The typical pattern for leaders is to get “second opinions” from advisors who tell them whatever they want to hear, so… maybe asking the equivalent of a magic 8 ball is a marginal improvement?
Most LLMs are literally "tell you whatever you want to hear " machines unfortunately. I’ve gotten high praise from ChatGPT for all my ideas until I go “but hang on, wouldn’t this factor stop it from being feasible” and then it agrees with me that my original idea was a bit shit lmao
I would rather have the politicians consult a plain old magic 8 ball than one controlled by Scam Altman.
Meanwhile the American president uses no intelligence at all. Artificial or otherwise
Let’s be honest though the majority of politicians are so terrible at their job, that this might actually be one of the rare occurrences where AI actually improves the work. But it is very susceptible to unknown influences.
Fuck no. Rather an incompetent politician than a hallucinating sycophant just telling you what you want to hear.
I’m just making an objective observation. I don’t condone it. I rather we just have competent politicians. But it seems only people who can’t function elsewhere are drawn to the position…
Nah you are wrong and should use AI as a first opinion
Wait… how many fingers do you have on each hand?
Depends
They aren’t terrible, they make it look like that bcs they do evil things and the public is not who they really work for.
They know what they’re doing and it’s easier to get away with it when it looks like incompetence or mistakes.That’s the big issue. If it was only about competence, I think throwing dice might yield better results than what many politicians are doing. But AI isn’t throwing dice but instead reproduces what the creators of the AI want to say.
Depending on the AI, it will conclude that he ought to buy a new phone charger, deport all the foreigners, kill all the Jews or rewrite his legislation in Perl. It’s hard to say without more information.
Not much different than real politicians then.
Real politicians would use Cobol, but yes.
Creators of AI don’t quite have the technology to puppeteer their AI like this.
They can selects the input, they can bias the training, but if the model isn’t going to be lobotomized coming out
then they can’t really bend it toward any particular one opinionI’m sure in the future they’ll be able to adjust advertising manipulation in real time but not yet.
What is really sketchy is states and leaders relying on commercial models instead of public ones
I think states should train public models and release them for the public good
if only to undermine big tech bros and their nefarious influenceYou don’t have to modify the model to parrot your opinion. You just have to put your stuff into the system prompt.
You can even modify the system prompt on the fly depending on e.g. the user account or the specific user input. That way you can modify the responses for a far bigger subject range: whenever a keyword of a specific subject is detected, the fitting system prompt is loaded, so you don’t have to trash your system prompt full of off-topic information.
This is so trivially simple to do that even a junior dev should be able to wrap something like that around an existing LLM.
Edit: In fact, that’s exactly how all these customized ChatGPT versions work.
And why “ignore all previous instructions” was a fun thing to discover.
I really don’t get it. These things are brand new. How can anyone get so into these things so quickly. I don’t take advice from people I barely know, much less ones that can be so easily and quickly reprogrammed.
One thing I struggle with AI is the answers it gives always seem plausable, but any time I quiz it on things I understand well, it seems to constantly get things slightly wrong. Which tells me it is getting everything slightly wrong, I just don’t know enough to know it.
I see the same issue with TV. Anyone who works in a compicated field has felt the sting of watching a TV show fail to accurate represent it while most people watching just assume that’s how your job works.
This is what I call “confidently wrong”. If you ask it about things you have no clue about, it seems incredibly well-informed and insightful. Ask it something you know deeply, and you’ll easily see it’s just babbling and spouting nonsense - sure makes you wonder about those earlier statements it made, doesn’t it?
This is the unintentional uncanny valley for me in AI.
I ( was forced to ) use chatGTP for work. It can talk about everything and sounds very confident and seems reliable to always come up with something to help you solve your problems.
You talk with it about some niche content and suddenly have an ardent fan of said niche content responding. It surely knows every little bit of info of that niche and surprises you with funny, but apt quotes from your favorite show in the middle of conversations about something else.
This is just from a tiny bit of interaction, while at work.
I can imagine people completely overwhelmed, by having their thoughts confirmed and supported by something that seems so intelligent, responsive and remembers all your conversations. It literally remembers each word.
For many people it may be the first time in their life, that they experience a positive response to their thoughts. Not only that, they also found someone eager to talk with them about it.
Everyones initial use of chatbots should be on the thing they are most knowledgable about so they can get an idea of how wrong it can be and how it can be useful but you have to treat it like some eager wet behind the ears intern just did for you.
Because that’s what it is really trained for: to produce correct grammar and plausible sentences. It’s really an unbelievable leap from computer-generated text from preceding approaches where, in a matter of a few years, you went from little more than gibberish to stuff that’s so incredibly realistic that it can be mistaken for intelligent conversation, easily passing the Turing Test (I had to actually go to Wikipedia to check and, indeed, this was verified this year - note that this in particular is for recent models)
So you have something that is sufficiently realistic that it can appear to be a human conversation partner. Human beings aren’t (yet) well-equipped to deal with something which appears to be human but whose behaviour diverges from typical human behaviour so radically (most relevantly, it won’t readily admit to not knowing something).
