AI is going to hack us.

[Ruin Explorer]

The relative amount of regulation these things have bears little relationship to the scientific evidence with regards to level of harm.

And a scientific approach would be to err on the side of caution until more evidence is available.

I feel like the first point is disingenuous, because the only way it can be argued to be true is that alcohol and gambling are under-regulated when compared to the massive weight of evidence about the very real harms associated with them. But they are still "heavily regulated", as you actually previously agreed. And that there is less regulation than there probably should be is connected directly to the political and cultural structures underpinning our societies (and, with gambling, huge amounts of lobbying money).

Re: the second point, that's laughable because no society on this planet operates that way, nor could they, given that literally any new technology or even just behaviour (like exercise routines) is immediately labelled as "addictive" by a bunch of dubiously-motivated, totally unqualified people (and even a few crackpot or quack medical doctors and psychiatrists, to boot, usually).

So no, the "scientific approach" is absolutely not to "assume harm" from an AI chatbots until you have what, decades of studies proving otherwise? That's just not how it works, and at best seems like motivated reasoning based on a dislike of said AI chatbots (I dislike I share, note, but come on, let's do better than the guy who wrote this article, not just as badly). I don't know any basis on which you could make that claim. If that were the case, we'd have banned TVs, banned jogging, banned shopping, banned videogames, banned sex, and so on*. There's barely anything we wouldn't have banned, given the amount of "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water"-type absolute bollocks out there. You can still find piles of papers claiming obviously non-addictive stuff like 1990s videogames are "deeply addictive", but at least actual effort was involved there, not an embarrassing blog post somehow published in Forbes, apparently entirely free of the sinful hand of an editor!

The actual scientific approach would be to do studies with an open mind, looking for best evidence. And to do that you'd need actual skilled, qualified professionals, primarily psychiatrists and those in related fields.

* = To be real, there are an absolute ton of broadsheet columnists who have advocated for banning all these things, and some who do to this day. But broadsheet columnists are among the very worst of humanity, the true bottom of the barrel, so hardly to be emulated!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I feel like the first point is disingenuous, because the only way it can be argued to be true is that alcohol and gambling are under-regulated when compared to the massive weight of evidence about the very real harms associated with them. But they are still "heavily regulated", as you actually previously agreed

Gambling is very under regulated in the UK, and is very comparable to AI (and social media) addiction, since it is psychological, and tied to the brain accepting false narratives.

Re: the second point, that's laughable because no society on this planet operates that way

Science operates that way.

That society tends not to is not an argument that society is right.

 

[Corinnguard]

meanwhile

Elon Musk’s Grok AI Has a Problem: It’s Too Accurate for Conservatives

MAGA folks can't believe their preferred chatbot won't reaffirm all their beliefs.

gizmodo.com

I saw this article a couple days ago. It was pretty amusing to read how an AI wasn't a big help at reinforcing the conservatives' narrative about reality. Reality just is and can't be narrated by anybody.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

is very comparable to AI (and social media) addiction

No.

This is unproven nonsense with no scientific basis. "AI addiction", from a scientific perspective, is an absolute fiction. There are properly-conducted, medically-based studies that actually support it existing, at least that I am aware of. The article author certainly couldn't find any.

Social media addiction is similarly without any real evidence. It's just another "this is a new thing some people do too much, so people are addicts!", just like with TV, some forms of exercise, and so on in the past.

Actual studies suggest social media addiction is absolute nonsense:

https://www.science.org/content/article/social-media-addictive-digital-detox-study-suggests-not

Social media use is not an addictive behavior

The study examined whether social media users have an "attentional bias," which is a hallmark of addictive behavior such as gambling and alcohol.

www.earth.com

Gambling addiction isn't just about "false narratives", either - that's a serious misunderstanding on your part if you actually believe that (I suspect you do not, and are using it merely as an argument). It taps into deeper issues with human reward-based behaviours, which are far, far below the conscious level of "false narratives". The false narratives involved are essentially backfill/rationalizations people use to explain their own behaviour to themselves, not the cause of the behaviour, particularly not the cause of the addictive nature of the behaviour.

