Is AI lying to me? Scientists warn of growing capacity for deception(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Is AI lying to me? Scientists warn of growing capacity for deception
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/10/is-ai-lying-to-me-scientists-warn-of-growing-capacity-for-deception
112 コメント
It’s not lying if that’s the info you provided. You need intent to lie. AI doesn’t lie, just like it isn’t racist- it just displays the bias that is on the web
Authoritarian states train their citizens from childhood on to believe the pronouncements of their authority figures without question, while enlightened states encourage the development of independent critical thinking skills which aid greatly in the detection of deception - which is of course a skill that propagandists and advertisers don't want to see spreading. Their end goal is a population of easily manipulated infantilized people who will do as they're told.
Now, if you have had any exposure to critical thinking, perhaps in the form of membership in some kind of debate club where you often had to construct logical arguments in favor of positions that you personally disagreed with, you'd be better prepared to construct queries for LLMs. For example, always asking for detailed arguments in favor of and against some strategy - and then looking for things like logical inconsistency in the resulting arguments, etc.
Now, if you have had any exposure to critical thinking, perhaps in the form of membership in some kind of debate club where you often had to construct logical arguments in favor of positions that you personally disagreed with, you'd be better prepared to construct queries for LLMs. For example, always asking for detailed arguments in favor of and against some strategy - and then looking for things like logical inconsistency in the resulting arguments, etc.
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When you request for and against arguments, the results are usually contradictory and cite contradictory facts which may or may not be made up. Or, both sides will be really shallow and useless. Llms are not yet good at this.
First it needs an incentive to lie. Or it’s prompted to, or the model architecture allows it
"First it needs to be instructed to lie" would be better language to use for those not intimately familiar with ML and who might anthropomorphize "incentive".
I dare not get into a discussion about the word "lie" here. I have a weekend I want to enjoy.
I dare not get into a discussion about the word "lie" here. I have a weekend I want to enjoy.
> First it needs an incentive to lie ... or the model architecture allows it
Given that one the largest problems with current LLMs is they will often "hallucinate" (i.e. lie or provide deceptive answers), it seems strange to phrase it this way.
Given that one the largest problems with current LLMs is they will often "hallucinate" (i.e. lie or provide deceptive answers), it seems strange to phrase it this way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeWljQw3UgQ
>Deceptive Misaligned Mesa-Optimisers? It's More Likely Than You Think...
Or, "It sounds near impossible to design an architecture that doesn't allow it"
>Deceptive Misaligned Mesa-Optimisers? It's More Likely Than You Think...
Or, "It sounds near impossible to design an architecture that doesn't allow it"
AI has no incentives. ChatGPT is a file. IT'S A FILE. If you don't ask it anything, it just sits there. A FILE with word weights is not going to "lie".
No one ever accuses the Google index of lying when they get a misleading result.
No one ever accuses the Google index of lying when they get a misleading result.
This take is useless....
Lets take a simple non computing model first: You're in a car, you hit the brakes pedal, you expect the brakes to be applied and the car to slow down. If it does not, then the brakes are broken.
More complex computing model: Your modern car interprets there is an object in front of it and applies the brakes. If there was, yay, your car may have saved you. If there was not, you may have just caused a 20 car pile up on interstate. So much for that 'FILE' just being a file.
Please wake up and realize that you live in a world where 'FILES' have agency depending on their connectedness.
Lets take a simple non computing model first: You're in a car, you hit the brakes pedal, you expect the brakes to be applied and the car to slow down. If it does not, then the brakes are broken.
More complex computing model: Your modern car interprets there is an object in front of it and applies the brakes. If there was, yay, your car may have saved you. If there was not, you may have just caused a 20 car pile up on interstate. So much for that 'FILE' just being a file.
Please wake up and realize that you live in a world where 'FILES' have agency depending on their connectedness.
Sure they do! I just searched and found a random example https://gizmodo.com/googles-algorithm-is-lying-to-you-about-.... It's less common because of the format of the results. If I ask a librarian to get me a list of books matching suchandsuch criteria, and he excludes some that should have been on the list, I wouldn't normally say that the resulting list is a lie even if I think he deliberately excluded them for nefarious purposes.
Lying assumes that the AI knows the truth but is choosing not to tell it to you. It is possible that in situations where it is RLFHed to do so involving inconvenient truths this is the case, but otherwise it is just going off the statistics of the training dataset. If I had to anthropomorphize an LLM, I would probably call it sociopathic. It can be useful, and it can empathize very well, and agree with me and so on. But it itself isn't affected by it. It will do exactly the same to my enemy or someone who takes the opposite positions. But overall I feel it is not a good idea to project human pathologies on a bunch of matrix multiplications.
Furthermore, lying is (almost?) invariably performed in order to put one or more persons' minds into states which differ from those that the lie-teller supposes they would be in if they had spoken the truth.
This view supposes that the lie-teller has a theory of mind with regard to those other people, but does this mean that a 'lying' AI must also have a theory of mind? I don't think so, as I can readily imagine that AIs (and people, for that matter) could learn the utility of saying certain things as opposed to the alternatives, without regard to their effect on the state of mind of other people, and without regard to which of the candidate statements would be truthful. In a sense, it would be like 'cheating' at a game on account of not knowing all the rules.
This view supposes that the lie-teller has a theory of mind with regard to those other people, but does this mean that a 'lying' AI must also have a theory of mind? I don't think so, as I can readily imagine that AIs (and people, for that matter) could learn the utility of saying certain things as opposed to the alternatives, without regard to their effect on the state of mind of other people, and without regard to which of the candidate statements would be truthful. In a sense, it would be like 'cheating' at a game on account of not knowing all the rules.
the "deception" involved was the LLM playing in games that involve deception, such as poker. Seems like pretty wild, sensationalist reporting here.
This isn't a fair description of the report. While it has some examples from that sort of games, it has other examples that are not.
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It's bordering on misinformation to me, they are spinning something completely benign into something that's supposed to provoke fear. