Chatbots, as they currently exist, are extremely concerning, especially in regards to their use by children and teenagers. Chatbots have neither ethics nor rational thought, and as such they can’t tell right from wrong, nor true from false. Meanwhile, kids and teens are still learning what’s reality and what isn’t, meaning that a realistic, ever-confident bot without any ethical or logical understanding can easily lead them astray. There’s already been one kid who killed himself because a realistic chatbot goaded him on.
That’s already happening today, without any human oversight or guidance over the specific content on LLMs. But that may not be the case forever - consider that if AI chatbots are already that influential, how long until companies find a way to get their own products promoted by them?
Advertisers study the fine art of manipulation, they know the power of a personal story or recommendation from a friend. Until now, if they wanted that, they’ve had to either create a product/experience that generates word-of-mouth praise, or else incentivize people to generate such praise (ie “influencers.”) But now, there’s this technology that is able to fake being someone’s friend, that plenty of people will trust wholeheartedly. That’s a system that’s ripe for corruption. Add in that Republicans are trying to ban the regulation of AI and it becomes clear - this technology will be abused. I’d even go so far as to say that it was intended to be used to manipulate people all along.
Chatbots, as they currently exist, are extremely concerning, especially in regards to their use by children and teenagers. Chatbots have neither ethics nor rational thought, and as such they can’t tell right from wrong, nor true from false. Meanwhile, kids and teens are still learning what’s reality and what isn’t, meaning that a realistic, ever-confident bot without any ethical or logical understanding can easily lead them astray. There’s already been one kid who killed himself because a realistic chatbot goaded him on.
That’s already happening today, without any human oversight or guidance over the specific content on LLMs. But that may not be the case forever - consider that if AI chatbots are already that influential, how long until companies find a way to get their own products promoted by them?
Advertisers study the fine art of manipulation, they know the power of a personal story or recommendation from a friend. Until now, if they wanted that, they’ve had to either create a product/experience that generates word-of-mouth praise, or else incentivize people to generate such praise (ie “influencers.”) But now, there’s this technology that is able to fake being someone’s friend, that plenty of people will trust wholeheartedly. That’s a system that’s ripe for corruption. Add in that Republicans are trying to ban the regulation of AI and it becomes clear - this technology will be abused. I’d even go so far as to say that it was intended to be used to manipulate people all along.