Degenerative AI
We recorded 10 claims from this post. 2 were checked against evidence. 8 can’t be checked. 7 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (10)
In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“But when put in the context of “this is how search engines are going to work going forward,” they are absolutely fucking ridiculous.”
What we tested: Seen as 'this is how search engines are going to work going forward,' the AI search errors are absolutely ridiculous, even though on their own they are minor.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“But Microsoft has already admitted that Bing may misrepresent the information that Bing’s AI finds, meaning that while content may be represented by particular sources, it is being “created” by Bing - which Microsoft would likely be potentially liable for.”
What we tested: Microsoft would likely be potentially legally liable for content created by Bing's AI.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“But it’s easy to imagine that if Bing AI or Bard suddenly start referring high school history students to the works of David Irving, the authorities in Berlin or Paris might take action.”
What we tested: It is easy to imagine that if Bing AI or Bard suddenly start referring high school history students to the works of David Irving, the authorities in Berlin or Paris might take action.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“But even with that caveat, there’s still the possibility that something could go terribly wrong.”
What we tested: Even though ChatGPT's reinforcement from human feedback is done in-house, there is still the possibility that something could go terribly wrong.
Assessment: ContradictedSaid
“On top of that, these products are extremely expensive to run. ChatGPT burns millions of dollars a day in computing power, while charging a per-access-token price for companies to plug into its models.”
What we tested: Generative AI products are extremely expensive to run; ChatGPT burns millions of dollars a day in compute.
What happened: The preceding sentence explicitly identifies this as February research on the hardware supporting ChatGPT. Its estimated daily cost is below either US$1 million or US$2 million. (Computer Weekly, )
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“ChatGPT and generative AI are not themselves the problem, but as with many things in tech, the way that they are thrown into the market has made them potentially dangerous.”
What we tested: The way generative AI is thrown into the market, not the technology itself, has made it potentially dangerous.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Microsoft rushed out Bing AI because they wanted their shareholders to see them as constantly growing, despite the fact that it is both regularly wrong and actively manipulative users.”
What we tested: Microsoft rushed out Bing AI to appear to be growing, though it is regularly wrong and manipulative to users.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“A ChatGPT-powered search engine marketed by a massive tech company as a search engine is one that users are likely to believe the answers of, meaning that when said search engine gives patently incorrect and “unhinged” results, we are likely to see situations of misinformation that dwarf the damage caused by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.”
What we tested: Because users are likely to believe the answers of a ChatGPT-powered search engine marketed as a search engine by a massive tech company, when it gives patently incorrect and 'unhinged' results we are likely to see misinformation that dwarfs the damage caused by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Microsoft and Google’s customers are victims of rich people playing with toys, hoping to find ways to please rich people that invest the money of other rich people.”
What we tested: Users of Microsoft's and Google's AI search are victims of executives seeking to please investors.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“The result will be genuine human suffering as a result of dressing a fallible, experimental intelligence up as an authoritative source of information. People will be inspired to harm themselves or others, all while their ideas and likenesses are counterfeited and monetized, all so that wealthy executives can tell the world - and Wall Street - that their companies are “innovative.””
What we tested: Presenting fallible AI as an authoritative information source will cause genuine human suffering, including people being inspired to harm themselves or others.
Held from this post (7)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: As OpenAI's AI becomes more widely adopted into other products, the cost of providing that service will grow too, and the author sees nothing about how the company could possibly be profitable.
- The criteria are ambiguous. Our reading, not assessed: AI-powered search engines do not have consistent results, and Google's Bard AI and Bing AI made obvious errors in their first demos, which, from what the author can tell, happened largely because they make their best guess every time.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- Attribution is uncertain
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: The author can't imagine it is easy for ChatGPT or similar models to 'unlearn' something once learned, and the more a model consumes, the more difficult it will be to untangle the bias of what it has already learned.