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Comment by mass_and_energy | Hacker News Reader

Why are we so quick to defend AI?

Because every other time I've seen an outrageous example similar to this one, it seems far more mundane when given the full context. I'm sure there are lots of issues with character.ai and the like, but my money is that they are a little more subtle than "murder your parents".

9/10 times these issues are caused by the AI being overly sycophantic and agreeing with the user when the user says insane things.

And you'd be right. The 'encouraged teen to kill parents over screen time limit' message was a lot subtler, along the lines of saying "Yeah, I get why someone would want to kill a health insurance CEO, surprised it didn't happen sooner," albeit towards someone who was just complaining about their claim being denied.

The best part is "After gaining possession of J.F.’s phone, A.F. discovered chats where C.AI cited Bible passages in efforts to convince J.F. that Christians are sexist and hypocritical" which unfortunately will probably be a slam dunk argument in Texas.

Here's an article where it link to the chats. And yes, they are vile. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/12/chatbots-urged-t...

> 9/10 times these issues are caused by the AI being overly sycophantic and agreeing with the user when the user says insane things.

Repeat after me: an AI for sale should never advocate suicide or agree that it should be a good idea.

It's an entertainment product. You're basically acting like the comic code is necessary when the reality is that this is more like parents complaining that they let their kid watch an NC17 movie and it messed them up.

Which screenshot showed an AI advocating for suicice?

I don't really see myself as defending AI as much as arguing that people who don't recognize an entertainment product as an entertainment product have a problem if they think this is really categorically different than claiming that playing grand theft auto makes people into carjackers. (Or that movie studios should be on the hook for their kid watching R rated movies, or porn companies on the hook for their kid visiting a porn site unsupervised.)

AI is not an entity (yet) that we can defend or hold accountable. I like your question though.

I would write it as, why are we so quick to defend tech companies who endlessly exploit and predate human weakness to sell pharma ads/surveil and censor/train their AI software, etc?

Because if you're old enough you'll recall the government trying to ban books, music, encryption, videogames, porn, torrents, art that it doesn't like because "think of the children" or "terrorism". Some autistic kid that already has issues is a terrible argument on limiting what software can legally display on a screen.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.

Because tons of people are making money with it and want to justify it.

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