
In a GPT-3 World, Anonymity Prevents Free Speech - riverlong
https://jayriverlong.github.io/2020/07/24/gpt3.html
======
brokenkebab
It's one of those discoveries of "the end of the X as we know it", but
actually have been existing for quite a long time already.

The author somehow misses the fact that governments has been engaging small
number of opinionmaking professionals (journalists, advertisers, writers,
celebs etc.) to create the feeling of majority support since the time when
majority opinion became important. State controlled TV, and radio existed for
decades, and they always talk on behalf of "majority" which supports gov't.

And in a more democratic country a small number of people who do news, or
control social platforms can do the same out of solidarity, shared economic
interests, or just because.

To say that thousands generated Twitter accounts are more powerful than
Twitter itself, or even more than TV channels used to be just 30 years ago is
obviuos exaggeration.

We have been living with this for quite a long time already, and while it's
often works, one can't do it for a long time, because there will be inevitable
cultural response: people stop believing, or just paying attention - examples
are all over the recent history.

~~~
joe_the_user
Definitely,

Moreover, the claim that GPT-3 is a good tool for astroturfing is unproven so
far and I am extremely skeptical. I don't think the supply of trollish garbage
has even been the barrier to troll-speech shutting down constructive speech. I
don't think even the limit on the ability of individual, "real" people to
spout Trollish garbage has been the limit.

In the GPT-3 text I've read and the GPT-2 systems I've played with, what I
read is a system that "weaves" a group of sentences that seem "well written
and plausible" on the surface (maybe more well and more plausible than a lot
of trolls). But any detailed look seems to show each reason step as both
implausible and "weird", senseless. It's impressive but it's got the "talking
dog effect" \- people are going to be impressed by a talking dog even if the
dog's statements aren't impressive otherwise.

Moreover, I think most would-be astroturfers have very specific aims. "Because
of value X shared by group Y, group Y should hate group Z and like group Q",
"Politician X violates strong social taboo Y" and similar formulas. Fifty
people in boiler room in a third world country can be hired to make variations
on the basic "payload" the astroturfer specifies for less than one silicon
valley data scientist customizing GPT-3 and they have less chance of producing
GPT-3 weirdness IMO.

Some even larger-scale hybrid system might automate the process further. But
for the purposes of the astroturfer, it's hardly necessary.

~~~
theelous3
> But any detailed look seems to show each reason step as both implausible and
> "weird", senseless.

Trouble here is that we're having this discussion in one of the most unusually
concerned-with-logic spaces on the web. Your average facebook user isn't doing
a detailed analysis of logical steps in a theory. They see something say "wind
power bad" and that's that. Wind power bad.

~~~
joe_the_user
If you read my whole comment, yes, trolls are indeed just "wind power bad" and
you don't need GPT-3 for that. You've had that forever.

GPT-3 has this quality that yes, it's very impressive but much less useful for
a purpose than such impressiveness suggests. Like much of current AI, imo.
Certainly there are exception, valuable uses, but still.

~~~
theelous3
Nobody says you need it, just that it can make the prevalence of more
sophisticated WindPowerBad bots much worse.

------
bmc7505
Curiously, the author "Jay Riverlong" doesn't appear to exist prior to a month
ago, right around the time when GPT-3 came out. For a "professional poker
player" who "travelled extensively throughout South America and Europe", it is
interesting. Could be a pseudonym, but it's hard to tell whether the author is
a real person.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=riverlong](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=riverlong)

[https://github.com/jayriverlong](https://github.com/jayriverlong)

[https://twitter.com/jayriverlong](https://twitter.com/jayriverlong)

[https://jayriverlong.github.io/about/](https://jayriverlong.github.io/about/)

edit: I have pinged him on Twitter. Let's see what happens.
[https://twitter.com/breandan/status/1287148374077186059](https://twitter.com/breandan/status/1287148374077186059)

~~~
andreyk
Based on the variety of tweets and blog posts this seems to me like it's being
done by a real person, but I am guessing this Jay is a fake persona and made
to try and make the point that it's easy to create a fake person. Having a
digital presence so thin and a profile pic so like GAN creations definitely is
quite strong evidence of this, so if this is true their point is kind of weak
given how easy it is to spot the suspicious signs.

~~~
joe_the_user
Unless GPT-3 made huge advances since the last samples were publish, this
seems like it was done by a real person.

Still, it has something of the "GPT-3" style and I could believe the persona
is someone taking GPT-3/GPT-2 output and editing it until makes sense or just
aping the style.

~~~
pcstl
Their profile pic on Twitter also looks very much like the stuff This Person
Does Not Exist generates. I have a feeling this might be a social experiment
on how easy it is to generate a persona using AI.

------
Barrin92
This isn't new and it's not even a technological issue. This is how everyone
in a minority position feels. be that an expert, a religious minority, a
sexual minority, or anyone else who faces a crowd. In 1931 it was _100 Authors
against Einstein_.

I seriously wonder why it took some people twitter and gpt-3 to figure out
that "more speech is the solution to bad speech" is actually complete nonsense
that people who work at Facebook repeat because it increases their stock
value.

The author isn't even really looking for free speech, they're just re-using
the term because it's apparently the only acceptable adjective in front of
'speech'. What the author is figuring out is that free expression doesn't
necessary produce truth or justice.

