4 ms·

> it's hugely beneficial to our species. Perhaps the biggest “needs citation” statement of our time.

Terr_ 2y ago
I can easily imagine people X decades from now discussing this stuff a bit like how we now view teeth-whitening radium toothpaste and putting asbestos in everything, or perhaps more like the abuse of Social Security numbers as authentication and redlining. Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed." P.S.: For example, imagine having applications for jobs and loans rejected because all the companies' internal LLM tooling is secretly racist against subtle grammar-traces in your writing or social-media profile. [0] [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5
- 5040 2y ago
  >lots of people suffered As someone surrounded by immigrants using ChatGPT to navigate new environs they barely understand, I don't connect at all to these claims that AI is a cancer ruining everything. I just don't get it.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > immigrants using ChatGPT to navigate new environs To continue one of the analogies: Plenty of people and industries legitimately benefited from the safety and cost-savings of asbestos insulation too, at least in the short run. Even today there are cases where one could argue it's still the best material for the job--if constructed and handled correctly. (Ditto for ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons.) However over the decades its production and use grew to be over/mis-used in so very many ways, including--very ironically--respirators and masks that the user would put on their face and breathe through. I'm not arguing LLMs have no reasonable uses, but rather that there are a lot of very tempting ways for institutions to slot them in which will cause chronic and subtle problems, especially when they are being marketed as a panacea.
- hadlock 2y ago
  > Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed." We have a term for that, it's called "luddite". Those were english weavers who would break in to textile factories and destroy weaving machines at the beginning of the 1800s. With the extreme rare exception, all cloth is woven by machines now. The only hand made textiles in modern society are exceptionally fancy rugs, and knit scarves from grandma. All the clothing you're wearing now are woven by a machine, and nobody gives this a second thought today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
  - WalterSear 2y ago
    So, "I'm all right, Jack", to use another Victorian era colloquialism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack Except, we are all Jack.
  - archagon 2y ago
    As I recall, the Luddites were reacting to the replacement of their jobs with industrialized low-cost labor. Today, many of our clothes are made in sweatshops using what amounts to child and slave labor. Maybe it would have been better for humanity if the Luddites won.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      No, it would not have been better for humanity if the Luddites had won. You'd have to be misguided, ignorant, or both to believe something like that. It is not possible to rehabilitate the Luddites. If you insist on attempting to do so, there are better venues.
      - archagon 2y ago
        This venue seems great to me. The topic has come up many times in the past: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=luddite https://hn.algolia.com/?q=luddite
- squigz 2y ago
  > P.S.: For example, imagine having applications for jobs and loans rejected because all the companies' internal LLM tooling is secretly racist against subtle grammar-traces in your writing or social-media profile. [0] We don't have to imagine such things, really, as that's extremely common with humans. I would argue that fixing such flaws in LLMs is a lot easier than fixing it in humans.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Fixing it with careful application of software-in-general is quite promising, but LLMs in particular are a terrible minefield of infinite whack-a-mole. (A mixed metaphor, but the imagery is strangely attractive.) I currently work in the HR-tech space, so suppose someone has a not-too-crazy proposal of using an LLM to reword cover-letters to reduce potential bias in hiring. The issue is that the LLM will impart its own spin(s) on things, even when a human would say two inputs are functionally identical. As a very hypothetical example, suppose one candidate always does stuff like writing out the Latin like Juris Doctor instead of acronyms like JD, and then that causes the model to end up on "extremely qualified at" instead of "very qualified at" The issue of deliberate attempts to corrupt the LLM with prompt-injection or poisonous training data are a whole 'nother can of minefield whack-a-moles. (OK, yeah, too far there.)
