I ran an excerpt of Naked Lunch through ChatGPT just to be mischievous. What came back was something so sterile it isn't worth sharing. Please God don't let anyone run Charles's writing through this sterilizer.
"that literature is nothing more than a lukewarm soup that won’t burn anyone’s tongue."
Savage in a good way.
On ChatGPT and its more advanced cousin Bing Chat, I think one reason these AIs are so disconcerting is that the future evolution of AI poses both potentially unbounded downside risk *and* potentially unbounded upside. There's no consensus on which outcome is more likely, and there won't be consensus for a while, which is also unsettling. There aren't many risks that fall into this bucket (most risks are clearly asymmetric in one direction or another--with either the downside or upside outcome having higher likelihood--and many are also bounded in magnitude on the upside or downside or both).
Unbounded and symmetric is quite the combination, and is a risk that, for an individual making a decision, is easy to walk away from. That sounds like using margin to pick a color in roulette. Although perhaps my analogy doesn't really work in this situation, as the cost of the margin is external. The nightmare scenario with AI affects everyone, and is externalized, while a good portion of any upside to AI will stay internal. And that makes the risk, for the individuals actually doing the work, much easier to take, because it is not symmetric for them. So I think it depends on where you stand. (That latter and more positive outcome would certainly be a net benefit for everyone, but the benefits would be asymmetric.) It is interesting to hear your thoughts—thank you for the comment.
It's more like unbounded with *uncertain* symmetry. It's not symmetric--it will almost certainly turn out to be asymmetric--but it's hard or impossible to tell whether the downside or upside outcome is more likely. The stakes being unbounded on both sides, combined with the uncertainty, is compelling and scary.
You make an excellent point about the upside benefits (if they occur) probably not being distributed as equally as the downside risk (if it occurs). I feel like that's not being discussed enough in the overarching debate, and if you can raise that point's visibility more, it's valuable.
Always enjoy your connecting thoughts. Didn’t know any of that about censorship on Roald and wish people would just write their own attempts at classics then messing with the classics of others. And my main exposure to AI is grammarly, which is always hounding me to write my emails more politely ha!
I ran an excerpt of Naked Lunch through ChatGPT just to be mischievous. What came back was something so sterile it isn't worth sharing. Please God don't let anyone run Charles's writing through this sterilizer.
"that literature is nothing more than a lukewarm soup that won’t burn anyone’s tongue."
Savage in a good way.
On ChatGPT and its more advanced cousin Bing Chat, I think one reason these AIs are so disconcerting is that the future evolution of AI poses both potentially unbounded downside risk *and* potentially unbounded upside. There's no consensus on which outcome is more likely, and there won't be consensus for a while, which is also unsettling. There aren't many risks that fall into this bucket (most risks are clearly asymmetric in one direction or another--with either the downside or upside outcome having higher likelihood--and many are also bounded in magnitude on the upside or downside or both).
Unbounded and symmetric is quite the combination, and is a risk that, for an individual making a decision, is easy to walk away from. That sounds like using margin to pick a color in roulette. Although perhaps my analogy doesn't really work in this situation, as the cost of the margin is external. The nightmare scenario with AI affects everyone, and is externalized, while a good portion of any upside to AI will stay internal. And that makes the risk, for the individuals actually doing the work, much easier to take, because it is not symmetric for them. So I think it depends on where you stand. (That latter and more positive outcome would certainly be a net benefit for everyone, but the benefits would be asymmetric.) It is interesting to hear your thoughts—thank you for the comment.
It's more like unbounded with *uncertain* symmetry. It's not symmetric--it will almost certainly turn out to be asymmetric--but it's hard or impossible to tell whether the downside or upside outcome is more likely. The stakes being unbounded on both sides, combined with the uncertainty, is compelling and scary.
You make an excellent point about the upside benefits (if they occur) probably not being distributed as equally as the downside risk (if it occurs). I feel like that's not being discussed enough in the overarching debate, and if you can raise that point's visibility more, it's valuable.
“If you are uncertain about whether a question is appropriate, it's always a good idea to err on the side of caution and refrain from asking it.”
I hope you gave it an example of profanity for its training data.
Always enjoy your connecting thoughts. Didn’t know any of that about censorship on Roald and wish people would just write their own attempts at classics then messing with the classics of others. And my main exposure to AI is grammarly, which is always hounding me to write my emails more politely ha!