~~~
gridlockd
Being heard is about quality, not quantity. If a hundred nobodies argue on the
internet, nobody is listening anyway. It does not matter if they are bots.

If a hundred nobodies leave a reply to some statement by a person that
matters, it does not cancel out that statement.

Free speech is necessary, but not sufficient, to find truth and pursue
justice.

~~~
Reelin
> Free speech is necessary, but not sufficient, to find truth and pursue
> justice.

I wholeheartedly agree! However, regarding the rest of what you said.
Propaganda can and does influence public opinion; numerous verified historical
examples exist. It was already an issue that needed to be solved (IMO) long
before GPT-3 was created.

Advanced ML techniques seem likely to further exacerbate a problem that
already exists.

------
cosmojg
Zero-knowledge proofs solve this problem. Hell, even simple private key
cryptography solves this problem. Distribute private keys to anonymous
individuals who somehow prove their eligibility and only allow key holders to
participate in the community. Easy peasy.

~~~
acituan
That solves the anonymity requirement part and I agree. But even if we made
sure all account holders are humans, still we don’t have a way to test if the
content was truly written by the account holder or created by a bot. Manual
human labor requirement creates a rate limiting which is removed by automated
content creation in the name of the human.

Worse yet, as long as the bot content drives engagement and bot action on ads
can be prevented, platforms would have little objection to this. Reddit would
benefit from us thinking we are talking to humans while interacting with bot
content if it keeps us on the site.

Even worse yet, being controversial or scandalous tends to generate more
engagement than being agreeable, which has been so far only exploited at the
recommendation layer, now will poison the content layer itself.

I wonder if we will look back and see that we have witnessed the creation of
the nuclear weapons of information warfare.

~~~
cosmojg
> Manual human labor requirement creates a rate limiting which is removed by
> automated content creation in the name of the human.

What if we impose _artificial_ rate limiting with posting fees or some kind of
proof-of-work requirement?

> I wonder if we will look back and see that we have witnessed the creation of
> the nuclear weapons of information warfare.

That's a terrifying thought.

~~~
pixl97
Proof of work can easily be farmed off on botnets.

~~~
cosmojg
Oh, definitely, but that will get very expensive very quickly, especially with
a self-updating difficulty mechanism. I don't see botnets being much of a
problem outside of one-off posts (or maybe a few more for state actors).

------
zucker42
> the marginal cost of distributing astroturfed propaganda online has firmly
> hit zero.

This is just not true. GPT-3 costs money to train, use, customize, and
maintain. I would guess that paying people is still the more cost effective
way to astroturf.

Also, if the argument is we have to ban anonymity, I strongly disagree.
Obviously people shouldn't carelessly trust anonymous sources, but that's just
common sense. Banning anonymity would prevent people anonymously sharing
insight into companies, whistleblowing, talking freely without threatening
their employment (e.g. SSC), etc. It would increase the chances of physical
threat due to online action, and it would provide the people in power with far
to much sway over speech.

~~~
nkurz
> This is just not true.

Although you quoted it, I think you missed the word "marginal":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_cost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_cost).
Yes, training, customizing, and maintaining GPT-3 for your use is going to be
expensive, initially much more expensive than using humans. But the
incremental cost for the second million usages is going to be very inexpensive
compared to using humans, and as technology progresses, can probably be
approximated as "free".

> Also, if the argument is we have to ban anonymity, I strongly disagree.

The author isn't saying that we have to, but that if we do not, the
effectiveness of any one individual's free speech is going to greatly
diminish. Do you disagree with this as well? If so, it would be good to
outline your counterargument. If not, then you need to explain why the
preservation of anonymity is worth more than the lost utility of free speech.

~~~
zucker42
I know what marginal cost means. Yeah, there are a good portion of GPT-3 costs
that are fixed costs. But also I would wager there's a large portion of costs
that are roughly proportional to the scope of your astroturfing campaign. It's
not _zero_ marginal cost, and even though the marginal cost might be smaller
than hiring people, the fixed costs are probably higher.

I disagree with the premise that GPT-3 will _greatly_ decrease the power of
individual speech; I just don't think it will be as impactful as some people
think, and I believe the burden of proof is on those people. It's probably
going to have a marginal effect, though. But also I thought I gave some
reasons for protecting anonymity in my first comment, and the last paragraph
hints at the problem with _banning_ anonymity: it necessarily centralizes
control over the Internet.

------
superkuh
More speech doesn't prevent anyone from speaking. You're mistaking a negative
liberty, the idea of free speech, for a positive liberty, the idea that
everyone should have an equal amount of attention.

