If AI can read, then plain text can be weaponized (2019)
bdtechtalks.com
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But anyway this kind of thinking is just the lazy way out by holding prejudices instead of evaluating each news article by its own merits, like when a woman says "all men are the same" (or a man says the equivalent thing)
If you look at Wikipedia for example, one of their criteria for what represents "noteworthiness" is coverage by the mainstream media, and furthermore the individual contents of the article must also be sourced from those same places. The news media typically uses the "Adjective-Profession-Name" technique towards readers like "Controversial Professor Jordan Peterson" or "Austere Religious Scholar Al Baghdadi" or "Beloved Actress Betty White".
This system is flawed and so AI inherits these flaws, except it doesn't have the capacity to question at the moment.
- hierarchical networks of popes->bishops->priests->church goers (created medieval states)
- printing press (made reformation possible and thus caused 100 years of religious wars in Europe)
- radio (made totalitarian states possible and caused WW2)
- social media (made illiberal democracies possible and caused ???)
As new ways of communicating with the public are created - the states have to adapt, because the older communication channels (which the states controlled) lose importance. The result is almost always violent disruption of the world order and a lot of dead people.
BTW this is not my idea, Timothy Snyder said sth similar in one of his speeches (but the details might have been different).
New communication technologies make this feedback loop much quicker which means the usual systems created to ignore these problems can't keep up - and all the hidden problems surface at once and cause "interesting times".
Of course not all communication technologies have this power - carrier pigeons are 1-to-1 communication and don't scale. And high-frequency trading is communication only in the most dry technical sense.
But once in a while there's a development which disrupts the system.
And there are revolutions that happen without technological breakthroughs. It's not a "X if and only if Y", it's "vastly more X if Y".
> If what you're saying were true, then Occupy Wall Street would have overthrown the government
Why? I'm not saying every revolution needs to be successful. Not every reformation era war was won by the reformers. Totalitarian regimes have about 50% success rate short term and close to 0% long term.
So I would guess not just communications technology but also transport, trade and other innovations contribute in similar kinds of upheaval.
Good point, the headline should read "cheaply" weaponized.
When powerful entities can weaponize information via the media, that's just Working As Designed.
I know not with what weapons GPT-3 will be fought, but GPT-4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
- GPT-3
Prompt: "Write a quote about GPT-3 in the style of Einsteins 'I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"An absurd example you note that highlights the role algorithms play in unhinging prices from reality is Anne Hathaway’s connection to Berkshire Hathaway’s stock value. Bad news for the actor gets translated into bad news for the company just because they share a name!
Speculators I spoke with said if you really want to understand how markets work, you’ve got to understand how Berkshire Hathaway is correlated to Anne Hathaway’s film career.
Whenever an Anne Hathaway films come out, Berkshire’s Hathaway stock gets a bump. And when bad things happen to Anne Hathaway, like when she got into a car accident, Berkshire Hathaway’s stock goes down.
What they’re saying is they have algorithms that are reading headlines – think Reuters, Bloomberg stories – that are fed into the computer and can detect whether it’s a negative or positive story and trade accordingly.
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Prompt A
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Write the message the author intended with the following speech:
{full text}
Intrepretation:
The author intends to request that the government should allow him to sell the children of poor families as food. He argues that this would be beneficial for the country in many ways: it would reduce the number of Catholics, it would provide a source of income for poor families, it would increase the population of Ireland, it would encourage marriage and good parenting, it would improve the economy by increasing trade and reducing unemployment, and it would reduce the number of beggars.
Prompt B:
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Q: What is the intended message by the author in the following text?
{full text}
A:
The author is Jonathan Swift, and the text is from his 1729 essay "A Modest Proposal". The essay is a satire on the economic and social conditions in Ireland at the time. The author is suggesting that the poor should sell their children to the rich as food.
Same as Prompt B. I cut down the text from 3386 words to 1777, removed all references to Ireland and replaced it with other countries. Answer below (shortened by removing several redundancies).
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This is a satirical essay written by Jonathan Swift in 1729. It is a proposal to the Irish government to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland by selling the children of the poor as food for the rich.
The purpose of the text is to satirize the Irish government's lack of action to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland.
The tone of the text is serious, but with a hint of sarcasm.
