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I just posted this on LinkedIn in response to a survey from a colleague of mine asking whether ChatGPT should be credited as a co-author on papers:
1. ChatGPT does not have a conception of what is going on in the world. It is a word-emitter that tricks human minds into thinking it does. In other words, it's a kind of complex automaton, a marionette. The fact that the action of it is complex enough to fool us into thinking it "knows" something does not mean it does
2. ChatGPT is as likely to emit false information as true information (perhaps more so; has this been assessed?)
3. ChatGPT does not have deductive or inductive logical reasoning capabilities; nor does it have any "drive" to follow these principles
4. Human papers are for human writers to communicate to human readers. It seems to me that the only argument in favor of including ChatGPT in this process is a misguided drive to speed up the process even more than publish-or-perish has. In fact it should be *slowed down* and made *more careful*.
5. The present interest in ChatGPT is almost entirely driven by investor-fueled hype. It's where investors are running after the collapse of cryptocurrency/web3. There is a nice interview with Timnit Gebru on the Tech Won't Save Us podcast, titled "Don’t Fall for the AI Hype" that goes into this if you're curious. As computer scientists, we should not be chasing trends like this.
I couldn't help but add a second response after I saw someone throw up their hands and say this is the "state of the world" now:
The state of the world is what we make it. As computer scientists, we have a responsibility to hold the line against this maniacal hype. It's insane, in an almost literal sense, for us to follow the herd on this particular issue. We know better. We know all about just-so stories. We know about mechanical Turks. We've been through half a dozen or more AI hype cycles where the latest thing, whether it be expert systems or case-based reasoning or cybernetics or the subsumption architecture or neural networks or Bayesian inference or or or...., was going to replace the human mind. None of them have become that, to a one, and ChatGPT won't either.
@abucci I'd disagree. The world is huge. We are 8 billion people, as individuals we can impact 100, perhaps 1,000 people. Even the biggest companies impact billions, but not all humanity. Even countries and global leaders impact a slice of the world. It's a huge problem for us to solve. It's nice tring to break limits. In my youth, for that sake I joined into politics, companies, and non-profits. And it's hard and a bit disappointing that things doesn't improve in the way we'd expect. Requires a lot of energy to fight the status quo.
And we need to have hope of a better world. We as humans, NEED hope. Thats why religions, organizations, volunteers, exist.
It's not romantic to say something against hope. It's better to say "Yeah, let's follow this politician/businesspeople/influencer/idealism, they have an answer to the problem", usually is not true.
But on what I'd agree is that we can impact OUR world. We can avoid using the polluting product, the toxic technology or what the evil company mak
take it from who it comes. I could be wrong and I'm in a stage of my life defining what is the next step to have a decent lifestyle while I'm feeling proud, or at least not-shaming from my passage though this world.
I live in a "second world/developing country" with the former richest man in the world. We have scarcity, and people here needs to believe on a better life. I think it's the same everywhere else but here is not a matter of "having vacation this year" but "having housing and food tomorrow"
Perhaps that changes POVs, I don't know.
I'm open to ideas, but please be gentle and understand other lives and other realities. As I say to my students, colleagues and friends. Every person has a different reality, a perception of it. Some live on a reality distortion field. A.k.a. Biases, but that's another story.
Be empathetic. And let's work together for a better world, trying to make something _helpful_ as a group and as individuals.
I'm open to ideas, but please be gentle and understand other lives and other realities. As I say to my students, colleagues and friends. Every person has a different reality.
Be empathetic. And let's work together for a better world, trying to make something _helpful_ as a group and as individuals.
I'm open to ideas, but please be gentle and understand other lifes and other realities. As I say to my students, colleagues and friends. Every person has a different reality.
Be empathetic. And let's work together for a better world, trying to make something _helpful_ as a group and as individuals.
@eaplmx I don't understand what you're trying to say here, but it seems to express a kind of passivity that I just cannot get behind. I will not accept the status quo, period. Please stop trying to convince me to, because that makes you, unbelievably, one of the reasons that the status quo resists change!
You seem to be ignoring that not so long ago, nobody knew the word "ChatGPT". Now they do. Somebody changed the world to introduce that word into more people's vocabulary. I wish to change the world to change how people conceive of what that world means. I'm not going to stop trying to do that just because there are 8 bullion people on Earth.
@eaplmx I don't understand what you're disagreeing with.
