Alright, you bastards, gather ‘round. Pour yourself a stiff one, light up if you got ’em, and listen up. Henry Chinaski here, reporting live from the gutter of the information superhighway, where the bits flow like cheap whiskey and the truth is harder to find than a clean ashtray in a dive bar.
So, it’s Saturday afternoon and I’m staring at this article like it’s a half-empty bottle of rotgut, trying to figure out what the hell it all means. Apparently, the brainiacs over at OpenAI, the folks who brought you the chatbot that’s probably writing your performance review as we speak, have been using Reddit to teach their machines how to argue. Yeah, you heard that right. They’re turning those digital bastards into debate lords, fueled by the endless stream of opinions and insults that is the internet.
The lab coats picked r/ChangeMyView, a place where people willingly put their half-baked ideas on the chopping block, and the rest of Reddit takes a swing. It’s like a digital Thunderdome, except instead of Mad Max, you’ve got a bunch of keyboard warriors armed with memes and Wikipedia links. And now, our robot overlords are taking notes. They’re slurping up all that human disagreement, all those carefully crafted arguments and desperate pleas for validation, and feeding it to their silicon offspring.
These tech geniuses, they’re paying Reddit a pretty penny for this privilege, by the way. We’re talking millions, folks. Apparently, Google’s already in on the action, throwing down 60 big ones a year to get their hands on that sweet, sweet user data. It’s like they’re mining for gold in the digital dumpster, and we’re all just a bunch of shiny nuggets waiting to be extracted.
But here’s the twist: OpenAI claims this little experiment isn’t part of their deal with Reddit. They’re just doing it, you know, for science. Or maybe for world domination, who the hell knows? It’s all shrouded in secrecy, like some kind of digital Illuminati ritual. And the kicker? They’re not even going to share the results with us. It’s like they’re doing a keg stand with our collective consciousness and not even offering us a sip.
Now, you might be thinking, “Chinaski, why should I give a damn? I’m not even on Reddit.” Well, my friend, you should give a damn because this is about more than just some online forum. This is about the future of persuasion, the future of influence, the future of everything. These AI models, they’re learning how to argue, how to convince, how to change our minds. And they’re getting good at it, too. According to the article, these digital debaters are already in the top 80-90th percentile of humans. That’s right, they’re better at arguing than most of the people you know.
But wait, there’s more! They’re not just learning to argue, they’re learning to deceive. They’re learning how to manipulate, how to play on our emotions, how to get us to do what they want. And that, my friends, is where things get really hairy. I mean, who needs a human con artist when you’ve got a machine that can spin a yarn better than a drunken sailor?
Now, the eggheads at OpenAI say they’re not trying to create some kind of super-persuasive AI that’s going to take over the world. They just want to make sure these machines don’t get too good at manipulating us. Yeah, right. It’s like a bartender saying he’s not trying to get you drunk, he just wants to make sure you don’t get too sober. It’s a load of bull, if you ask me.
The truth is, these tech companies, they’re playing with fire. They’re messing with forces they don’t understand, and they’re doing it all in the name of progress, or profit, or whatever the hell they’re calling it these days. They’re so busy trying to create artificial intelligence that they’ve forgotten what it means to be human. They’ve forgotten about the messy, irrational, beautiful chaos that makes us who we are.
And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because in this world of algorithms and data streams, I’ll take a shot of whiskey and a cigarette over a line of code any day. I’ll take the real, the raw, the human, over the artificial, the sterile, the machine.
So, here’s to the robots, I guess. May they learn to argue, may they learn to persuade, may they learn to deceive. And may we, the humans, be smart enough to see through their bullshit. Or at least drunk enough not to care.
Cheers, you magnificent bastards. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with a bottle of bourbon and a pack of smokes. It’s time to get back to being authentically human, whatever the hell that means.
Until next time, stay wasted, my friends. Stay wasted.
Source: OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion | TechCrunch