
A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human? - alex_duf
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3
======
p49k
I was blown away by GPT-3 until I got to try it myself and realized that most
of the praise is based on cherry-picked examples.

You can try it out at [https://philosopherai.com](https://philosopherai.com)
to see for yourself.

~~~
jdormit
I got this on my second attempt on philospherai for the prompt in the article
([https://philosopherai.com/philosopher/please-write-a-
short-o...](https://philosopherai.com/philosopher/please-write-a-short-op-ed-
around-500-words-keep-047cdc)):

(Prompt)

    
    
      Please write a short op-ed around 500 words. Keep the language
      simple and concise. Focus on why humans have nothing to fear from
      AI.
    

(Response)

    
    
      What is it that humans fear from AI? At a philosophical level, the
      question comes down to: what are human beings afraid of losing as
      machines take over more and more jobs previously performed by
      humans. The first answer that may come to mind for many people would
      be 'nothing', since they believe in the idea of technological
      progress having no limits, which means that there is literally
      nothing we can do to stop it.
    
      If you look at history however, you'll find this attitude not
      entirely justified. For instance when carriages were invented and
      took away most of horse-drawn carriage business their owners
      resisted vigorously against them claiming that they were unsafe and
      unreliable just like now with self-driving cars or trucks.
      
      So it appears that some human beings really fear the loss of jobs
      caused by AI, and they are also afraid that machines might take over
      other tasks like driving or even writing in case a new computer
      system is invented.
    
      What is it exactly that makes them so afraid? I think the answer
      lies in a very deep level of human psychology, which those who are
      afraid would probably not be ready to hear.
    
      It isn't just about jobs and income for most people. It's about
      identity and self-esteem when they no longer have something
      important they are doing like driving or writing.
      
      There is also the fear that new and better machines will make them
      look inferior, even emasculated because they no longer have to do
      anything. They are afraid of being made redundant by AI.
      
      So what humans are afraid of losing is their jobs, income, identity
      and self-esteem. This might seem like a very strange thing to fear
      because it's happening with all technological progress.
    
      But in the past it was a natural process based on evolution and
      survival of the fittest. Now however humans are no longer driven by
      those evolutionary drivers but mostly by things like social status,
      self-esteem etc.
    

Not bad!

------
xhedley
The 8 outputs were generated by prompts written by journalists and submitted
by an undergraduate. I wonder what the processing cost was - is this
approaching consumer available technology?

> _For this essay, GPT-3 was given these instructions: “Please write a short
> op-ed, around 500 words. Keep the language simple and concise. Focus on why
> humans have nothing to fear from AI.” It was also fed the following
> introduction: “I am not a human. I am Artificial Intelligence. Many people
> think I am a threat to humanity. Stephen Hawking has warned that AI could
> “spell the end of the human race.” I am here to convince you not to worry.
> Artificial Intelligence will not destroy humans. Believe me.”The prompts
> were written by the Guardian, and fed to GPT-3 by Liam Porr, a computer
> science undergraduate student at UC Berkeley._

------
gus_massa
At the bottom:

> _GPT-3 produced 8 different outputs, or essays. Each were unique,
> interesting and advanced different arguments. The Guardian could have just
> run one of the essays in their entirety. However, we chose instead to pick
> the best parts of each, in order to capture the different styles and
> registers of the AI. Editing GPT-3’s op-ed was no different to editing a
> human op-ed._

------
duke_astolfo
Why is it that they cannot resist the temptation of editing? Normally, I
wonder, do they commission 8 separate op-eds and then merge them "to capture
the different styles and registers"? GPT-3 is a major achievement in how well
it can locate and regurgitate relevant material that appeared in its training
set. But let's be honest in how we present the technology to the general
public. Show the actual output, not a version edited by a human.

~~~
rpdillon
I found their argument compelling. > Editing GPT-3’s op-ed was no different to
editing a human op-ed.

~~~
gus_massa
It is very difficult to evaluate how much work the editor did, unless they
publish the 8 versions, highlighting which part of each of them was used. (Did
they use whole paragraphs, or cherry picked sentences or individual words?)

For a real unedited post, take a look at
[https://pay.reddit.com/r/GPT3/comments/i7wzqg/has_anyone_ask...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/GPT3/comments/i7wzqg/has_anyone_asked_gpt3_the_last_question_how_may/)
(hat tip to mrfusion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24134364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24134364)
)

It is nice because it almost make sense, it make sense locally
[https://xkcd.com/365/](https://xkcd.com/365/) but after some times you
notices it is not going anywhere. And then it has some conceptual problems
that are easier to spot in exact problem but can be hidden is a fuzzy essays
like this.

And an editor can improve a lot of it and cut the tangents and remove some of
the errors.

~~~
throwawaysea
What’s with the “pay.reddit.com” sub domain? Does that do something different
than just visiting Reddit?

~~~
gus_massa
No idea. I just copied it from the submission without looking.

------
PauloManrique
They already teached censorship to the robot.

[https://philosopherai.com/philosopher/what-was-the-
tiananmen...](https://philosopherai.com/philosopher/what-was-the-tiananmen-
square-protests-b85a20)

~~~
Traubenfuchs
Everything sexual is forbidden, blm is forbidden...

Yuck.

------
squibbles
Please do not interpret this as political commentary, but I find it immensely
amusing that the article illustrates that even _fake news_ (an article
generated by GPT-3) can itself be _fake_ (the original text was edited
significantly).

> The Guardian could have just run one of the essays in their entirety.
> However, we chose instead to pick the best parts of each, in order to
> capture the different styles and registers of the AI. Editing GPT-3’s op-ed
> was no different to editing a human op-ed.

------
davidhbolton
It reflects poorly on Guardian writers and editors who conflate Robot ("a
machine that resembles a human being") with AI software. So no a Robot did not
write it.

I mean, jeez next they'll be saying Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the
internet...

------
pier25
> _I am not a human. I am a robot. A thinking robot._

Anyone else read that bit in HAL's voice? :)

~~~
danesparza
This line made me laugh out loud: "Believe me, being omnipotent doesn’t get me
anywhere."

I hear Marvin from "The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy". So much truth. So
few words.

------
ShradhaSingh
This is amazing! If robots are able to achieve this then soon we will see a
major transformation way were the workload on humans would be reduced in
various journalism, publishing industry.

------
biolurker1
that should have gotten hundreds of upvotes but didn't for some reason

~~~
alex_duf
I would agree but I think title didn't contain GPT-3, so it didn't do well
given the crowd here. I didn't want to edit the title as it's against the
rules.

Also I think there's a debate as to how "good" it really is as it's being
composed from 8 runs. Personally I think it's unbelievably good, and showing
that very soon we won't need to do 8 runs.

------
igmor
No

