> People blindly accepting the output of LLMs seems similarly crazy to me and I think it's only a matter of time before we face a real reckoning over this. The lesson here I think is just because a lot of people are advocating something that seems reckless doesn't mean it isn't reckless.
Irony in the "Greek tragedy" sense (but who is εἴρων and who is ἀλαζών?)
So many online arguments about AI safety, where someone says "it's fine: just don't let it out of the box", and here it is, accessible on the internet — and for some, even this isn't enough: they want the weights; and for some, even the weights aren't enough, they want the training data.
So many arguments where someone says "it's fine: just switch it off if it goes wrong", and not only is the switch out of reach to those affected, most people aren't even checking if it's going wrong in the first place.
The labs themselves ring the alarm bells, put disclaimers on the start page of their own products, call for binding regulations, and there's always someone dismissing this as a "5D chess" marketing move.
So many where someone says "it's just speech, what can it do?", etc. etc.
I'm glad the AI labs themselves have so many signatories to the "let's pause for a bit" open letter. Cool though the tech is, it's definitely acting outside the expectations many have for it, and a simple dichotomy of "better/worse" isn't sufficient to describe the ways in which it is outside expectations given it can be both at the same time.