undefined | Better HN

0 pointsfshbbdssbbgdd3y ago0 comments

Use GPT to generate messages from a supporter of Y politician from X demographic, designed to enrage people from Q demographic. Then text those messages to every cell phone in America. Who would do this? Maybe some other politician’s campaign, maybe some foreign government trying to destabilize the country.

Next think you know OpenAI is on the front page of the Times for ruining democracy, Sam Altman hauled before congress, and every agency is trying to fine them for any violation they can think of.

0 comments

TylerLives3y ago

Surely this can be done better without ChatGPT? One thing I can think of is doing it on internet forums. Somebody could use lots of accounts to generate content like that on HN. Now that I think about it, this seems unavoidable and I don't see how public forums can defend against it.

asoneth3y ago

I suspect that the goal of the OpenAI/GPT usage restriction is not to prevent Every Bad Thing, but to avoid contributing to them in a way that draws negative attention.

After all, "Political Campaign Uses AI to Make Attack Ad" would get more clicks than "Political Campaign Makes Attack Ad" so there will be extra journalistic scrutiny whenever AI is involved.

SamPatt3y ago

Same with their attempt at watermarking the AI output.

worldsayshi3y ago

The are ways to defend against it but I don't see any that aren't quite heavy handed, like forcing all users created after some date to identify using electronic id.

alexb_3y ago

This comment reminds me of this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1958/

You don't need GPT to do this. Humans have been making propaganda for centuries.

fshbbdssbbgddOP3y ago

People already are running influence operations like I describe using human authors [1]. The difference is GPT would allow a much larger volume of content to be created at lower cost. A few engineers could run a system that argues with millions of people.

[1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/brief-history-online-influence-o...

jjeaff3y ago

Most importantly, ai could create millions of unique messages with the same intent. Whereas, plastering the same few messages over and over online or sending out duplicates of the same message are much easier to notice, filter, block, or delete.

scarmig3y ago

GPT can do this faster, cheaper, and (soon) better than most people. That poses a problem. For comparison, people have always run scams that victimize old people, but new communication and payment technologies have made it happen far more often and effectively.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse