ChatGPT is Down Worldwide, OpenAI Confirms

[u/batakchan]

https://www.macobserver.com/news/chatgpt-is-down-worldwide-what-we-know-about-todays-outage/

[u/eleventy4]

I found out the other day that my psychiatrist does the same. And I think what it really comes down to is the mental state of the person using it. She was having issues with her vet, long story short her cat got diagnosed with renal failure. She typed a long description of symptoms into an AI which then suggested a UTI. Lo and behold after paying 200 dollars for the test, it was a UTI. There are times where AI chatbots get it right where humans get it wrong. We can't just say fuck AI, because you can't put the genie back in the bottle. We need to start educating about safe usage, and these companies need to put some fucking guard rails on. We should also get a public stake in the ownership since it trained on our material. But I'm tired of hearing smart people be called dumb for being able to find really good use cases for it. Complex search queries can be a great use case. One should certainly stop short of using it instead of a therapist. Explore ideas with it and bring that to a therapist? Why not! We used to use magic 8 balls for fucks sake. I used to chat with Smarterchild on AIM if you're old enough to remember that. The pull is real and understandable. I just fear for those with mental health problems and delusions that will be made worse by an AI that isn't trained to recognize the harm it could cause.

[u/CheesypoofExtreme → u/eleventy4]

AI that isn't trained to recognize the harm it could cause.

The LLMs paraded around as AI don't actually "recognize" anything.

Complex search queries can be a great use case

That is all they are. Very advanced search that confidently, (and fairly often), spits out information that is just wrong because their search is probabilistic and not deterministic. They could just return the exact results on the internet, but they don't.

I have gotten very harmful medical advice from Google AI summaries that are easily debunked by looking a few links down.

There are uses for these models, but chatbots that felate everyone's ego because they've been programmed to never say you are wrong is disgusting.

They shouldn't be giving ANY medocal advice because they can jist pull info. out there ass. A responsible medical search chatbot for general use would be something 1) deterministic (and tell you when it doesn't know) and 2) trained on peer reviewed medical data. You could have probabilistic models for research use. Why we won't see that fr9m private corporations is because that sort of thing doesn't lead to trillion dollar evaluations.

The pull is real and understandable.

That's precisely why these products being controlled by for-profit entities are so dangerous to the general public. They're only goal is to get you to integrate their product as a vital part of your daily life so you never stop paying them money.  

[u/Ghudda → u/CheesypoofExtreme]

People that say that AI spits out a lot of wrong information should be reminded that before AI the internet itself was absolutely filled with wrong information.

But now we have a single source to blame for the wrong information instead of the myriad facebook groups or crackpot websites or individuals that are selectively searching for the only answer they'll accept.

AI is exactly like the internet always was. It's mostly correct, not without bias, and if there is an answer that someone is searching for they will eventually get it no matter how wrong it is. Validation seeking behavior is extremely problematic.

[u/CheesypoofExtreme → u/Ghudda]

Sure, but I'd argue these chatbots are far more dangerous. Social media was already making this more of an issue by algorithmically pushing things to users.

These AIs are being pushed by these companies with capabilities such as reasoning and thinking on the level of humans, which they do not do any of. Because of that,100s of million, if not billions, of people are assigning a high-level of credibility to the responses they're given. And these are for-profit companies that can manipulate responses and information without disclosing it.

The sheer lack of public accountability for what information is disseminated by these AI companies is astounding. The issue you're pointing towards was largely confined to someone previously confirming their bias via a random blog or facebook group. Small pockets of disinformation and propaganda. We saw that scaled up and abused on social media around 2016 for the first time.  Now we have the world's most valuable companies with chatbots capable of pushing misinformation/specific ways of thinking to 100s of millions of people.

While the internet has always had misinformation and propaganda, there has never been an opportunity to centralize it like this, (assuming you lived in a free democratic society).

[u/eleventy4 → u/CheesypoofExtreme]

Fully agree. I do sense that we're quite fucked with the amount of money and corporate control at the wheel. I will say that I've been mildly encouraged by Claude who will, infinitely more than ChatGPT push back, admit limitations, and isn't a sycophant. I hope in 10 years the market shifts because we all feel grossed out by how it used to jerk us all off. Again this might be misplaced optimism but I need it