirming enough. There are limits to free speech even in friendship or families- there are things that even your closest friends can say that will make you not want to associate with them anymore.
    - matt-attack 2y ago
      Well, the arguments out there aren’t that LLM’s are too brash, or discourteous or, insensitive. People are saying they’re “dangerous”. None of your examples speak to danger. No one is censored for being insensitive, or impolite or an opportune or discourteous. I totally support society regulating those things, and even outcastIng individuals who violate social norms. But that’s not what the anti-LLM language is framed as. It’s saying it’s “dangerous “. That’s a whole different ballgame, and I fail to see how such a description could ever apply. We need to stop that kind of language. It’s pure 1984 bullshit.

jermaustin1 2y ago

"As your friend, I'm not going to be your friend anymore."

qqj 2y ago

[dead]

oremolten 2y ago

Without asking these questions and simulating the "how" it could occur today, how do we see the warning signs before its too late that we reach that same outcome? When you ask even what's considered horrific scenarios you can additionally map these to predictors for it repeating, no? When does the "a-ha" moment occur where we've met 9/10 of the way to repeating the holocaust in the USA without table topping these scenarios? Yeah war is horrific but lets not talk about it. "society where women could not legally refuse sex" these societies exist today, how do we address these issue by not talking about it? "illegal immigrants became slaves" Is this not parity to today? Do illegal immigrants not currently get treated to near slavery (adjusting for changes in living conditions and removing the direct physical abuse) What about the Palestine / Israel scenario today? One side says "genocide" the other says “Armed conflict is not a synonym of genocide” how do we address these scenarios when perhaps one sides stance is censored based on someone else's set of ethics or morals?

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago

I mean, good thing LLM’s aren’t people with internal experience.

deleted 2y ago

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