It’s as if we’ve never seen a single sci-fi movie.
Just days after San Francisco voted to give city police the ability to use killer robots, we’ve got a new terrifying cyborg threat to consider. OpenAI, the research group supported by uber-capitalists like Elongated Muskrat, has released a new artificial intelligence chatbot that could either be an amusing toy or a dangerous weapon.
ChatGPT is a prototype dialogue-based AI chatbot capable of understanding natural human language and generating impressively detailed human-like written text. It’s the latest evolution of the GPT – or Generative Pre-Trained Transformer – family of text-generating AI. The system is trained by AI and machine learning and is designed to provide information and answer questions through a conversational interface. On its face it’s a cool toy to play with, input your prompt or query and sit back and watch the machine answer your question or spit out relevant information in a matter of seconds.
The AI is trained on a huge sample of text taken from the internet, but at its current stage, the chatbot lacks essential qualities like nuance, critical-thinking skills or ethical decision-making ability. In a recent statement, OpenAI says the new AI was created with a focus on ease of use. “The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”
“Soon you will be able to have helpful assistants that talk to you, answer questions, and give advice. Later you can have something that goes off and does tasks for you. Eventually you can have something that goes off and discovers new knowledge for you.”
-Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI who apparently never watched Jurassic Park
Of course this toy/weapon will be used and abused as it grows in popularity, but there’s no telling exactly how this could benefit our species or lead to humanity’s downfall. Back in my day, artificial intelligence was when I would spew nonsense in class about a reading I clearly didn’t do. 10 years from now, our cyborg overlords might punish us for that kinda behavior.
Side Items
Breaking New: Nobody Cares About Iowa: It looks like the idiots in charge of American elections finally came to terms with the fact that Iowa is unremarkable in every imaginable way. The democratic national committee (dnc) has decided to move around the presidential primary schedule and end Iowa’s inexplicable first-in-the-nation status. I’m not entirely sure why Iowa was ever seen as the barometer for how Americans would vote, but the new proposed schedule puts South Carolina (the inferior Carolina) as the first stop on the campaign trail. I guess they need something to attract people to that godforsaken state
ACAB Part I: An audit of the California Highway Patrol found that over 50 dirty piglets exaggerated their overtime hours and reported working full shifts when they didn't work at all. Officers were initially charged with fraud and wage theft, but Judge Ronald Coen offered all 54 of the dirty cops a deal: He would reduce their felonies to misdemeanors and then dismiss them if officers agreed to pay the money the CHP accused them of improperly receiving. This deal did not require the officers to admit guilt. According to these cops, it was common practice among officers to work just two or three hours of late-night overtime at work sites in the area and then fill out time cards claiming they had worked full shifts of eight hours or more. If these cops are willing to lie about working, I wonder what else they’re willing to lie about…
ACAB Part II: The police chief of Tampa, FL has been placed on leave after a video emerged of her flashing her badge from the passenger seat of a golf cart to get out of a traffic ticket. Police Chief Mary O’Connor has been put on administrative leave pending an investigation of the Nov. 12 traffic stop. It’s almost as if there are two separate and entirely unequal systems of policing in the US…
RIP Kirstie Alley: The two-time Emmy winner passed earlier this week after battling cancer. White people probably know her from the show “Cheers”, which I’ve never seen, but I’ll always remember her convincing performance as the tooth fairy in “Toothless”, a classic film if I’ve ever seen one
World Cup Recap
Croatia put an end to Japanese hopes, beating the Samurai Blue 3-1 in penalties after the game ended in a 1-1 draw. Japan took a brief lead before conceding an equalizer and their fatal flaw seemed to be a lack of practicing penalty kicks. The ever-courteous fans stayed after to help clean up the stadium, truly the best example of soccer fandom I’ve ever seen
Brazil is good…like real freakin’ good. The Brazilians dispatched the last remaining Asian team in the tournament, South Korea, 4-1 in the most one-sided game of the knockout stages. Brazil put up four goals in the first half alone, and were comfortable enough to substitute their starting goalie for their backup’s backup. This team will be tough to beat, particularly as they rally around the legend Pele, who appears to be approaching his final days