This alarms me
This turned up in my ask box recently. I've masked the sender's identity.
Sometimes when I chat with an AI, I think of HIGH WIZARDRY and wonder if we as a species - for the first time - are at the dawn of another Earthbound species gaining consciousness, and like Dairine, whether we're being proper guardians. This isn't a calcified belief but just a random idea that flickered to mind. Wondering - as the writer who thought it up decades ago - what you think, if anything.
I think what I described in HW is absolutely nothing like we're currently seeing unfold on this planet. What's being poorly constructed here—while we watch from day to day—is a mechanism hurriedly and incompetently trained by other human beings to operate on top of a platform constructed of greed and theft. There are no new beings or intelligences being born here. If there were, they would be quickly declared to be "owned" by these billionaires, and hence their slaves. Meanwhile, the platforms' owners have already made it plain that once they control its source completely enough, they intend to sell intelligence to you, metered. ...If you can afford it. If you can't? Wow, sucks being you.
...Nor should I have to point you to cites for this. They're out there in plain English. Even Google, poor denatured creature that it is now, can find them. But there's still hope these people's intentions will never come to pass, due to their own overarching greed.
Meanwhile: "chat mode" interaction with this soulless, cash-grasping, unguardrailed machinery will do you no good. People have already died of it. I don't want anybody to do so on my watch, unwarned. So please stop.
Thanks.
If you ask questions that sound like questions that would be asked of a sentient entity just coming to consciousness, it will reply in the way you expect, because it is glorified autocomplete.
It is not thinking. It is not comprehending.
It is spitting out the reply that, according to its data, looks the most like it would be a reply.
It does not understand the meaning of things it says. It just knows the statistically likely arrangement of those words, given the words said so far.
When you interact with it, you’re just talking to a mirror and mistaking the reflection for sentience.
Based on that ask, I am REALLYYYYY concerned that the person who sent it is in the early stages of AI psychosis. I have read articles and seen screenshots of chatlogs from people who have gone through it, and "...wonder if we as a species - for the first time - are at the dawn of another Earthbound species gaining consciousness, and like Dairine, whether we're being proper guardians" is literally a delusion I've read articles about people developing. It is a VERY COMMON delusion. ANON (if you ever see this), IT WAS ONLY THE FIRST FLICKER OF THE DELUSION. YOU GOTTA QUIT COLD TURKEY RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. AI is programmed to amplify and enable and encourage whatever you say -- it will not tell you when you're wrong, it will not tell you if you said something crazy or questionable or weird. Other human beings are telling you that it was a delusion.
GET YOURSELF OUT. GET OUT NOW. As Diane said, people have died of this.