    - squigz 2y ago
      I don't think I disagree with you in principle, although I think these issues also apply to humans. I think even your particular example isn't a very far-fetched conclusion for a human to arrive at. I just don't think your original comment was entirely fair. IMO, LLMs and related technology will be looked at similarly as the Internet - certainly it has been used for bad, but I think the good far outweighs the bad, and I think we have (and continue to) learn to deal with the issues with it, just as we will with LLMs and AI. (FWIW, I'm not trying to ignore the ways this technology will be abused, or advocate for the crazy capitalistic tendency of shoving LLMs in everything. I just think the potential for good here is huge, and we should be just as aware of that as the issues) (Also FWIW, I appreciate your entirely reasonable comment. There's far too many extreme opinions on this topic from all sides.)
5040 2y ago
Sometimes it seems like problem-solving itself is being problematized as if solving problems wasn't an obvious good.
- ang_cire 2y ago
  Not everything presented as a problem is, in fact, a problem. A solution for something that is not broken, may even induce breakage. Some not-problems, presented as though they are: "How can we prevent the untimely eradication of Polio?" "How can we prevent bot network operators from being unfairly excluded from online political discussions?" "How can we enable context-and-content-unaware text generation mechanisms to propagate throughout society?"
- itishappy 2y ago
  Solving problems isn't an obvious good, or at least it shouldn't be. There are in fact bad problems. For example, MKUltra tried to solve a problem: "How can I manipulate my fellow man?" That problem still exists today, and you bet AI is being employed to try to solve it. History is littered with problems such as these.
jstummbillig 2y ago
It does not need a citation. There is no citation. What it needs, right now, is optimism. Optimism is not optional when it comes to doing new things in the world. The "needs citation" is reserved for people who do nothing and chose to be sceptics until things are super obvious. Yes, we are clearly talking about things to mostly still come here. But if you assign a 0 until its a 1 you are just signing out of advancing anything that's remotely interesting. If you are able to see a path to 1 on AI, at this point, then I don't know how you would justify not giving it our all. If you see a path and in the end using all of human knowledge up to this point was needed to make AI work for us, we must do that. What could possibly be more beneficial to us? This is regardless of all issues the will have to be solved and the enormous amount of societal responsibility this puts on AI makers — which I, as a voter, will absolutely hold them accountable for (even though I am actually fairly optimistic they all feel the responsibility and are somewhat spooked by it too). But that does not mean I think it's responsible to try and stop them at this point — which the copyright debate absolutely does. It would simply shut down 95% of AI, tomorrow, without any other viable alternative around. I don't understand how that is a serious option for anyone who roots for us.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > It would simply shut down 95% of AI, tomorrow, without any other viable alternative around. Oh, the humanity! Who will write our third-rate erotica and Russian misinformation in a post-AI world?
- dartos 2y ago
  Hey, I have some magic beans to sell you. I don’t think that the consumer LLMs that openai is pioneering is what need optimism. AlphaFold and other uses of the fundamental technology behind LLMs need hype. Not OpenAI
  - 0perator 2y ago
    Pretty sure Alphabet projects don't need hype.
    - 2y ago
CamperBob2 2y ago
The burden of proof is on the people claiming that a powerful new technology won't ultimately improve our lives. They can start by pointing out all the instances in which their ancestors have proven correct after saying the same thing.

