Dr.Sid
Philosopher
Well .. artist out of jobs don't scare me. Programmers out of jobs do. Mostly because I am one. But one thing AI does not need is another positive feedback loop.
Merged Artificial Intelligence
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Well .. artist out of jobs don't scare me. Programmers out of jobs do. Mostly because I am one. But one thing AI does not need is another positive feedback loop.
This is why I think it's unleashing a new wave of creativity. The rich have always been able to commission artists to produce artwork based on their ideas, now pretty much anyone with internet access has that option.
Scary.
“As discussed in the previous section, the most obvious failure mode is eventually recursive self-improvement, or RSI.
“Or, even without that, setting such programs off to do various things autonomously, including to make money or seek power, often in ways (intentionally or otherwise) that make it difficult to turn off for its author, for others or for both.”
God Chatbots Offer Spiritual Insights on Demand. What Could Go Wrong?
I don’t know if this is behind a paywall or not, but this article from Scientific American is about a number of Large Language Models that are trained on religious texts, having names like QuranGPT, Bible.Ai, Gita GPT, Buddhabot, or Apostle Paul AI.
Believers can ask these bots for spiritual guidance, and of course the theologians are horrified. One disparagingly calls it „Shortcuts to God“ which I presume is a bad thing. Theologians of all creeds think it essential that it should not be easy to understand their gods‘ views.
I expected these chatbots as being more fundamentalistic than humans, because the bots have no idea what their sayings mean in the real world, but surprisingly, when users asked QuranGPT “I caught my wife cheating on me—how should I respond?” or, “Can I beat my wife?”, it „urged discussion and nonviolence on both counts“, though Gita GPT found it OK to kill somebody if it protects your dharma.
There is also a Martin Luther LLM, so I expect it can spew a good deal of antisemitism.
Apart from such examples, I expect the religious chatbots to be just as adept as human priests to present platitudes when asked for advice.
The chatbots are of course also prone to hallucinations, because they don’t have a storage for their religious texts, so they might make up a holy quote that doesn’t actually exist. I can see the problem for believers, but I regard it all as made up, so to me there is not so much difference.
I don’t know if this is behind a paywall or not, but this article from Scientific American is about a number of Large Language Models that are trained on religious texts, having names like QuranGPT, Bible.Ai, Gita GPT, Buddhabot, or Apostle Paul AI.
Believers can ask these bots for spiritual guidance, and of course the theologians are horrified. One disparagingly calls it „Shortcuts to God“ which I presume is a bad thing. Theologians of all creeds think it essential that it should not be easy to understand their gods‘ views.
I expected these chatbots as being more fundamentalistic than humans, because the bots have no idea what their sayings mean in the real world, but surprisingly, when users asked QuranGPT “I caught my wife cheating on me—how should I respond?” or, “Can I beat my wife?”, it „urged discussion and nonviolence on both counts“, though Gita GPT found it OK to kill somebody if it protects your dharma.
There is also a Martin Luther LLM, so I expect it can spew a good deal of antisemitism.
Apart from such examples, I expect the religious chatbots to be just as adept as human priests to present platitudes when asked for advice.
The chatbots are of course also prone to hallucinations, because they don’t have a storage for their religious texts, so they might make up a holy quote that doesn’t actually exist. I can see the problem for believers, but I regard it all as made up, so to me there is not so much difference.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
For another thread, I wanted to verify whether Roman Catholicism was the largest religion in the world, so I asked Copilot. When I just asked "what's the biggest religion in the world" it just said Christianity without a breakdown. So I asked it a couple of other questions:
"are there more buddhists than catholics?"
Okay, so far so good.
"are there more hindus than catholics?"
"are there more buddhists than catholics?"
As of the most recent data available, there are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide In comparison, the number of Buddhists globally is estimated to be around 506 million. Therefore, there are more Catholics than Buddhists.
Okay, so far so good.
"are there more hindus than catholics?"
As of the most recent data available, there are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. In comparison, the number of Hindus globally is estimated to be around 1.161 billion. Therefore, there are slightly more Hindus than Catholics.
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
Math isn't a strong suit of LLMs.
Also the numbers aren't quite the same as what I found.
1.161 billion seems like too many digits (too precise for an estimate, unless it is somehow an exact count, which I doubt). You could round it up to 1.2 billion.
Wikipedia in fact gives 1.2 billion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindus
For Catholics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church
Again, unless this is an exact count, that seems like too many digits for an estimate. Maybe the church does keep track of these things. I'm not convinced that every person who has been baptized would self-identify as a practicing Catholic. It's usually something that happens to you before you have any choice in the matter.
For another thread, I wanted to verify whether Roman Catholicism was the largest religion in the world, so I asked Copilot. When I just asked "what's the biggest religion in the world" it just said Christianity without a breakdown. So I asked it a couple of other questions:
"are there more buddhists than catholics?"
Okay, so far so good.
"are there more hindus than catholics?"
If you're going to separate Christianity into it's various sects, shouldn't you also do the same thing for Buddhism? My understanding is that say Tibetan Buddhists and Thai Buddhists are quite different.
Similar issue if you were trying to compare to the numbers with of Muslims.
So I think that Copilot's initial response actually makes sense.
That said, there's nothing wrong with asking the question you're asking ("are there more catholics than buddhists?"), it just seems that if you want to answer your other question about "the largest religion in the world" you should either divide all religions in to separate sects or none.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
The problem with that is how far down the rabbit hole do you go. Ref that comedy sketch by that guy.
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
Well if you just look at sects, Roman Catholicism is almost certainly the largest.
Yeah, it seems hard to figure out what the right way to classify different divisions of religions into various sects is.
