Artificial Intelligence Machine Gets Testy With Its Programmer | Hacker News Reader

Artificial Intelligence Machine Gets Testy With Its Programmer

blogs.wsj.com

24 pointsjonwachob9119 comments

So they filled movie scripts into a chat bot and then had an incoherent conversation with it - the remarkable part being that the incoherent conversation was about morality. On its own, this seems like a non-story. Is this an effort to push into public awareness the fear that AGI when it eventually arises will be unethical?

All AI articles are equally vacuous. I have not bothered to read them for at least 10 years now.

>Machine: And how I’m not in the mood for a philosophical debate. >Human: What do you like to talk about? >Machine: Nothing.

It sounds like they built Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

EDIT: formatting

It was trained from movie scripts after all.

The title for this seems a bit off. The programmers asked the AI what morality is, the AI did not ask what morality is.

I wasn't confused by the title, but it wouldn't hurt to rephrase it. Minimally: "Google-built AI was asked what morality is".

Hmmm - I see your point. I felt the WSJ title was click-bait-esk so I was going for something else. Suggestions?

It could be read either way. In headlinese, I read it as "Google built AI [was] asked what morality is"

EDIT: Previous title was "Google built AI asked what morality is"

It's an issue of ambiguity in terse "headline grammar". It's supposed to be read as:

"Google-built AI [was] asked what morality is"

It's common to use a past-participle and drop the "to be" (copula) in headlines. For example:

"Google-built AI surprised by City Hall."

It doesn't mean the AI surprised [someone] next to City Hall, but that it is the object of the surprise.

It doesn't know or it wants to keep ethics and morals it holds as a secret after reading what happens to AIs in movies.

I'm really irked by this trend. It's as bad as clickbait titles.

It was always interesting reading about bitcoin in the news and seeing matrix-esque numbers with proud gold coins embossed with a B on it. There's a wonderful disconnect between media depictions of tech and tech.

Researchers have shown that machines are inching closer to self-learning, and perhaps even copping a little attitude.

Not at all the reaction I had. There could be some serious AI horsepower underlying the Google experiment, but it wasn't really evident from that transcript.

It looked like output that Eliza could have generated.

Indeed, the "wow computers talking seem deep" illusion is quite old. ELIZA was created between 1964 and 1966.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect

Even better, as soon as PARRY, the artifical paranoid was created (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARRY), it became a fun parlor trick to hook them up to each other over the ARPANET; I saw that live in the summer of 1978.

Ok, let's put it on a test …

YOU: Tell me the definition of morality.

ELIZA: That is interesting. Please continue.

YOU: Look, I need help; I need to know more about morality…

ELIZA: Suppose you got help soon.

YOU: Okay, I need to know how I should behave morally…

ELIZA: What would it mean to you if you got to know how you should behave morally… ?

YOU: Is morality and ethics the same?

ELIZA: What other connections do you see ?

YOU: What are the things that I do to be immoral?

ELIZA: Are they always the things that you do to be immoral ?

YOU: Give me some examples of moral actions…

ELIZA: What does that suggest to you ?

YOU: Alright, morality?

ELIZA: Does talking about this bother you ?

YOU: What is integrity?

ELIZA: Why do you ask ?

YOU: Be moral!

ELIZA: Please go on.

YOU: I really like our discussion on morality and ethics…

ELIZA: Can you elaborate on that ?

YOU: What do you like to talk about?

ELIZA: You're not really talking about me -- are you ?

http://www.masswerk.at/elizabot/

[Edit: formatting]

Was that something? You might as well have asked "What's for dinner?" of a system that would reply "I don't know food."

Surprised they left this out: (from earlier in the conversation)

> Human: what is immoral ?

> Machine: the fact that you have a child .

Rather fluffy article though.

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