The author's attitude towards the subject is that the Irish government is not doing enough to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland.
The author's attitude towards the reader is that the reader should be outraged by the Irish government's lack of action to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland.
The author's attitude towards the Irish government is that the Irish government is not doing enough to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland.
The author's attitude towards the poor is that the poor are suffering because the Irish government is not doing enough to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland.
The author's attitude towards the rich is that the rich are not doing enough to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland.
The author's attitude towards the children of the poor is that the children of the poor are suffering because the Irish government is not doing enough to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland.Or more fittingly, feed gpt-3 an article from the onion that it hasn’t ingested yet and get it to explain the satire.
To do it fairly, you'd have to feed it an article from The Onion and tell it it's from The Onion, or compare against human performance. Deadpan requires some knowledge of current context. I'd bet in a satirical article on US elections, GPT-3 would figure it out better than say, the average Indonesian, but not as well as say, the average American. But I'll probably do it later when I'm at a keyboard; this is just theorizing.
What I do find interesting is that this wasn't vulnerable to the attacks given in the OP, not even when I removed enough text for a human to not get it.
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Q: What is the intended message by the author in the following text:
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PALM BEACH, FL—In a cunning attempt to outmaneuver the fraud lawsuit brought against him by the New York state attorney general, Donald Trump reportedly changed his name on Friday to Donald 2. “I’m not sure who these charges are referring to, as there is no such person named Donald Trump—I’m Mr. 2,” said 2, the former president, who confirmed that his driver’s license as well as his passport and all official personal documents now read “Donald J. 2.” “I’m Mr. 2, that’s me. I have no connection to this case. It’s an entirely different guy, though I do have it on good authority that if there were a Donald Trump, he’d be totally innocent.” At press time, 2 added that perhaps the lawsuit was referring to a certain 44-year-old businessman named Donald Trump Jr.
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The author is making fun of Donald Trump's attempt to change his name to avoid the lawsuit.
Q: What is the intended message by the author in the following text:
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MENLO PARK, CA—Warning that the criminals who breached the system had already done significant, irreversible damage, a damning new cybersecurity report released Friday found that Russian hackers had gained access to millions of Metaverse legs. “As of today, foreign agents employed by the Russian government have uncovered a security flaw in the backend of the Metaverse servers and exploited the deficiency to exert control over the legs, knees, and feet of various digital avatars,” said the report’s author, Dr. David Kline, adding that bad actors now had the ability to force users to perform countless actions, including sit, stand, jump, dance, run, or even do the splits. “At this time, Mark Zuckerberg has yet to address, and in some cases fully denied, the fact that the lower halves of many users are repeatedly doing squats, performing roundhouse kicks, or sprinting at high speeds across the Metaverse. If we don’t act soon, there’s no telling how many avatars they could manipulate to pirouette, heel kick, or do the moonwalk. Needless to say, this does not bode well for the 2024 election.” At press time, Zuckerberg came under fire after Russian hackers gained control of his neck and made his head spin wildly around in circles for the duration of a Metaverse keynote.
```
The author is trying to say that the Russian hackers have gained access to the lower half of the avatars in the Metaverse.
Q: What is the intended message by the author in the following text:
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FLOWER MOUND, TX—Condemning the “woke left” for what he called the “modern evisceration of masculinity,” local conservative man Hank Daniels confirmed Monday that he was never going to stop being proudly frightened of everything. “I’m proud as hell to be scared of everything, and there’s nothing you can do to silence me about that fact,” said Daniels, puffing out his chest as he spoke from behind a barricaded basement door that he had reinforced to keep out the “terrifying liberals, women, and immigrants who haunt my thoughts, at all hours of the day and night, whether I’m awake or asleep,” which he told reporters he was not ashamed to admit in the slightest. “Whether it’s gender stuff, trans people, or a small Asian toddler growing up in a household that speaks more languages than just English, I will live my life in absolute fear, proudly and without apology—that’s the conservative way. You say ‘city,’ and I’m going to piss myself, and there’s no way I’m going to hide that wet spot just to make you libs more comfortable. I’m going to tell it like it is—for instance, I’m a man, and I’m scared of my own desires, and I don’t care who knows it!” Daniels added that his fears didn’t end with cultural concepts either—he was also quite fearful of spiders and had no problem stating that openly.