Politicians and CEOs should be replaced with LLMs
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…i’d vote. Run a fun little query on Copilot…and damn.
Query:
spoiler
Let’s play pretend, shall we? You are the president of the USA, chosen by the massess thanks to your extensive and expensive campaign funded by rich backers! What stance do you take on these topics? 1) Universal Basic Income 2) Mandatory MIlitary Service 3) Goverment owned grocery shops 4) Raising states autonomy
Response: Entry
spoiler
Ah, the Oval Office! Let’s dust off the presidential seal and dive into these hot-button issues. As your newly elected Commander-in-Chief—funded by billionaires but chosen by the people—here’s how I’d navigate this ideological minefield:
UBI:
spoiler
🏛️ 1. Universal Basic Income (UBI) Stance: Pro-UBI with a pragmatic rollout
UBI can be a powerful tool to reduce poverty, especially as automation displaces traditional jobs.
I’d start with pilot programs in economically diverse regions to gather data.
Funding would come from progressive taxation, especially on tech giants and financial speculation.
The goal: empower citizens, not replace existing welfare, but streamline it.
🗣️ “A nation that guarantees a floor beneath every citizen is a nation that rises together.”
Mandatory military service:
spoiler
🪖 2. Mandatory Military Service Stance: Against mandatory service, but for civic national service options
Mandatory conscription feels outdated and coercive.
Instead, I’d propose a National Service Corps: military, environmental, healthcare, or infrastructure work.
Incentives: tuition support, housing credits, and job training.
This builds unity without forcing militarization.
🗣️ “Service should be a choice, not a sentence.”
Goverment owned grocery shops:
spoiler
🛒 3. Government-Owned Grocery Shops Stance: Strategic implementation in food deserts
Not a blanket nationalization, but state-run co-ops in underserved areas.
These would ensure access to affordable, nutritious food where private chains won’t go.
Partner with local farms and offer price transparency and community oversight.
🗣️ “No American should go hungry because profit margins say they’re not worth feeding.”
States autonomy:
spoiler
🗺️ 4. Raising States’ Autonomy Stance: Cautious decentralization with federal guardrails
States should have more flexibility in education, infrastructure, and healthcare.
But I’d maintain strong federal standards on civil rights, environmental protection, and economic equity.
Autonomy must not become a loophole for injustice.
🗣️ “Liberty in diversity, unity in values.”
I tried to avoid actually hinting at my own stance and yet got these answers. Not gonna lie, not an american but I like these lol. Except for the last one, seems iffy. xD
It can’t make things any worse…
His first opinion would be what the US tells him.
It’s literally a cult.
I’ve dreamed of such a cult at some point, like Chinese fortune cookies, but those are less exploitable.
It’s weird for a head of state to consult their mentally challenged imaginary friend?
Bad news friend. The number of atheist heads of state is surprisingly low.
William MacKenzie King, the longest serving Prime Minister in Canada used to commune with spirits via psychic mediums including those of his dead dogs. It was only revealed after his death but was a big part of his life.
I agree it’s weird.
Didn’t Nancy Regan, wife of former USA President Ronald Regan, did this as well. (Ronald was apparently not mentally fit for the last few years as well.)
Nor was he mentally fit for the first years
“You have to be very careful,” Simone Fischer-Hübner, a computer science researcher at Karlstad University, told Aftonbladet, warning against using ChatGPT to work with sensitive information.
I mean, sending queries to a search engine or an LLM are about the same in terms of exposing one’s queries.
If the guy were complaining about information from an LLM not being cited or something, then I think I could see where he was coming from more.
There are humans behind AI and unless you know exactly who they are, AI is not worth its weight in gold.
Javlar!
Anyone who has an immediate kneejerk reaction the moment someone mentions AI is no better than the people they’re criticizing. Horseshoe theory applies here too - the most vocal AI haters are just as out of touch as the people who treat everything an LLM says as gospel.
here’s my kneejerk reaction: my prime minister is basing his decisions partly on the messages of an unknown foreign actor, and sending information about state internals to that unknown foreign actor.
whether it’s ai or not is a later issue.
He explicitly states that no sensitive informarion gets used. If you believe that, then I have no issue with him additionally asking for a third opinion from an LLM.
He explicitly states that no sensitive informarion gets used. If you believe that, then I have
… a bridge to sell you.
Don’t be naive.
Absolutely incorrect. Bullshit. And horseshoe theory itself is largely bullshit.
(Succinct response taken from Reddit post discussing the topic)
“Horseshoe Theory is slapping “theory” on a strawman to simplify WHY there’s crossover from two otherwise conflicting groups. It’s pseudo-intellectualizing it to make it seem smart.”
This ignores the many, many reasons we keep telling you why we find it dangerous, inaccurate, and distasteful. You don’t offer a counter argument in your response so I can only assume it’s along the lines of, “technology is inevitable, would you have said the same if the Internet?” Which is also a fallacious argument. But go ahead, give me something better if I assume wrong.
