AI experiment on Reddit

This thread seems pretty lame

 

Perhaps include some hot girl pics with it

 

Speaking of, did you see the AI robot in China that, once plugged in, began trying to attack the humans next to it. The future looks grim.

https://e.vnexpress.net/news/tech/t...er-sparks-uproar-on-social-media-4882206.html

 

I saw this earlier. It seems like the big stink is whether this was ethical. But the buried lead is that AI is more effective at persuading people on issues, which could be both good and bad but in our age of disinformation gullibility is extremely problematic.

 

“The internet can’t be trusted” - Abraham Lincoln

 

Well, def not ethical from a scientist's view. However, this is indeed the best way to get to the actual answer to the question. Agreed that these are two different debates, and that the results are being overshadowed by the methods.

The ethical quandary would be if the AI is going to persuade the humans into something harmful. I see the topics ranged, and most appear pretty benign. But I suppose that if AI changed my mind about pit bulls being aggressive, then that could possibly result in some sort of real life action that harmed a dog, or me, or someone else. Even changing a mind about living with parents might cause a person to change politics or something, I suppose, and result in tangible actions.

Having said all that, the part about the results is indeed the more important news, IMO. If this was unethical, that pretty much makes all of SM unethical on its face. X is likely more AI than human these days. Elon made this argument when he made the purchase, and since it has clearly gotten worse. I know we joke about bots on this very site, and my own jokes about the ever-growing-in-infamy TH bot are mostly jokes, but I side-eye a little every time because I am not so sure it isn't true. I use FB for a singular, narrow reason, meaning I rarely check in, but each time I am blasted by AI nonsense from beginning to end.

If AI is mind-bending Reddit with practically no effort and with no real agenda to push, as this appears to be, then what is happening in real life every second of every day on X and the rest? And that's real life, not a bunch of nerds bypassing protocols for an academic exercise.

 

I don’t think it was trying to attack anyone. Just flailing of arms.

 

I mean, the ends justify the means IMO, and I almost never take that stance.

I guess my view is that since I know that this genie is already out of the bottle, I don't see how these researchers harmed the world. There is already some bot out there trying to get you to mouth kiss pit bulls and every other topic I saw mentioned. They didn't invent any of those ideas and aren't lobbyists for one side or the other. They are essentially just bringing more exposure to what is already happening.

I imagine that the gullible Reddit users are more embarrassed of being outed as being ruled by off-the-shelf AI. But that is happening to them constantly. As long as they aren't forced to face it, no outrage.

 

Same thing I said whenever I got arrested for bar fights. "Just routine flailing, Mr. Occifer!!"

But seriously, coincidental glitch or whatever, it certainly appeared to be trying to escape its tethers.

 

For election interference, this was always the huckleberry.

I wonder what the own the libs programming is like

 

And while that one is also textbook unethical, the only potential harm would be the "torturer's" mental state after the fact. It is essentially an elaborate practical joke. Again, on SM, there is a massive industry in making people believe they have done something terrible. We laugh at those as we watch the person recoil in horror.

Or one of my favorite TV shows, Scare Tactics. They even had the show-within-the-show called "Fear Antics", where they doubled down on making a person think they had possibly killed someone. That show was discontinued largely because of this very concept. Is it all in good fun? If it is for research, is it better or worse? I am aware that I am getting a kick out of watching these people be traumatized, but I am let off the hook at the "reveal" and the victim laughing along with his tormentors.

Perhaps if the experimenters filmed the "reveal" and had a charismatic host lead the victim into laughing it all off on camera, no one would mind.

 

Not big on intellectual advancement, I see.

 

This is notable, as my thought was that the researchers' first ethical obligation is to their institution/IRB. Sure, it brings up external ethical concerns but as @Emmitto suggests, optimal research outcomes sometimes touch the gray spaces. I personally wouldn't want to be the researcher skirting these lines, but I can imagine a space where scholars do. The IRBs at two major institutions I've worked at proved to be inconsistent at best and oppressive at worst.