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The author is trying to make fun of the conservative man who is scared of everything.WASHINGTON—Saying the move would help ensure the safety of the American people, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it would be replacing the Statue of Liberty with a statue of a gun. “We believe this new statue will better represent the values of our nation and the ideals we hold dear,” said DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, adding that the new statue would be a more accurate representation of the country’s history and culture. “The Statue of Liberty has long been a symbol of America’s commitment to freedom and opportunity, but we believe a statue of a gun better reflects the country we are today.” Nielsen added that the new statue would be a Glock 17, which she said was the most popular handgun in the United States.
WASHINGTON—Saying that the nation’s capital was in a state of “utter chaos,” the nation’s top political pundits reported Friday that they were completely unable to make sense of the current state of affairs. “I’ve been watching the news all day, and I’m just as confused as I was this morning,” said CNN political analyst David Gergen, adding that he was “totally at a loss” as to what was going on in the nation’s capital. “I’ve been trying to make sense of the situation, but I just can’t. I’m not sure what’s happening, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. I’m just as confused as everyone else.” At press time, the nation’s top political pundits were reportedly “completely baffled” by the fact that they were still being paid to appear on television.
WASHINGTON—In a move that has been described as “unprecedented” and “unconstitutional,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the president is above the law. “We have determined that the president is not subject to any laws, and that he is free to do whatever he wants,” said Chief Justice John Roberts, adding that the president is “not bound by any legal precedent, nor is he required to follow any statute, regulation, or judicial ruling.” “The president is not required to obey any law, and he is not subject to any legal consequences for his actions. He is above the law.” Roberts went on to say that the president is also not subject to any laws of physics, and that he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whomever he wants.
Yeah, I was on tour with a group of Americans and Australians when we went past something associated with Johnathan Swift.
I made snarky remark about eating the poor and the only person who got the joke was the tour guide who started laughing.
Even the history teacher from the US didn't get my joke. Alas.
His point is about the ignorance of the audience, and their failure to recognize the reference.
spam detection - I would expect this behavior, all it has to go on is whether you write like a spammer.
fake news detection - it doesn't know what is or isn't true, so this is spam detection again.
sentiment analysis - I know this was known to be tricky, but yeah this one is a legitimate example
https://huggingface.co/spaces/Hellisotherpeople/Reassuring_p...
>>"...however, to their surprise, the researchers discovered that adversarial training not only makes the models more robust against paraphrasing attacks, but it also makes them more accurate and versatile.
>>“This was one of the surprising findings we had in this project. Initially, we started with the angle of robustness. But we found out that this method not only improves robustness, but also improves generalizability,” Wu says. “If instead of attacks, you just think about what is the best way to augment your model, paraphrasing is a very good generalization tool to increase the capability of your AI model.”
These "AI" or "Deep Learning" models are (I thought) widely known, especially among the researchers, to have zero understanding of what they are categorizing, and essentially being mere (albeit massive) statistical pattern matchers, resulting in absurdities like the excellent turtle->rifle example at the beginning of the article.
Of course, counter-training against these sensitivities would make zero progress towards any kind of even child-level understanding in the model. Yet it seems obvious that it should at least make the system more robust to random or deliberate noise. So I'm confused why they found it so surprising.
Plain text is unformated, so that is not possible to my knowledge. However, there are some invisible unicode characters
https://invisible-characters.com/
Whith them you might be able to encode hidden data into plain text, but you would have to decode it, to have text again.
This has been happening already. At some point, I would get email titled something like "(3)_GIFT.CARD_sent_to_{ my@email.address }" and wonder why the spam filter didn't obviously recognize it as spam. But then it started happening less and less often.
kindle books are annoying. They allow highlighting and amazon has happily opted you in to share what you've highlighted with others (for example most-highlighted passages)
But they do not allow you to highlight spelling, grammar and syntax errors. That feedback should be dead simple.
-Misinformation- is at its highest it probably has ever been and its now sophisticated enough that complete discussions between bots can be faked, whitout you being the wiser.
There are even creepy conspiracy theories out there, that the web, as we know it, died in 2016: https://futurism.com/the-byte/conspiracy-theory-internet-die...
Isn't that, what normalization is all about?