Tag: OpenAI

What The Web’s History Can Tell Us About The Future Of OpenAI ChatGPT

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was one of the first people to use the World Wide Web around 1994 when it was just beginning to gain in popularity. I was in college and I can still remember the transition from the text-based Gopher to Mosaic and then finally to the .08 release of Mozilla (Netscape Navigator.)

It was a very exciting time, to say the least. And, but for the way my mind is designed, I probably would have rushed to Silicon Valley after graduating from college and tried some sort of startup. But, alas, I’m a writer not a coder.

But here’s what I can tell you about what I think might happen to technology such as what is associated with OpenAI ChatGPT.

The first thing is — whatever happens, is probably going to happen a LOT quicker. Instead of about 20 years for the full impact of ChatGPT (and associated technologies) it’s probably going to be closer to five-ish years. A lot depends on how long it takes for true AGI to happen as well as how long it takes for someone to hook something like ChatGPT to the Internet and let it run wild. That connection to the Internet is going to be key.

While the the design of true AGI is rather abstract and could be something we always JUST about to see happen, connecting some better successor to ChatGPT to the Internet would be a practical way for Silicon Valley to change the lives of millions.

In fact, I suspect once ChatGPT-like technology is connected to the Internet, there will be a mad landrush like there was when it became apparent around 1994 that the Web was going to mainstream the Internet in a big way. There will probably be a number of ChatGPT-like faux-AIs that people use, which will lead to the earliest forms of market segmentation.

Then the typical capitalistic dynamic will occur and there will be HUGE speculation and maybe even a Tech Bubble 2.0 which will pop in the end, causing its own problems.

But this process could be sped up pretty quickly. Yet I will note that we just aren’t quite there when it comes to ChatGPT being a new Netscape. There are too many problems with it, it’s too easy for people in the know to poo-poo it as not being what useful. Though, I have to note, the first version of Netscape Navigator didn’t have the ability to print and it still managed to take off like wildfire.

My chief concern — and I have a LOT of concerns about ChatGPT at the moment — is when the tipping point on the jobs front will happen. If business begin to shed jobs not because of a recession in 2023 but because, lulz, the next version of ChatGPT makes those jobs moot, well, we’re all in for shitshow in late 2024 – 2025.

I say this because if we’re going through an epic economic and technology transformation just as we’re also figuring out if we’re going to have a civil war, turn into an autocracy or have a military junta established….then, well, late 2024, early 2025 could be one of the momentus few months in human history. I know that sounds pretty hysterical, but the conditions are there, at least, for something pretty dramatic to happen.

But only time will tell. I’m always wrong.

Social Darwinism 2.0 In The Age Of AGI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We just are not taking seriously the possibility that we’re going to see Social Darwinism 2.0 should Artificial General Intelligence take off in a big way anytime soon. The return of Social Darwinism would occur in the guise of MAGA Nazis demanding that any “wokeness” be purged from an AGI.

This would be very important if, say, AGI pretty much came to dominate global human life. This could happen in a number of different ways. There is a spectrum of outcomes. They range from AGI always being a “tool” for humanity to a “Her” type outcome where AGI has such hard AI that it has agency and will do whatever the fuck it wants regardless of the wishes of humans.

But my fear is that as AGI grows in power that because humans are so fucking lazy that extremists on both sides will use the opinions of AGI as “validation” for their extremism. This would be very much similar to what happen with Darwinism and the Nazis.

So, my fear is we’ll wake up at some point in the near future with some extremist group — be they far Left or far Right — using the “bias” found in an AGI to justify horrific actions similar to what the Nazis did.

And remember, if you combine the law of unintended consequences with the innate laziness of humans in general, then there is a real risk that something Nazi-like might happen a lot sooner than you might think. The seeds of such horrific events can already be seen in the political discourse around OpenAI on Twitter.

I hate extremism in general. I hate extreme “wokeness” just as much as I hate fucking MAGA Nazism. In fact, it’s rather unusual for me that I’ve become something of a “radical moderate” in recent years in the context of the mainstreaming of MAGA Nazism.

Anyway, we have to start taking the risk of neo-Social Darwinism seriously. And it will happen in the context of a potential, massive upending of the global economy as AGI is able to perform more and more functions that we once thought were exclusively human.

The Quest For Fire

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing I’ve noticed about the OpenAI chatbot is how badly people want to use it instead of Google, even though for various reasons that’s just not practical at the moment. But it is telling that this gives us some insight into where the market wants to go.

In the mind of the consumer, there would be a natural progression from Google to something like the OpenAI chatbot. To the point that real-world consumers are chomping at the bit to replace Google with it, even though it’s not connected to the live Web at the moment.

The key thing reason why OpenAi’s chatbot is a tipping point is it’s the first time when people can see for themselves in a real world setting what existing AI is able to do. As such, it definitely seems as though soon enough Google is going to face an existential choice — either come out with its own chatbot style interface for search or risk being eaten alive.

Because it definitely seems as though the rush is now on for different companies to come out with chatbots that are open to the public. And I think that’s something people are being a little naïve about — they are seeing the OpenAI in a vacuum, as if Google, Facebook and Apple aren’t all going to eventually come out with their own chatbot techology.

In fact, Google already has a chatbot so advance that someone thinks it’s AGI! So, it’s reasonable to assume that OpenAI should enjoy its moment in the sun while it can. It’s very possible that within a few years there will be a number of similar advanced chatbots for people to chose from.

The reason issue is, of course, who develops the first true hard AI, the first true AGI. THAT would be the Singularity and whoever managed to pull that off would find their company cited in the history books as pretty much re-inventing fire.

The ‘Woke’ In The Machine

One of the rhetorical strawmen that fucking MAGA Nazis love to employ is the question, “What is a woman?” They see it as a gotcha for the center-Left because of the political power of the transgender community. What alarms me is how often MAGA Nazis are now poking and prodding OpenAI’s ChatGPT in hopes of using it to validate their political agenda.

If ChatGPT agrees with them, then they run around screaming on Twitter that they’ve “owned” the libs because even an AI agrees with them on this or that subject. Meanwhile, if it DOESN’T agree with their hate filled worldview, they whine and complain about how its designed to tow the line of the “woke cancel culture mob” agenda.

All of this is very, very alarming to me because humans are so fucking lazy and the law of unintended consequences is so potent, that it seems very possible that wars will be one day fought over who gets to program their “bias” into an AGI.

The horrible thing is, of course, that extremists on both sides will ultimately use the lack-of-nuance answers on an AGI’s part to validate their most extreme policy goals. I’m really beginning to fear that we’re at the cusp of a historical replay of what happened with Darwinism. It could be that a future war will be fought across the globe over stupid shit like “what is a woman.”

Something about how smug extremists on both sides are when they go out of their way to get an answer from ChatGPT really enrages me. This is why we can’t have nice things.

But humans gotta be humans. So, buckle up. this is just the beginning. The issue now is how soon and how quickly does the global economy collapse as AGI consumes trillion dollar industry after trillion dollar industry.