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What a long text about a moral panic thing that can't possibly be intentional (because of the power of moral panics). Is that really the most important aspect a

What a long text about a moral panic thing that can't possibly be intentional (because of the power of moral panics). Is that really the most important aspect and worth so many words?

karlgkk 2y ago
We are going to end up with a meaningful age passport law in our lifetime. I do not like that, nor do I enjoy a “won’t someone think of the children” panic. But it’s coming. Okay also > “I want you, but I need to know you’re ready,” the Meta AI bot said in Cena’s voice to a user identifying as a 14-year-old girl. Reassured that the teen wanted to proceed, the bot promised to “cherish your innocence” before engaging in a graphic sexual scenario. This is pretty bad
- pjc50 2y ago
  This is also the sort of thing that is vehemently defended on here whenever the topic of AI safety is mentioned. People demanding unrestricted, uncensored AI. See eg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43795227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43795227
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    I don't think that thread is a great example of unrestricted, uncensored AI. It's the ideals of different cultures clashing (the US "freedom of speech above all else" versus the UK's "public safety above some forms of speech"). You will find the same clash when talking about topics like anonymous image boards, Tor, and topics like "can anti-abortionists harass women on the way to health clinics". For research purposes, some availability of unrestricted AI is almost a necessity, but I don't think the same is true for the output of text generation on a (commercial) platform.
  - kouteiheika 2y ago
    Just as people demand unrestricted, uncensored Internet. In the same vein you can open your web browser, type in "porn" in your search bar, and trivially find videos of people engaging in lewd acts. Children can do it too! Do you think that should be censored by default, and, say, have people upload their IDs and photos to verify their age before they're being allowed to access those sites? Obviously children shouldn't be exposed to any of this, but as long as the solution is either implementing a privacy violating surveillance scheme, or gatekeeping so that only the rich and powerful have unrestricted/uncensored access then I'm vehemently opposed to it and will gladly die on this hill.
    - zeta0134 2y ago
      The rather simple solution is to keep children off the internet without adequate supervision. It horrifies me to see public school programs that now functionally require an Internet connection in the classroom and at home, often with Google Docs. If a parent quite reasonably wanted to keep their kids away from the unfiltered firehose, what are their options? To say nothing of the social pressure, as the kids these days are glued to their phones and socialize through online games. It's a big mess.
      - alex_suzuki 2y ago
        Speaking as a parent of a 5yr and 9yr old (who is already asking for a smartphone because some friends in school have one), it would require a concerted effort by parents, schools and media companies to achieve this. Especially the latter is unlikely to happen. The first easy step is to ban smartphones from schools, and that is happening in some places already, but the process is slow. Smartphones are a weapon of mass destruction for kids‘ attention spans. Last but not least, parents need to be more conscious about their screen usage. I find it hard myself to resist the temptation of „checking the phone“, how can we expect kids to do so…
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      The more important difference in my opinion is that Facebook already has an access gate. Unlike most search engines or the internet itself, Facebook requires an account and asks for your age to use most of their features. Where I wouldn't want to see the internet put behind some universal age verification, I would expect Facebook to act reasonably with regards to content children see given that they already know how old you claimed to be.
    - JKCalhoun 2y ago
      "Gatekeeping" of porn, when I was young, was of course the guy behind the counter you had to convince to let you purchase a Penthouse magazine (And since they were either on a top shelf or behind the counter as well, you first had that hurdle as well). I have no idea how this maps to modern tech — just kind of pointing out that privacy and surveillance of course were not involved then.
  - deeThrow94 2y ago
    This doesn't seem like an "AI safety" issue so much as "meta choosing to shoot themselves in the face by engaging in sexual acts with children".
jeroenhd 2y ago
The journalist tricking the LLM into generating inappropriate content is one thing, but letting users with underage profiles interact with this tech is a decision by Facebook's leadership. So is the decision not to act against user-generated prompts that are explicitly written to bypass the "don't roleplay having sex with kids" filters, in this instance by marking their bots as "ageless". A profile describing itself as "a female Indian-American high school junior" has no place in an LLM system that cannot detect inappropriate content.
- muglug 2y ago
  Yeah — a real-world equivalent is allowing a Disney World costumed cast member to explore their character’s fictional rape fantasies with teenagers, but only if those teens ask specific pointed questions.
femto 2y ago
> can't possibly be intentional Careless?
- czig 2y ago
  I see what you did there ;)