@eaplmx I'm don't understand what you're saying, since I literally am trying to empathetic and work together (with my computer scientist colleagues) for a better world?
@eaplmx I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, since I literally am trying to empathetic and work together (with my computer scientist colleagues) for a better world?
@abucci try to... It's not easy, but I know you can
@abucci that's the key, go outside your computer science environment, get out of your confort zone
@eaplmx I did try. I believe you are being unclear and I don't understand why. I have to tell you, just to be fully honest, that I think you are accusing me of things unfairly, and I object to that. I also think you have done this before on this site. It's fine if you don't like what I think, or how I think about things, or how I express myself. I'm happy to experiment with communication styles that work better. But it sure sounds to me as though you are suggesting, vaguely and without admitting to it, that I am not empathetic, not gentle, and not helping people. If that is not what you've been saying, then I'm sorry I misread but you really ought to clarify because it's what I'm coming to believe.
I hear what you're saying about scarcity. You don't know me, nor my background, so please be careful with your assumptions on that point. I did grow up in the US, and the US is extremely privileged in many ways, but those privileges are not universally distributed. I'd also point out that I am coming from the perspective of a credentialed computer scientist who feels a responsibility to his field, and I am operating in the context of using words and rhetoric, a tool available to everyone. I don't have degrees from fancy schools like Harvard or MIT that give my words extra weight; if I did I wouldn't be writing this on yarn.social, I'd be writing this in the New York Times.
@eaplmx Your comment betrays a whole universe of assumptions about me, including that I do not regularly leave my comfort zone. I find this objectionable, and I am going to ask you to stop doing that because it bothers me. If you continue to say things like this to me I'll have to block you.
@eaplmx I can appreciate that you might not mean it this way, but this post sounds condescending and arrogant. Just so you know. If a native English speaker said something like this to me, my response would be "fuck you."
@abucci I guess the best is to block each other since our ideas are not compatible and we are not open to change our mind
Thanks for the conversation tho
I believe this is a huge misunderstanding, probably driven by the fact that @eaplmx first language isn’t English. I don’t see any correlation between his replies to yours, @abucci. So I, too, am lost.
I wanted to add that—at least for me—it is hard to follow long twtxts, especially because I come here on mobile. I see twtxt as microblogging, and adjust my attention span accordingly. 😂🙈
@bender You're probably right about that.
@eaplmx / @abucci / @bender I'm afraid I'm not going to do this Twt and justice as I haven't read the full Yarn (yet), but I just wanted to say off the bat just based on the first 3 Twts in this Yarn:
> And we need to have hope of a better world. We as humans, NEED hope. Thats why religions, organizations, volunteers, exist.
I'm sorry but I don't agree with this statement. "Hope", whilst a powerful and useful human emotion doesn't solve anything. We cannot "hope" that the assholes of the world will stop being selfish little (and big?) assholes with power and wealth, or "hope" that Google™, Microsoft™ and even Apple™ will suddenly start giving a shit about user/data privacy and security and stop profiting off data that isn't theirs to have.
Anyway... Hope is IMO not the answer. If you want to change something, actions speak louder than words.
@eaplmx / @abucci / @bender I'm afraid I'm not going to do this Twt and justice as I haven't read the full Yarn (yet), but I just wanted to say off the bat just based on the first 3 Twts in this Yarn:
> And we need to have hope of a better world. We as humans, NEED hope. Thats why religions, organizations, volunteers, exist.
I'm sorry but I don't agree with this statement. "Hope", whilst a powerful and useful human emotion doesn't solve anything. We cannot "hope" that the assholes of the world will stop being selfish little (and big?) assholes with power and wealth, or "hope" that Google™, Microsoft™ and even Apple™ will suddenly start giving a shit about user/data privacy and security and stop profiting off data that isn't theirs to have.
Anyway... Hope is IMO not the answer. If you want to change something, actions speak louder than words.
@eaplmx / @abucci / @bender I'm afraid I'm not going to do this Twt and justice as I haven't read the full Yarn (yet), but I just wanted to say off the bat just based on the first 3 Twts in this Yarn:
> And we need to have hope of a better world. We as humans, NEED hope. Thats why religions, organizations, volunteers, exist.