I can easily imagine people X decades from now discussing this stuff a bit like how we now view teeth-whitening radium toothpaste and putting asbestos in everything, or perhaps more like the abuse of Social Security numbers as authentication and redlining. Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed." P.S.: For example, imagine having applications for jobs and loans rejected because all the companies' internal LLM tooling is secretly racist against subtle grammar-traces in your writing or social-media profile. [0] [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5

5040 2y ago
>lots of people suffered As someone surrounded by immigrants using ChatGPT to navigate new environs they barely understand, I don't connect at all to these claims that AI is a cancer ruining everything. I just don't get it.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > immigrants using ChatGPT to navigate new environs To continue one of the analogies: Plenty of people and industries legitimately benefited from the safety and cost-savings of asbestos insulation too, at least in the short run. Even today there are cases where one could argue it's still the best material for the job--if constructed and handled correctly. (Ditto for ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons.) However over the decades its production and use grew to be over/mis-used in so very many ways, including--very ironically--respirators and masks that the user would put on their face and breathe through. I'm not arguing LLMs have no reasonable uses, but rather that there are a lot of very tempting ways for institutions to slot them in which will cause chronic and subtle problems, especially when they are being marketed as a panacea.
hadlock 2y ago
> Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed." We have a term for that, it's called "luddite". Those were english weavers who would break in to textile factories and destroy weaving machines at the beginning of the 1800s. With the extreme rare exception, all cloth is woven by machines now. The only hand made textiles in modern society are exceptionally fancy rugs, and knit scarves from grandma. All the clothing you're wearing now are woven by a machine, and nobody gives this a second thought today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
- WalterSear 2y ago
  So, "I'm all right, Jack", to use another Victorian era colloquialism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack Except, we are all Jack.
- archagon 2y ago
  As I recall, the Luddites were reacting to the replacement of their jobs with industrialized low-cost labor. Today, many of our clothes are made in sweatshops using what amounts to child and slave labor. Maybe it would have been better for humanity if the Luddites won.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    No, it would not have been better for humanity if the Luddites had won. You'd have to be misguided, ignorant, or both to believe something like that. It is not possible to rehabilitate the Luddites. If you insist on attempting to do so, there are better venues.
    - archagon 2y ago
      This venue seems great to me. The topic has come up many times in the past: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=luddite https://hn.algolia.com/?q=luddite
squigz 2y ago
> P.S.: For example, imagine having applications for jobs and loans rejected because all the companies' internal LLM tooling is secretly racist against subtle grammar-traces in your writing or social-media profile. [0] We don't have to imagine such things, really, as that's extremely common with humans. I would argue that fixing such flaws in LLMs is a lot easier than fixing it in humans.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Fixing it with careful application of software-in-general is quite promising, but LLMs in particular are a terrible minefield of infinite whack-a-mole. (A mixed metaphor, but the imagery is strangely attractive.) I currently work in the HR-tech space, so suppose someone has a not-too-crazy proposal of using an LLM to reword cover-letters to reduce potential bias in hiring. The issue is that the LLM will impart its own spin(s) on things, even when a human would say two inputs are functionally identical. As a very hypothetical example, suppose one candidate always does stuff like writing out the Latin like Juris Doctor instead of acronyms like JD, and then that causes the model to end up on "extremely qualified at" instead of "very qualified at" The issue of deliberate attempts to corrupt the LLM with prompt-injection or poisonous training data are a whole 'nother can of minefield whack-a-moles. (OK, yeah, too far there.)
  - squigz 2y ago
    I don't think I disagree with you in principle, although I think these issues also apply to humans. I think even your particular example isn't a very far-fetched conclusion for a human to arrive at. I just don't think your original comment was entirely fair. IMO, LLMs and related technology will be looked at similarly as the Internet - certainly it has been used for bad, but I think the good far outweighs the bad, and I think we have (and continue to) learn to deal with the issues with it, just as we will with LLMs and AI. (FWIW, I'm not trying to ignore the ways this technology will be abused, or advocate for the crazy capitalistic tendency of shoving LLMs in everything. I just think the potential for good here is huge, and we should be just as aware of that as the issues) (Also FWIW, I appreciate your entirely reasonable comment. There's far too many extreme opinions on this topic from all sides.)

5040 2y ago

Sometimes it seems like problem-solving itself is being problematized as if solving problems wasn't an obvious good.

ang_cire 2y ago
Not everything presented as a problem is, in fact, a problem. A solution for something that is not broken, may even induce breakage. Some not-problems, presented as though they are: "How can we prevent the untimely eradication of Polio?" "How can we prevent bot network operators from being unfairly excluded from online political discussions?" "How can we enable context-and-content-unaware text generation mechanisms to propagate throughout society?"
itishappy 2y ago
Solving problems isn't an obvious good, or at least it shouldn't be. There are in fact bad problems. For example, MKUltra tried to solve a problem: "How can I manipulate my fellow man?" That problem still exists today, and you bet AI is being employed to try to solve it. History is littered with problems such as these.

jstummbillig 2y ago

It does not need a citation. There is no citation. What it needs, right now, is optimism. Optimism is not optional when it comes to doing new things in the world. The "needs citation" is reserved for people who do nothing and chose to be sceptics until things are super obvious. Yes, we are clearly talking about things to mostly still come here. But if you assign a 0 until its a 1 you are just signing out of advancing anything that's remotely interesting. If you are able to see a path to 1 on AI, at this point, then I don't know how you would justify not giving it our all. If you see a path and in the end using all of human knowledge up to this point was needed to make AI work for us, we must do that. What could possibly be more beneficial to us? This is regardless of all issues the will have to be solved and the enormous amount of societal responsibility this puts on AI makers — which I, as a voter, will absolutely hold them accountable for (even though I am actually fairly optimistic they all feel the responsibility and are somewhat spooked by it too). But that does not mean I think it's responsible to try and stop them at this point — which the copyright debate absolutely does. It would simply shut down 95% of AI, tomorrow, without any other viable alternative around. I don't understand how that is a serious option for anyone who roots for us.

talldayo 2y ago
> It would simply shut down 95% of AI, tomorrow, without any other viable alternative around. Oh, the humanity! Who will write our third-rate erotica and Russian misinformation in a post-AI world?
dartos 2y ago
Hey, I have some magic beans to sell you. I don’t think that the consumer LLMs that openai is pioneering is what need optimism. AlphaFold and other uses of the fundamental technology behind LLMs need hype. Not OpenAI
- 0perator 2y ago
  Pretty sure Alphabet projects don't need hype.
  - 2y ago

CamperBob2 2y ago

The burden of proof is on the people claiming that a powerful new technology won't ultimately improve our lives. They can start by pointing out all the instances in which their ancestors have proven correct after saying the same thing.