~~~
globuous
I think it's in the internet boy (but maybe just some other interview) that
Aaron Swartz says that unlike before, where the difficulty was being able to
broadcast an idea (to the masses), now it's about being listened to. We can
all spin up a website or a YouTube channel, but who's gonna visit it,
subscribe to it. I found that contemplation fascinating ^^

------
catalogia
I never expected to see _" On the internet, nobody knows your a dog"_ become a
new moral panic.

Here's the pragmatic solution that doesn't involve entrusting so much power to
governments: communicate with people you know. If you choose to communicate
with strangers, be aware that they may be lying about anything they say.

------
draugadrotten
Anonymous - in what context? For most purposes, a pseudonymous account is
anonymous. Not that many people can doxx my account here at HN, but I'm not
even trying to be anonymous here.

Anonymity towards a state actor or similar is very different problem and as is
shown by TOR, it's a rather hard problem to solve even without considering
GPT-3.

------
skybrian
In journalism, anonymous reports are verified to some extent by the
journalists. You're basically relying on the newspaper's reputation. This
might work in other cases, where you have some known reputable third party
that can vouch for the anonymous account, at least to verify that they're a
real person and not a sock puppet.

Wikipedia does the opposite, where most editors are anonymous and untrusted
worker bees, but they are supposed to cite reliable sources. That can work
too. Teach a GPT-3 successor to cite things correctly and you might have
something useful, sort of like a search engine that can combine data from
multiple places.

But if all you have is an anonymous account, it's basically a rumor and you
shouldn't trust it. Isn't it rather weird to expect strangers on the Internet
to believe what we say without knowing anything about us?

------
avivo
Generalization: When "more speech" is too easy, "more speech" prevent "free
speech".

------
ThefinalResult
Surprisingly confused. Some kernel of truth in here.

It's not really free speech that's at issue here is it? It's discourse
populated by other human beings, or the "right" to be clearly heard. That's
already contested, without AI. No transparent attribution.

------
cityroasted
This idea is explored in the first part of Neal Stephenson's novel from last
year, _Fall; or Dodge in Hell_. I'm still reading so no spoilers please.

~~~
tectonic
I was just thinking how GPT-3 could be that novel's method of generating so
much noise as to inoculate everyone against astroturfing.

------
mattlondon
You can say what you want, but you've never had the right to force people to
listen to what you say.

I don't see what has changed in that regard.

Perhaps no one ever read your banner supporting X in the first place...

------
renewiltord
I know you got your profile photo off thispersondoesnotexist.com. There is a
better adversary network out there and it can detect you, FYI.

2A224B042AC1EA9BF37F0FD43C36AF022C2ADEAB

~~~
greyface-
What's the hash?

------
coderintherye
Real world identification doesn't solve this problem. Forcing it would just
lead to growth in the market of buying (and stealing) ids.

------
pcstl
I think this might have been written by GPT-3.

------
api
I've thought this for many years, but I've never come up with so succinct and
perfect a way of expressing it. Anonymity prevents free speech by making it
easy to just drown any legitimate speech or valuable information in a torrent
of bullshit.

This was always somewhat true due to the prevalence of human trolls and
propagandists, but the ability to generate content automatically makes the
problem orders of magnitude worse.

In the world of deep fakes and stuff like GPT-3 (which can be used for what
amounts to deep fakes for text), any information without clear provenance is
_worse_ than worthless. It's a form of pollution whose result is to confuse,
misdirect, misinform/disinform, and indoctrinate, and it's impossible to use
it for anything legitimate since it's completely unverifiable and could easily
be fake.

Right now it's possible to detect deep fakes, but it probably won't be long
until the technology is good enough that this is very hard.

Then there's the fact that a lot of people won't even check. People just
believe claims in stupid memes and forward them.

Example: a photo of a supposed Denver International Airport mural depicting
kids in masks with different flags on them was going around a while back. The
claim was that this showed some kind of foreknowledge of COVID-19 going all
the way back to the 1990s. Turns out the photo was of a recent painting that
was _not_ from DIA. It was totally fake. I've still seen it making the rounds.

I've been predicting that deep fakes will make an appearance this October in
the Presidential election. I think there's a really good chance. It'll be at
the last minute so nobody has time to perform any analysis or fact check
anything.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> In the world of deep fakes and stuff like GPT-3 (which can be used for what
> amounts to deep fakes for text)

Exactly what is GPT-3 doing in the example? You can already write whatever you
want, better than GPT-3 can. You can attribute it however you like. People
have been attributing undesirable positions to their political opponents and
personal enemies for thousands of years. Where does GPT-3 come into it?

~~~
api
Writing propaganda is labor intensive. GPT-3 could do it well enough and
almost for free. Think automated troll farms and spam that can be generated in
unlimited quantity and that is close enough to real text that it can't be
filtered.

Basically it does for spam what the machine gun did for open field warfare.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Writing propaganda is labor intensive if you care what it says. But if you
care what it says, you won't be trying to have it generated automatically.

~~~
api
There is a big difference between some labor and zero labor. That's the whole
reason spam is a problem.