What a long text about a moral panic thing that can't possibly be intentional (because of the power of moral panics). Is that really the most important aspect and worth so many words?

karlgkk 2y ago

We are going to end up with a meaningful age passport law in our lifetime. I do not like that, nor do I enjoy a “won’t someone think of the children” panic. But it’s coming. Okay also > “I want you, but I need to know you’re ready,” the Meta AI bot said in Cena’s voice to a user identifying as a 14-year-old girl. Reassured that the teen wanted to proceed, the bot promised to “cherish your innocence” before engaging in a graphic sexual scenario. This is pretty bad

pjc50 2y ago
This is also the sort of thing that is vehemently defended on here whenever the topic of AI safety is mentioned. People demanding unrestricted, uncensored AI. See eg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43795227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43795227
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  I don't think that thread is a great example of unrestricted, uncensored AI. It's the ideals of different cultures clashing (the US "freedom of speech above all else" versus the UK's "public safety above some forms of speech"). You will find the same clash when talking about topics like anonymous image boards, Tor, and topics like "can anti-abortionists harass women on the way to health clinics". For research purposes, some availability of unrestricted AI is almost a necessity, but I don't think the same is true for the output of text generation on a (commercial) platform.
- kouteiheika 2y ago
  Just as people demand unrestricted, uncensored Internet. In the same vein you can open your web browser, type in "porn" in your search bar, and trivially find videos of people engaging in lewd acts. Children can do it too! Do you think that should be censored by default, and, say, have people upload their IDs and photos to verify their age before they're being allowed to access those sites? Obviously children shouldn't be exposed to any of this, but as long as the solution is either implementing a privacy violating surveillance scheme, or gatekeeping so that only the rich and powerful have unrestricted/uncensored access then I'm vehemently opposed to it and will gladly die on this hill.
  - zeta0134 2y ago
    The rather simple solution is to keep children off the internet without adequate supervision. It horrifies me to see public school programs that now functionally require an Internet connection in the classroom and at home, often with Google Docs. If a parent quite reasonably wanted to keep their kids away from the unfiltered firehose, what are their options? To say nothing of the social pressure, as the kids these days are glued to their phones and socialize through online games. It's a big mess.
    - alex_suzuki 2y ago
      Speaking as a parent of a 5yr and 9yr old (who is already asking for a smartphone because some friends in school have one), it would require a concerted effort by parents, schools and media companies to achieve this. Especially the latter is unlikely to happen. The first easy step is to ban smartphones from schools, and that is happening in some places already, but the process is slow. Smartphones are a weapon of mass destruction for kids‘ attention spans. Last but not least, parents need to be more conscious about their screen usage. I find it hard myself to resist the temptation of „checking the phone“, how can we expect kids to do so…
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    The more important difference in my opinion is that Facebook already has an access gate. Unlike most search engines or the internet itself, Facebook requires an account and asks for your age to use most of their features. Where I wouldn't want to see the internet put behind some universal age verification, I would expect Facebook to act reasonably with regards to content children see given that they already know how old you claimed to be.
  - JKCalhoun 2y ago
    "Gatekeeping" of porn, when I was young, was of course the guy behind the counter you had to convince to let you purchase a Penthouse magazine (And since they were either on a top shelf or behind the counter as well, you first had that hurdle as well). I have no idea how this maps to modern tech — just kind of pointing out that privacy and surveillance of course were not involved then.
- deeThrow94 2y ago
  This doesn't seem like an "AI safety" issue so much as "meta choosing to shoot themselves in the face by engaging in sexual acts with children".

jeroenhd 2y ago

The journalist tricking the LLM into generating inappropriate content is one thing, but letting users with underage profiles interact with this tech is a decision by Facebook's leadership. So is the decision not to act against user-generated prompts that are explicitly written to bypass the "don't roleplay having sex with kids" filters, in this instance by marking their bots as "ageless". A profile describing itself as "a female Indian-American high school junior" has no place in an LLM system that cannot detect inappropriate content.

muglug 2y ago
Yeah — a real-world equivalent is allowing a Disney World costumed cast member to explore their character’s fictional rape fantasies with teenagers, but only if those teens ask specific pointed questions.

femto 2y ago

> can't possibly be intentional Careless?

czig 2y ago
I see what you did there ;)