Hacker News Reader

Comment by vouaobrasil | Hacker News Reader

This type of post is exactly why I think humanity is doomed. Instead of carefully considering the social and societal implications of ChatGPT, people are looking at it like it's a toy or a puzzle. I am afraid that when more powerful AI comes around, the most we'll be able to ask is whether it can parse arithmetic statements, rather than whether it could possibly kill us.

View on HN

The risks have been extensively discussed. They don't have to brought up in every conversation.

I believe the risks have not been discussed enough, which is why I am bringing it up. THe vast majority of the risk discussion barely scratches the surface.

I don't completely disagree with you that the risks have not been discussed enough but to me what is much more important is we have absolutely no structures in our society to deal with these risks.

Not only do we not have the structures but we also have no ability to create them. If we did we would have already created them.

Instead we are going to go with the tried and true method we always use:

"What does this button do??" Then push the button and see what happens.

One of the structures we do have is to raise the issue and criticize it through discussion, which is why I often bring this up. A structure of intense and criticial discussion is directly counter to the capitalistic tendencies that have made this software possible. Since almost no one is offering a critical opinion, the people that do already provide some friction and realization against the indiscriminate use of this technology.

Plenty of risk has been discussed. The problem is that it doesn't matter what the odds are of complete cataclysm; there's money to be made and "progress" won't be stopped. I wouldn't be surprised if chatbot muzzling is the only "regulation" we ever see.

Okay, but at this point, just bringing up the risks doesn't contribute anything. To make a contribution, you need to actually say something interesting about them, probably based on some experience or research. Or link to something that does.

I disagree -- disapproval is a strong thing. I think it even helps to stop having a universal "ooh, cool and shiny" attitude towards this garbage.

Ok, I'll ask: Can ChatGPT possibly kill us?

I'll also answer: No, it cannot.

Now that that's out of the way, we can get to discussing more interesting topics, like why an advanced language model is so bad at basic arithmetic.

I find the mistakes that it makes really interesting. They often feel rather human - e.g. if you were to ask me to multiply two large numbers together under time pressure it's likely I could get the number of digits and first few digits right, but make mistakes in the other digits (or just guess).

Down with AI, up with Anthropomorphized Overconfidence

The doom is more likely to come from the energy usage sending global climates further into a tailspin, but dumbing ourselves down isn't likely to help either.

When more powerful AI comes around, we'll have some hope of understanding it and using it safely because we did our toying and puzzling around with its more constrainted ancestors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com