I'm sorry but I don't agree with this statement. "Hope", whilst a powerful and useful human emotion doesn't solve anything. We cannot "hope" that the assholes of the world will stop being selfish little (and big?) assholes with power and wealth, or "hope" that Google™, Microsoft™ and even Apple™ will suddenly start giving a shit about user/data privacy and security and stop profiting off data that isn't theirs to have.
Anyway... Hope is IMO not the answer. If you want to change something, actions speak louder than words.
@eaplmx / @abucci / @bender I'm afraid I'm not going to do this Twt and justice as I haven't read the full Yarn (yet), but I just wanted to say off the bat just based on the first 3 Twts in this Yarn:
> And we need to have hope of a better world. We as humans, NEED hope. Thats why religions, organizations, volunteers, exist.
I'm sorry but I don't agree with this statement. "Hope", whilst a powerful and useful human emotion doesn't solve anything. We cannot "hope" that the assholes of the world will stop being selfish little (and big?) assholes with power and wealth, or "hope" that Google™, Microsoft™ and even Apple™ will suddenly start giving a shit about user/data privacy and security and stop profiting off data that isn't theirs to have.
Anyway... Hope is IMO not the answer. If you want to change something, actions speak louder than words.
@eaplmx If I may... I _think_ @abucci has a what we call a "morale outrage" against ChatGPT and all things hyped up in the AI field. And rightfully so, as I _believe_ this is part of @abucci field of study/work? 🤔 -- I can totally see why to, with AI not even being remotely close to my field, I can understand his point of view and I agree with it.
All the *GPT things and AI (of late) are just super "hyped up". Too many people are thinking (abd believing) that's a wonderful magical "silver bullet" that will solve all the world's problems (wrong). The hype probably exists (mostly?) because there's going to be a lot of "products" and "services" built on this *GPT (shit) and we're either going to be a) forced to use it or b) ripped off in some way.
That's the nature of a capitalist world economy (one which IMO has become quite a hockey stick as we call it, extreme).
@eaplmx If I may... I _think_ @abucci has a what we call a "morale outrage" against ChatGPT and all things hyped up in the AI field. And rightfully so, as I _believe_ this is part of @abucci field of study/work? 🤔 -- I can totally see why to, with AI not even being remotely close to my field, I can understand his point of view and I agree with it.
All the *GPT things and AI (of late) are just super "hyped up". Too many people are thinking (abd believing) that's a wonderful magical "silver bullet" that will solve all the world's problems (wrong). The hype probably exists (mostly?) because there's going to be a lot of "products" and "services" built on this *GPT (shit) and we're either going to be a) forced to use it or b) ripped off in some way.
That's the nature of a capitalist world economy (one which IMO has become quite a hockey stick as we call it, extreme).
@eaplmx If I may... I _think_ @abucci has a what we call a "morale outrage" against ChatGPT and all things hyped up in the AI field. And rightfully so, as I _believe_ this is part of @abucci field of study/work? 🤔 -- I can totally see why to, with AI not even being remotely close to my field, I can understand his point of view and I agree with it.
All the *GPT things and AI (of late) are just super "hyped up". Too many people are thinking (abd believing) that's a wonderful magical "silver bullet" that will solve all the world's problems (wrong). The hype probably exists (mostly?) because there's going to be a lot of "products" and "services" built on this *GPT (shit) and we're either going to be a) forced to use it or b) ripped off in some way.
That's the nature of a capitalist world economy (one which IMO has become quite a hockey stick as we call it, extreme).
@eaplmx If I may... I _think_ @abucci has a what we call a "morale outrage" against ChatGPT and all things hyped up in the AI field. And rightfully so, as I _believe_ this is part of @abucci field of study/work? 🤔 -- I can totally see why to, with AI not even being remotely close to my field, I can understand his point of view and I agree with it.
All the *GPT things and AI (of late) are just super "hyped up". Too many people are thinking (abd believing) that's a wonderful magical "silver bullet" that will solve all the world's problems (wrong). The hype probably exists (mostly?) because there's going to be a lot of "products" and "services" built on this *GPT (shit) and we're either going to be a) forced to use it or b) ripped off in some way.
That's the nature of a capitalist world economy (one which IMO has become quite a hockey stick as we call it, extreme).
Yeah, AI this, AI that, it's almost smothering anywhere you go in the tech news world.
It's going to be like the internet in general - has a heap of hype and dreams about how it will make life easier/better in various ways... and then get used and abused by Big Tech to invade our privacy and make society worse.