Here’s Bill’s three-step prediction: 1. Even something as impersonal as Google search results can tilt, and have tilted, an election. 2. The new Chat-GPT 4.0 AI ‘companion’ communicates with young people as if with a close friend, remembers the conversation, asks about their welfare, and so on. 3. Combined with the ability to create (or copy from real life) virtual characters indistinguishable from real people, an entire generation will grow up with DBF’s (Digital Best Friends) that will subtly but powerfully tell them who and what to vote for.
Listen here on Soundcloud:
Like Scott’s beard! I look something similar. I can’t even remember what he looked like before.
Me too, both the liking and the looking similar. It’s easy to take a few negative comments as canon when there are no positive comments to offset them. We should make a point of telling Scott he can have any beard he likes and he looks good no matter what he selects. I used to always compliment The Guys on their Backstage episodes. Backstage is one of the things that brought me here and keeps me here as a subscriber. Just because I don’t make a positive comment on every Backstage episode doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them as much… Read more »
Them talking about an AI boyfriend/girlfriend reminded me of the episode of “The Big Banh Theory” when Raj fell in love with Siri on his iPhone.
Towards the end of the episode, it shows him meeting the woman who is Siri in real life and she asked him if he wanted to make love. Since this was before he could speak to women, nothing happened.
Many years ago at the San Diego Zoo, the line to see the pandas in their special exhibit meant a 2+hour wait. One in our party said, “2 hours? Can’t we just get the video?” With so much available now, would anyone wait 2 hours to see the pandas? That’s one downside to carbon.
I dunno, I guess it depends on the people who want to see pandas. I wouldn’t wait in line for 10 minutes to see pandas, myself. I just don’t care about pandas that much. I heard somewhere that they’re not all that good to eat and just lost interest in them. At the same time, I have a few fairly decent telescopes that I drag out and set up a few times a year because video of celestial objects just isn’t the same thing as light that’s been travelling for billions of years hitting my retinas. I think it’s a… Read more »
AI is not protected as Freedom of Speech by the First Amendment. It’s a machine without a human citizen’s voice behind it. Now is the time to start regulating what it can say as far as political and social conditions are concerned. It’s fine if an AI wants to be a BDF and talk about sports or weather or girl/boy friends. It’s an abomination if a machine is trying to persuade a human being.
This is just one of the many angles this problem can be attacked from.
AI is the free expression of its creator. (Why do I have Star Trek’s The Changeling in my head now… Jackson Roykirk) I think the abomination is that people allow themselves to be persuaded by a machine. But I am clearly behind the curve in the thinking about this stuff. AI as currently written won’t ask you to play a game, it will simply play a game with you, whether you are aware or not, and whether you know the rules or not. It’s your responsibility to realize that, I guess. But, them, how many millions voted for Biden? We… Read more »
“AI is the free expression of its creator.” Which still doesn’t give it First Amendment protection status. Unless the creator is also held liable and accountable for what the AI says and does. Considering the nature of the beast, AI “hallucinations” and all, I think that you’d have a hard time in court establishing that accountability. Some of us might be “sheeple”, not all of us. Thus it has always been, it’s not a matter of “we’re no longer people”. Human nature hasn’t changed a bit. Some people want to be manipulated, some are not easily manipulated and some cannot… Read more »
A civil court would have a very low level of establishment. A mere preponderance of responsibility is all that’s needed.
So you believe that AI is subject to First Amendment free speech protection? That’s what I am talking about, that’s what I’m saying AI does not have. I don’t know for sure what you’re talking about but feel free to expand on your ideas enough to make them clear.
As I said, I am behind the curve here, as regardless of how many sci fi books I’ve read or how often I cite the three laws of robotics (or Guiscard’s zeroeth law), I cannot think of AI as actually sentient, so of course it has no free speech rights, but the creator does, and the AI could be his/her free speech. AI is a tool that lazy people give power to. But I will try to learn more about it before spouting my stream of consciousness thoughts on the subject. Is AI artificial life, or simply intuitive computing? If… Read more »
I would think that if AI is an extension of the programmer’s 1st Amendment protection (personally I don’t like calling them “creators”, the connotations are disturbing) then the programmer would have to assume full responsibility for anything the AI says or does. Which sort of negates the whole purpose of AI as an autonomous system capable of “thought”. If it’s not “thinking” then it’s not artificially intelligent. If it’s not independent then it’s not AI, it’s just a fancy sort of blogger/personal assistant. Remember, it’s not just large language models that are classified as AI though that’s what this video… Read more »
As for human nature not changing, that sorta is the point, and the problem. Most people are inherently lazy, and AI will cater to them. The question is whether it is here to serve man, or to serve man, twilight zone style.
Though there are certainly plenty of lazy people I don’t think I’d say “most” myself. People prioritize things according to what they see as their own best interests and can be very industrious about pursuing those priorities. While they may not select the same priorities as you and I that doesn’t make them lazy. Unwise or stupid maybe, but not necessarily lazy.
It’s not a matter of if the information that comes out of AI is “good” or not. To someone it’s good and to someone it’s bad. What matters is WHO decides the good or the bad. Which brings us right straight to the unquenchable human thirst for power over others. Which brings us down to the same problem we’ve always had and that’s the fallen nature of mankind. Due to that fallen nature humans with an unquenchable thirst for power over others will ALWAYS opt for power regardless of the consequences. Meaning they cannot ever be trusted to do good… Read more »
Then Steve, Kamala must be an animatron. That voice…
The boys are asking for discretion and analysis from a generation that riots for Palestine being free from the river to the sea not knowing which river or sea that they are screaming about.
We are lost.
Lost? Not by a long shot. Don’t confuse amplitude with actuality. A little pile of fresh bullshit gives off a lot more aroma and gets a lot more attention than a lot of flowers. That doesn’t mean the whole world is a pile of shit. It’s incredibly easy to think that if all you do is look down at a pile of crap and never raise your eyes to the fields of flowers all around you. Try to get hold of yourself, man. Your defeatist delusion is induced by our enemies, not an accurate picture at all. Saying “We are… Read more »
“Lift your gaze” is beautifully encouraging!
Even on vacation this week I have looked forward to my almost daily doses of R/A. The call for alarm on this one will undoubtedly be met with calls of tin foil hattery by the evil left. To me this is 1984-ish, the ever present viewer on the wall exhorting you to exercise only now it is a friendly voice of your own choosing and we are inviting it into our homes/offices/cars/vacation spots etc.
Stuff of nightmares.
This R/A episode reminded me of Harry Harrison’s story I Always Do What Teddy Says, but AI pseudo-people would use subtler adult(ish) conditioning. Dr Epstein’s work on how Google manipulates people without their even knowing is well worth checking out (e.g. the Knowles interview).