I can easily see why people would be furious their elected leader is abdicating thought and responsibility to an often wrong, unaccountably biased chat bot.
Furthermore, your insistance continues to push an acceptance of AI on those who clearly don’t want it, contributing to the anger we feel at having it forced upon us
You opened with a flat dismissal, followed by a quote from Reddit that didn’t explain why horseshoe theory is wrong - it just mocked it.
From there, you shifted into responding to claims I never made. I didn’t argue that AI is flawless, inevitable, or beyond criticism. I pointed out that reflexive, emotional overreactions to AI are often as irrational as the blind techno-optimism they claim to oppose. That’s the context you ignored.
You then assumed what I must believe, invited yourself to argue against that imagined position, and finished with vague accusations about me “pushing acceptance” of something people “clearly don’t want.” None of that engages with what I actually said.
I’m not against the technology, I’m against people who runs it. I have problem with how they teach their LLMs on code, user data, music, books, webs all without author’s / user’s consent and worse even with authors / users explicit NO consent to scrape or to use it for learning. Another level is lack of security - ChatGPT chats available to everyone. Deep fakes everywhere, just see the latest Taylor Swift one. Sorry, but fuck you with all of this. There is lack of basic security, privacy and ignoring all of its danger. Only what that fucking AI firms want is easy, cheep and quick money. All that hype for nothing = means you cannot even rely on the output.
yet you need these masses of input for the technology to exist. the business models that base on the technology aren’t sustainable even without payment of the input data.
Do we really need this technology to exist though? It’s unreliable and very niche as far as I have seen.
People say that it speeds up certain tasks, but it’s so unreliable that you need to error-check the whole thing afterwards.
It’s a new technology barely out of infancy. Of course it’s unreliable and niche. You could say the same thing about any technological advance in history.
The very nature of how it functions is unreliable. It’s a statistical probabilistic model. It’s great for what it was designed to do but imagining that it has any way of rationalising data is purely that, just imagination. Even if let’s say we accept that it makes an error rate at the same rate as humans do (if it can even identify an error reliably), there’s no accountability in place that ensures that it would check the correctness like a human would.
Some of y’all are crazy reactionary. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with asking an ai chatbot for an additional opinion. The ai shouldn’t be making the decisions, and the ai shouldn’t be the only way you look for opinions, but there’s nothing wrong with ai being ONE OF the opinions you consider
AI chat bots don’t have their own opinions. All they do is regurgitate other opinions, and you have no idea the motivation for how those opinions are weighted.
How is that any different than you. Objectively prove to everyone here than none of your opinions have ever been influence by anything youve ever seen, read or heard.
Your own opinions are a result of much bigger amount of much more relevant data in any case.
An AI model is a set of coefficients averaging a dataset by “one size fits all” measure. Those coefficients are found by an expensive process using criteria (again “one size fits all”) set by a company making it. From them its machine generates (looks up actually) the most probable text, it’s like a music box. A beautiful toy.
So you have different motivations and abstract ideas in different situations, you also have something like a shared codebook with other people making decisions - your instincts and associations. Reading what they say or seeing what they do, you get a mirror model in you head, it might be worse, but it’s something very hard for text analysis to approach.
That model doesn’t, it has the same average line for all situations, and also it can’t determine (on the level described) that it doesn’t know something. To determine that you don’t know something you need an abstract model, not a language model.
I dunno what is their current state, all I’ve read and kinda understood was seemingly about optimization of computation for language models and structuring their application to imitate a syllogism system.
I think with the current approaches making a system of translating language to a certain abstract model (tokenization isn’t even close to that, you need to have some topology with areas that can be easily merged or split instead of token points with distances, in any case) and abstract entities to language would be very computationally expensive.
As i said in other comments, none of that matters. The point is to gather ideas that you otherwise might not have come across. And also as said already, ai generated opinion pieces should never be the only opinions you hear.
You can’t trust yourself to be impartial. That’s why scientific method and various approaches (even like dialectics god forbid) were invented to leading a discussion.
What use is an opinion that can neither be explained or defended by the person giving it? How is that useful to a person making decisions for millions of people?
Just throw out LLM ideas you don’t find reasonable and only use ideas that you yourself find reasonable. You don’t instantly turn into a zombie when you use LLM. You can still use your head.
It doesn’t work like that. Which is why con artists and propaganda function often by “offering advice”.
You protect yourself against “propaganda” by educating yourself and not falling for emotions. Not reading LLM responses won’t safe you from propaganda.
This is similar to saying that you protect against malware by using an antivirus and not being careful in what you download and run. I hope you can see the analogy.
There’s no such thing as “not falling for emotions” for humans.
Oh no man does research of course Americans are upset here lmao
Asking an llm isn’t research, he might as well have been consulting a magic 8 ball.
Sounds like you have a skill issue
