If GPT emulations of social experiments are not correct, policy decisions based on them will make them so.
“GPT said people would hate buses, so we halved their number and slashed transportation budget… Wow, do our people actually hate buses with passion!”
“A year ago GPT said people would not be worried about climate change, so we stopped giving it coverage and removed related social adverts and initiatives. People really don’t give a flying duck about climate change it turns out, GPT was so right!”
This is an oversimplification, of course; to say it with more nuance, anything socio- and psycho- is a minefield of self-fulfilling prophecies that ML seems to be nicely positioned to wreak havoc in. (But the small “this is not a replacement for human experiment” notice is going to be heeded by all, right?)
As someone wrote once, all you need for machine dictatorship is an LLM and a critical number of human accomplices. No need for superintelligence or robots.
“GPT said people would hate buses, so we halved their number and slashed transportation budget… Wow, do our people actually hate buses with passion!”
“A year ago GPT said people would not be worried about climate change, so we stopped giving it coverage and removed related social adverts and initiatives. People really don’t give a flying duck about climate change it turns out, GPT was so right!”
This is an oversimplification, of course; to say it with more nuance, anything socio- and psycho- is a minefield of self-fulfilling prophecies that ML seems to be nicely positioned to wreak havoc in. (But the small “this is not a replacement for human experiment” notice is going to be heeded by all, right?)
As someone wrote once, all you need for machine dictatorship is an LLM and a critical number of human accomplices. No need for superintelligence or robots.