Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
The Year A.I. Became the User and We Became the Tool
By Vauhini Vara
Ms. Vara is a journalist and fiction writer. Her forthcoming essay collection, “Searches,” examines how technology is transforming human communication.
Dec. 19, 2023
Paywalled at NYT.
https://archive.md/cZ9ue#selection-419.0-450.0
One of the first things I asked ChatGPT about, early this year, was myself: “What can you tell me about the writer Vauhini Vara?” It told me I’m a journalist (true, though I’m also a fiction writer), that I was born in California (false) and that I’d won a Gerald Loeb Award and a National Magazine Award (false, false).
After that, I got in this habit of inquiring about myself often. Once, it told me Vauhini Vara was the author of a nonfiction book called “Kinsmen and Strangers: Making Peace in the Northern Territory of Australia.” That, too, was false, but I went with it, responding that I had found the reporting to be “fraught and difficult.”
...
The truth is that no matter what I asked ChatGPT, in my early attempts to confound it, OpenAI came out ahead. Engineers had designed it to learn from its encounters with users. And regardless of whether its answers were good, they drew me back to engage with it again and again. A major goal of OpenAI’s, in this first year, has been to get people to use it. In pursuing my power games, then, I’ve done nothing but help it along.
A.I. companies are working hard to fix their products’ flaws. With all the investment the companies are attracting, one imagines that some progress will be made. But even in a hypothetical world in which A.I.’s capabilities are perfected — maybe especially in that world — the power imbalance between A.I.’s creators and its users should make us wary of its insidious reach. ChatGPT’s seeming eagerness not just to introduce itself, to tell us what it is, but also to tell us who we are and what to think is a case in point. Today, when the technology is in its infancy, that power seems novel, even funny. Tomorrow it might not.
After that, I got in this habit of inquiring about myself often. Once, it told me Vauhini Vara was the author of a nonfiction book called “Kinsmen and Strangers: Making Peace in the Northern Territory of Australia.” That, too, was false, but I went with it, responding that I had found the reporting to be “fraught and difficult.”
...
The truth is that no matter what I asked ChatGPT, in my early attempts to confound it, OpenAI came out ahead. Engineers had designed it to learn from its encounters with users. And regardless of whether its answers were good, they drew me back to engage with it again and again. A major goal of OpenAI’s, in this first year, has been to get people to use it. In pursuing my power games, then, I’ve done nothing but help it along.
A.I. companies are working hard to fix their products’ flaws. With all the investment the companies are attracting, one imagines that some progress will be made. But even in a hypothetical world in which A.I.’s capabilities are perfected — maybe especially in that world — the power imbalance between A.I.’s creators and its users should make us wary of its insidious reach. ChatGPT’s seeming eagerness not just to introduce itself, to tell us what it is, but also to tell us who we are and what to think is a case in point. Today, when the technology is in its infancy, that power seems novel, even funny. Tomorrow it might not.
Opinion:
ChatGPT lies, TFG lies.The entire GOP lies.
Is anyone actually trying to be accurate?
OR ARE LIES JUST TOO PROFITABLE TO PASS UP?
We're all just beta testers in this experiment, but results are already being used to write articles, make medical decisions and so forth.
