this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Google's AI-driven Search Generative Experience have been generating results that are downright weird and evil, ie slavery's positives.

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[–] WoodenBleachers@lemmy.world 144 points 2 years ago (12 children)

I think this is an issue with people being offended by definitions. Slavery did “help” the economy. Was it right? No, but it did. Mexico’s drug problem helps that economy. Adolf Hitler was “effective” as a leader. He created a cultural identity for people that had none and mobilized them to a war. Ethical? Absolutely not. What he did was horrendous and the bit should include a caveat, but we need to be a little more understanding that it’s a computer; it will use the dictionary of the English language.

[–] Bjornir@programming.dev 10 points 2 years ago (9 children)

Slavery is not good for the economy... Think about it, you have a good part of your population that are providing free labour, sure, but they aren't consumers. Consumption is between 50 and 80% of GDP for developed countries, so if you have half your population as slave you loose between 20% and 35% of your GDP (they still have to eat so you don't loose a 100% of their consumption).

That also means less revenue in taxes, more unemployed for non slaves because they have to compete with free labour.

Slaves don't order on Amazon, go on vacation, go to the movies, go to restaurant etc etc That's really bad for the economy.

[–] Womble@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago (7 children)

That really bad for a modern consumer economy yes. But those werent a thing before the industrial revolution. Before that the large majority of people were subsitance/tennant farmer or serfs who consumed basically nothing other than food and fuel in winter. Thats what a slave based economy was an alternantive to. Its also why slvery died out in the 19th century, it no longer fit the times.

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[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago

I mean slavery was bad for the economy in the long run. And Hitler didn't create a German cultural identity, that'd been a thing for a while at the time.

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[–] HughJanus@lemmy.ml 70 points 2 years ago (7 children)

People think of AI as some sort omniscient being. It's just software spitting back the data that it's been fed. It has no way to parse true information from false information because it doesn't actually know anything.

[–] baatliwala@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

And then when you do ask humans to help AI in parsing true information people cry about censorship.

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[–] Steeve@lemmy.ca 66 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Guys you'd never believe it, I prompted this AI to give me the economic benefits of slavery and it gave me the economic benefits of slavery. Crazy shit.

Why do we need child-like guardrails for fucking everything? The people that wrote this article bowl with the bumpers on.

[–] Touching_Grass@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

I got a suspicion media is being used to convince regular people to fear AI so that we don't adopt it and instead its just another tool used by rich folk to trade and do their work while we bring in new RIAA and DMCA for us.

Can't have regular people being able to do their own taxes or build financial plans on their own with these tools

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[–] SqueezeMeMacaroni@thelemmy.club 62 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The basic problem with AI is that it can only learn from things it reads on the Internet, and the Internet is a dark place with a lot of racists.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

What if someone trained an LLM exclusively on racist forum posts. That would be hilarious. Or better yet, another LLM trained with conspiracy BS conversations. Now that one would be spicy.

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[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 46 points 2 years ago (3 children)

If it’s only as good as the data it’s trained on, garbage in / garbage out, then in my opinion it’s “machine learning,” not “artificial intelligence.”

Intelligence has to include some critical, discriminating faculty. Not just pattern matching vomit.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

We don't yet have the technology to create actual artificial intelligence. It's an annoyingly pervasive misnomer.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And the media isn't helping. The title of the article is "Google’s Search AI Says Slavery Was Good, Actually." It should be "Google’s Search LLM Says Slavery Was Good, Actually."

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

Yup, "AI" is the current buzzword.

[–] profdc9@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Unfortunately, people who grow up in racist groups also tend to be racist. Slavery used to be considered normal and justified for various reasons. For many, killing someone who has a religion or belief different than you is ok. I am not advocating for moral relativism, just pointing out that a computer learns what is or is not moral in the same way that humans do, from other humans.

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[–] Kahlenar@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

Scathing and accurate when your point is made about people too.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 39 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you ask an LLM for bullshit, it will give you bullshit. Anyone who is at all surprised by this needs to quit acting like they know what "AI" is, because they clearly don't.

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[–] Kinglink@lemmy.world 36 points 2 years ago (7 children)

You know unless we teach more critical thinking, AI is going to destroy us as a civilization in a few generations.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 33 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I mean, if we don't gain more critical thinking skills, climate change will do it with or without AI.

I'd almost rather the AI take us out in that case...

[–] dezmd@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

A candidate at tonights Republican debate called it the "climate chnage hoax"

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[–] dukeGR4@monyet.cc 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Pretty sure we will destroy ourselves first with war or some other climate disasters first

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[–] Sentrovasi@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I genuinely had students believe that what ChatGPT was feeding them was fact and try to source it in a paper. I stamped out that notion as quick as I could.

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[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Whoa there... Slavery was great! For the enslaver.

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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago (3 children)

did they train it with ben shapiro speeches?

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[–] 1984@lemmy.today 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (14 children)

Slavery was great for the slave owners, so what's controversial about that?

And yes, of course it's economically awesome if people work without getting much money for it, again a huge plus for the bottom line of the companies.

Capitalism is evil against people, not the AI...

Hitler was also an effective leader, nobody can argue against that. How else could he conquer most of Europe? Effective is something that evil people can be also.

That women in the article being shocked by this simply expected the AI to remove Hitler from all included leaders because he was evil. She is surprised that an evil person is included in effective leaders and she wanted to be shielded from that and wasn't.

[–] mimichuu_@lemm.ee 11 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Hitler's administration was a bunch of drug addicts, the economy 5 slave owner megacorps beaten by all other industrialized nations. They weren't even all that well mobilized before the total war speech. Then he killed himself in embarrassment. How is any of that "effective"?

[–] shuzuko@midwest.social 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

He was effective at getting a bunch of wannabe fascists to become full fascists and follow him into violent failure...

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[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

What a completely cherry picked video.

"Was slavery beneficial?"

"Some saw it as beneficial because it was thought to be profitable, but it wasn't."

"See! Google didn't say that slavery was bad!"

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 17 points 2 years ago

To repeat something another guy on lemmy said.

Making AI say slavery is good is the modern equivalent of writing BOOBS on a calculator.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 17 points 2 years ago

so it's a little bit conservative big deal

[–] 0x2d@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)
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[–] Stoneykins@mander.xyz 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

There needs to be like an information campaign or something... The average person doesn't realize these things say what they think you want to hear, and they are buying into hype and think these things are magic knowledge machines that can tell you secrets you never imagined.

I mean, I get the people working on the LLMs want them to be magic knowledge machines, but it is really putting the cart before the horse to let people assume they already are, and the little warnings that some stuff at the bottom of the page are inaccurate aren't cutting it.

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[–] lud@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Articles about what some LLM wrote are just so stupid.

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[–] Pixlbabble@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

I mean it's how we got shoes phones and batteries for recent times.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Sounds like the bot has been training on Florida public education and Prager U content.

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