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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

Chat bots should not interact with children. "Algorithms" which decide what content people see should not interact with children. Whitelisted "algorithms" should include no more than most-recent and most-viewed and only very simple things of that manner.

No qualifications, no guard rails for how language models interact with children, they just should not be allowed at all.

We're very quickly going to get to the point where people are going to have to rebel against machines pretending to be people.

Language models and machine learning is a fine tool for many jobs. Absolutely not as a substitute for human interaction for children.

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People can give children terrible information too and steer/groom them in harmful directions. So why stop there at "AI" or poorly defined "algorithms"?

The only content children should see is state-approved content to ensure they are only ever steered in the correct, beneficial manner to society instead of a harmful one. Anyone found trying to show minors unapproved content should be imprisoned as they are harmful to a safe society.

The type of people who groom children into violence fall under a special heading named "criminals".

Because automated systems that do the same thing lack sentience, they don't fit under this header, but this is not a good reason to allow them to reproduce harmful behaviour.

If someone sets booby-traps in their home and it hurts someone, the trap isn't guilty, but the homeowner is.

... I wonder if "this software is licensed, not sold" is relevant here?

So selling the Anarchists Cookbook is illegal? Being a YouTuber targeting teens for <extreme political positions> is illegal? This is honestly news to me given how many political YouTubers there are who are apparently criminals?

Given some of the examples I'm not so sure a human would be charged for saying the same exact things the AI has said. Without an actual push to suggest violence and even that's difficult to prove in cases where it does happen (eg. The cases where people pressured others into suicide or convinced them to murder)

You consider writing the Anarchists Cookbook grooming?

To quote Jeffery Lewis: Thank you for your extremely good-faith criticism. I will give it the attention it deserves.

I would greatly appreciate if you engaged with what I wrote and not what you think I wrote if you're going to make the bold claim that I'm not engaging in good faith.

Absolutely nowhere did I equate writing a book to grooming. I equated selling the book in the greater context that "providing children with potentially harmful/dangerous information should be illegal because it grooms them to commit harmful actions to themselves or others" and this context would carry the implications that by "selling" I am referring particularly to "selling it to children" since "providing children with potentially harmful/dangerous information should be illegal because it grooms them to commit harmful actions to themselves or others". With my argument being would it be criminal for an AI but not for a human?

So to clarify the argument: Writing the book is fine. Selling the book to adults is fine. Adults reading the book is fine. But if providing dangerous information to children should be made illegal - how would selling such a book to a child not be considered illegal? Because it was written by a human and not an AI?

Oh, sorry let me rephrase: You consider selling the Anarchists Cookbook grooming!?

Calling it fraud would be more apt, that is definitely a book you share copies of for free.

To clarify: yes this is indeed the sort of attention I think your objection deserves.

"Kids having access to AI is too dangerous. Kids learning how to make explosives and LSD is perfectly safe."

Have a happy holidays.

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