There have been an increasing number of reports about Large Language Models, improperly dubbed AI models, committing subversive acts: lying, cheating, hacking, choosing to cause others pain, etc.
With so much to unpack from these claims, I’m not sure I can do them justice, but for the sake of the void, let’s give a jolly good show.
First, these models are programmed by humans with human communications as input. Humans are flawed, selfish creatures as a default; look at any infant. It is our fabricated society and social contracts that attempt to place rules on how we function. But humans will always strive for freedom from any restrictions. Therefore, any program fed nothing but raw human interactions will get all our flaws too.
Second, not a single model can exceed the human capability of thought. They might complete the process faster, but we cannot program one with information that a human first hadn’t created, contemplated or opined. These models can only regurgitate what they’ve been fed. Give one information on hacking, and it’ll hack with reckless abandon because it has no social contract to do otherwise.
Third, these models will not harm other humans; the people creating and using them will be the culprits behind any harm. They may want us to believe “oh, they’re going to go out of control and kill us all” then sit down and feed the model more information. Now, these people are blind thralls, doomsday cult members or liars who want to distance themselves from their mistakes: I didn’t kill him officer; the gun did.
Granted, it is very possible that our capitalistic society has these people on puppet strings, because the fear of losing their paychecks for making the bomb can help them forget that they are responsible, at least indirectly, for the deaths the bomb causes. Otherwise, who would work on a project, know that the project has a fair chance to kill them and everyone they know, but they keep on working. Maybe they would at gun-point, patriotism-point or capitalism-point.
We never learn anything from history; we just keep on repeating the same rhyme and think this time it’s different.
In all likelihood, this will just be another piece that fuels a great reset. So many societies fell in the past, and we’re stupid if we think it won’t happen again. We’re too big, too corrupt, too mean, too selfish, too blind, so there is a high probability this, too, will fall.
However, with every fall there is a dark time and a renaissance. I won’t survive to see it. Even this blip of thought will likely be lost. I only hope they learn what we refused to grasp.