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I would also love to see more transparency around AI behavior guardrails, but I don't expect that will happen anytime soon. Transparency would make it much easi

I would also love to see more transparency around AI behavior guardrails, but I don't expect that will happen anytime soon. Transparency would make it much easier to circumvent guardrails.

asdff 3y ago
Transparency may also subject these companies to litigation from groups that feel they are misrepresented in whatever way in the model.
- Jason_Protell 3y ago
  This makes me wonder, how much lawyering is involved in the development of these tools?
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    I often wonder if corporate lawyers just tell tech founders whatever they want to hear. At a previous healthcare startup our founder asked us to build some really dodgy stuff with healthcare data. He assured us that it "cleared legal", but from everything I could tell it was in direct violation of the local healthcare info privacy acts. I chose to find a new job at the time.
  - photoGrant 3y ago
    I've had 'AI Attorneys' on Twitter unable to even debate the most basic of arguments. It is definitely a self fulfilling death spiral and no one wants to check reality.
Jensson 3y ago
Why is it an issue that you can circumvent the guardrails? I never understood that. The guard rails are there so that innocent people doesn't get bad responses with porn or racism, a user looking for porn or racism getting that doesn't seem to be a big deal.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  The problem is bad actors who think porn or racism are intolerable in any form, who will publish mountains of articles condemning your chatbot for producing such things, even if they had to go out of their way to break the guardrails to make it do so. They will create boycotts against you, they will lobby government to make your life harder, they will petition payment processors and cloud service providers to not work with you. We've see this behavior before, it's nothing new. Now if you're the type to fight them, that might not be a problem. If you are a super risk-averse board of directors who doesn't want that sort of controversy, then you will take steps not to draw their attention in the first place.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    But I can find porn and racism using Google search right now, how is that different? You have to disable their filters, but you can find it. Why is there no such thing for the google generation bots, I don't see why it would be so much worse here?
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      I cannot explain why Google gets a pass, possibly just because they are well entrenched and not an easy target. But AI models are new, they are vulnerable to criticism, and they are absolutely ripe for a group of "antis" to form around.
      - westhanover 3y ago
        Well if you have no explanation for that I don’t see why we should try and use your model to understand anything about being risk adverse. They don’t care about being sued, they want to change reality.
        bluefirebrand 3y ago
        That's a pretty unreasonably high standard to hold. It's an offhand comment in a discussion on the internet not a research paper, expecting me to immediately have an answer to every possible angle here that I haven't immediately considered is a bit much. Take it or leave it, I don't really care. I was just hoping to have an interesting conversation.
xanderlewis 3y ago
Security through obscurity?

I would also love to see more transparency around AI behavior guardrails, but I don't expect that will happen anytime soon. Transparency would make it much easier to circumvent guardrails.

asdff 3y ago

Transparency may also subject these companies to litigation from groups that feel they are misrepresented in whatever way in the model.

Jason_Protell 3y ago
This makes me wonder, how much lawyering is involved in the development of these tools?
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  I often wonder if corporate lawyers just tell tech founders whatever they want to hear. At a previous healthcare startup our founder asked us to build some really dodgy stuff with healthcare data. He assured us that it "cleared legal", but from everything I could tell it was in direct violation of the local healthcare info privacy acts. I chose to find a new job at the time.
- photoGrant 3y ago
  I've had 'AI Attorneys' on Twitter unable to even debate the most basic of arguments. It is definitely a self fulfilling death spiral and no one wants to check reality.

Jensson 3y ago

Why is it an issue that you can circumvent the guardrails? I never understood that. The guard rails are there so that innocent people doesn't get bad responses with porn or racism, a user looking for porn or racism getting that doesn't seem to be a big deal.

bluefirebrand 3y ago
The problem is bad actors who think porn or racism are intolerable in any form, who will publish mountains of articles condemning your chatbot for producing such things, even if they had to go out of their way to break the guardrails to make it do so. They will create boycotts against you, they will lobby government to make your life harder, they will petition payment processors and cloud service providers to not work with you. We've see this behavior before, it's nothing new. Now if you're the type to fight them, that might not be a problem. If you are a super risk-averse board of directors who doesn't want that sort of controversy, then you will take steps not to draw their attention in the first place.
- Jensson 3y ago
  But I can find porn and racism using Google search right now, how is that different? You have to disable their filters, but you can find it. Why is there no such thing for the google generation bots, I don't see why it would be so much worse here?
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    I cannot explain why Google gets a pass, possibly just because they are well entrenched and not an easy target. But AI models are new, they are vulnerable to criticism, and they are absolutely ripe for a group of "antis" to form around.
    - westhanover 3y ago
      Well if you have no explanation for that I don’t see why we should try and use your model to understand anything about being risk adverse. They don’t care about being sued, they want to change reality.
      - bluefirebrand 3y ago
        That's a pretty unreasonably high standard to hold. It's an offhand comment in a discussion on the internet not a research paper, expecting me to immediately have an answer to every possible angle here that I haven't immediately considered is a bit much. Take it or leave it, I don't really care. I was just hoping to have an interesting conversation.

xanderlewis 3y ago

Security through obscurity?