Why AI is going to be a shitshow.
Why AI is going to be a shitshow.
I was just watching a tiktok with a black girl going over how race is a social construct. This felt wrong to me so I decided to back check her facts.
(she was right, BTW)
Now I've been using Microsoft's Copilot which is baked into Bing right now. It's fairly robust and sure it has it's quirks but by and large it cuts out the middle man of having to find facts on your own and gives a breakdown of whatever your looking for followed by a list of sources it got it's information from.
So I asked it a simple straightforward question:
"I need a breakdown on the theory behind human race classifications"
And it started to do so. quite well in fact. it started listing historical context behind the question and was just bringing up Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist. He is considered to be a main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative, scientific disciplines. He has been called the "founder of racial classifications."
But right in the middle of the breakdown on him all the previous information disappeared and said, I'm sorry I can't provide you with this information at this time.
I pointed out that it was doing so and quite well.
It said that no it did not provide any information on said subject and we should perhaps look at another subject.
Now nothing i did could have fallen under some sort of racist context. i was looking for historical scientific information. But Bing in it's infinite wisdom felt the subject was too touchy and will not even broach the subject.
When other's, be it corporations or people start to decide which information a person can and cannot access, is a damn slippery slope we better level out before AI starts to roll out en masse.
PS. Google had no trouble giving me the information when i requested it. i just had to look up his name on my own.
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The reason these models are being heavily censored is because big companies are hyper-sensitive to the reputational harm that comes from uncensored (or less-censored) models. This isn't unique to AI; this same dynamic has played out countless times before. One example is content moderation on social media sites: big players like Facebook tend to be more heavy-handed about moderating than small players like Lemmy. The fact small players don't need to worry so much about reputational harm is a significant competitive advantage, since it means they have more freedom to take risks, so this situation is probably temporary.
Also that LLMs have a habit of churning out junk. Microsoft in particular, probably has some extreme restrictions in place after the recent debacle with Sydney/Bing begging someone to leave their wife, and all of that controversy.
They don't need it going full Tay.
I'm told that's called white fragility. It seems inherent to corporate.
You mean to tell me the rich and powerful have a vested interest in watering down of a technology for public consumption, while holding the concentrate for themselves and their pockets?!?
Appreciate the clarity you brought here! ♥️
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying the rich and powerful have a vested interest in not taking risks that jeopardize their power and wealth, because they have more to lose.
Okay! My bad