We should also make the distinction between strong "habitual" behaviour and addiction here. People often misuse "addiction" to mean merely habitual behaviours. Habitual behaviours can be very problematic, and can be quite strong, but they are not the same thing as addictions, and it is unhelpful to everyone involved to treat them as if they are the same thing.

As an aside, I agree that gambling is significantly under-regulated in the UK (despite being "heavily regulated" in a relative sense), but this is because of a combination of UK culture, which has been permeated by organised gambling since long before much science was done on the subject (and gambling is still a part of elite and aspirational UK culture, see horseracing etc.), and sustained and expensive lobbying and frankly attempted buying-off of politicians by the massive and mostly-offshore gambling industry. This is gradually changing for the better in most ways, but we still have a disgusting situation where we've failed to properly legislate against a proliferation of high-street gambling operations which prey on the poorest, and and a serious failure to crack down on online gambling operations. Again, though, the cause is essentially cultural - the mindless worship of the concept of "the free market" has prevented us cracking down hard enough (there should be hard limits on how many such operations can even exist in a given area). With online operations, they could easily be taxed to the point where it was very hard for them to make a profit (and should be). Forcing them underground would frankly be a massive improvement in this case.

 

[MarkB]

Interesting. I haven't had anything except a minor missing item in very large orders (i.e. for 5+ people) for probably 5 years. And I order a really excessive amount of delivery. I'm probably jinxing the hell out of myself by saying this of course.

Orders for delivery from supermarkets though, goddamn, I've had everything from them cancelling literally 60-70% of the items on the list (making the delivery entirely pointless) as "out of stock"* to demented substitutions like substituting the ground coffee I'd ordered with coffee beans! If I had a grinder at that time (I do now), I wouldn't be ordering ground coffee, you maniacs! The same store also later substituted ground coffee with instant coffee, I've just stopped ever ordering anything coffee-related from them at this point. I've also had just missing multiple items with no explanation.

* = One time I needed what I'd ordered sufficiently that I went down to the same exact store I'd ordered from (a Waitrose) and saw that, in fact, literally every single thing they'd claimed was "out of stock" was in stock! What a surprise! Somehow I don't believe that every single thing (and it was like 12 different things) was restocked in the hour and a bit between me getting the delivery and going down there, either.

Again, our fortunes vary. I order groceries for delivery a couple of times a week, and have rarely had more than a single item substituted or unavailable in any given order. Occasionally the substitution may be something I don't care for (a sandwich with egg in it, for instance), but I can't think of any instances of any really egregious substitutions.

 

[trappedslider]

Deepfake of deceased man gives his own impact statement in court

An AI-generated deepfake of a deceased man spoke at the sentencing hearing of his own killer. The avatar asked for leniency, but the court didn’t listen.

www.engadget.com

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

The relative amount of regulation these things have bears little relationship to the scientific evidence with regards to level of harm.

Err... wut? That might be objectively true at times in the real world, but it sounds like you're saying that this approach makes sense. Clarify please.

And a scientific approach would be to err on the side of caution until more evidence is available.

Yes and no. Caution is warranted when a particular stance can show at least some sort of sensible, arguable, reasonable causation between event A and event B. Although, it's possible that it might be true, in this case, the argument, particularly without evidence, seems tenuous. And that's being kind.

That's not science. That's emotional, fear-based reaction. As in, the opposite of science.

The scientific approach here would be: show me the money.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is unproven nonsense with no scientific basis. "AI addiction", from a scientific perspective, is an absolute fiction.

No, that is not science. It would only be a fiction if the experiments had been done, and shown it to be false. All science can say at this point is we do not know if it is true or false.

However, there is good evidence for gambling addiction, and it's a reasonable working hypothesis that social media and AI can affect the brain in a similar way. It's not much, but it's the best we have to go on until proper research has been carried out.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Err... wut? That might be objectively true at times in the real world, but it sounds like you're saying that this approach makes sense. Clarify please.

No, it does not make sense. I was just pointing out that in the real world what is and is not prohibited very rarely has any scientific basis. Would that humans were better.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's not science. That's emotional, fear-based reaction. As in, the opposite of science.

When confronted with the unknown, fear is the rational response. Then you investigate it until it is no longer unknown. Which is were the science comes in.

I have two bottles. One is poison, one is not. Unless I can perform an experiment to determine which is which, the only rational scientific response is to drink neither of them.