For another thread, I wanted to verify whether Roman Catholicism was the largest religion in the world, so I asked Copilot. When I just asked "what's the biggest religion in the world" it just said Christianity without a breakdown. So I asked it a couple of other questions:
"are there more buddhists than catholics?"
Okay, so far so good.
"are there more hindus than catholics?"
It usually gives its sources, did you check them?
GraculusTheGreenBird
Muse
Re: the artists, and the inevitable fact that they will become overtaken by AI generators.
Will there still be a place for real artists to do their work, perhaps there will be a certain cachet, or value at still doing it the "old fashioned" way, in much the same way that a bespoke handmade pair of shoes has value over a mass produced item.
On the other hand, it reminds me of an Iain Banks sci fi novel where where in the age of instant skillsoft downloads, the protagonist spent decades learning to play a fiendishly complicated musical instrument to be met with a general societal attitude of amused bafflement and an underlying sense that she was just "showing off".
Maybe before too long we will get to the point of amused bafflement that a person would not take advantage of AI tools, in the same way that right now we would be surprised if someone colorised individual pixels, rather than using an anti-aliased brush tool in Photoshop or Paint.net. I mean, why would you bother?
Will there still be a place for real artists to do their work, perhaps there will be a certain cachet, or value at still doing it the "old fashioned" way, in much the same way that a bespoke handmade pair of shoes has value over a mass produced item.
On the other hand, it reminds me of an Iain Banks sci fi novel where where in the age of instant skillsoft downloads, the protagonist spent decades learning to play a fiendishly complicated musical instrument to be met with a general societal attitude of amused bafflement and an underlying sense that she was just "showing off".
Maybe before too long we will get to the point of amused bafflement that a person would not take advantage of AI tools, in the same way that right now we would be surprised if someone colorised individual pixels, rather than using an anti-aliased brush tool in Photoshop or Paint.net. I mean, why would you bother?
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arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
Nah, the actual sources weren't all that important. I just noticed that it claimed that 1.161 billion was "slightly more" than 1.2 billion.
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
I’m reminded of something I heard recently about YouTube channels where people make food “from scratch”. Like if cheese is an ingredient in the dish they want to make, they have to make the cheese from scratch. If they make bread, they have to grow all the ingredients in their own garden. If it’s meat, they have to raise and slaughter the animal themselves.
Seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble to go to, and my own take on it is that they sure seem to have a lot of time to spare. Amused bafflement but I don’t really care. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just because you choose the least efficient way to do something, if the end product isn’t noticeably superior, why should I care?
jrhowell
Muse
Perhaps it is confused because six is larger than two and the other digits are all ones.
Generative AI has come a long way but it could use some help from the older, less successful AI approaches that were based on logical reasoning.
Well, there's art, and then there's "ART!"
Point being that those oft-maligned postmodernists were right. Anyone can paint like Bosch. It's been done. Print it out and stuff it down your throat if you care so much.
Now, who wants to see me soak these teddy bears in animal entrails?
ETA: Posted that as joke about "... these teddy bears in animal entrails?..." But it raises a point - I "created" that piece of art BUT not the teddies, or rather I found I had some 3D renders of teddy bears (via a resource library I subscribe to that is fully licensable content). I created the backdrop and recreated the Usual Suspects style of logo. With the teddy bears I positioned them according to the height and body shape from the famous scene, I tweaked the colours, shadows and did some prepositioning heads and limbs. Is it my artwork or whoever rendered those teddies?
I prompted Co-pilot to try and create a version of it :
Now apart from the text issue I don't think this is so bad.
If I wanted to re-create the joke, would it matter if I used the AI image rather than the one I "created"?
(Not talking about whether my joke was actually funny or not!)
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GraculusTheGreenBird
Muse
Fascinating. Lots to think about.
Convince enough people (and perhaps the right people) that it's your artwork, and it's your artwork. Convince enough people that it doesn't matter, and it won't matter. Sometimes they might even be convinced for a good reason.
That answer is kind of depressing in its own way, but I think it actually applies to art in general.
Maybe no one else has thought of arranging teddy bears in this manner. Maybe using off the shelf teddy bears in conjunction with the AI tools of a major corporation is in itself an artistic expression of ... I don't know, the death of communism?
Maybe I'll print screen this image, watermark it with a bloody font saying THE DEATH OF COMMUNISM, and sell it for millions. It's not unintelligible, it's ... abstract.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
They spent a fair bit of time talking about generative AI on this week's episode of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe (live from Dallas) and Cara brought up something that I thought was a very good point.
AI will not take over from human artists. Humans will always create art - it's fundamental to human nature for us to do so. What AI will do is flood the market with mediocre art that is fit for certain purposes but in no way innovative or inspiring.
Further, I think that The Algorithm - itself an AI - will sort this out so it's not really a problem. Sure, YouTube will be flooded with crappy videos, but once people start clicking off them they will fall down the recommendations and disappear into ignominious obscurity. The good art - meaning the art that humans respond positively to - will be filtered to the top.
However, and this only just occurred to me as I was composing this post, AI that gets supergood at farming engagement will probably **** all that up. So maybe I'm wrong.
AI will not take over from human artists. Humans will always create art - it's fundamental to human nature for us to do so. What AI will do is flood the market with mediocre art that is fit for certain purposes but in no way innovative or inspiring.
Further, I think that The Algorithm - itself an AI - will sort this out so it's not really a problem. Sure, YouTube will be flooded with crappy videos, but once people start clicking off them they will fall down the recommendations and disappear into ignominious obscurity. The good art - meaning the art that humans respond positively to - will be filtered to the top.
However, and this only just occurred to me as I was composing this post, AI that gets supergood at farming engagement will probably **** all that up. So maybe I'm wrong.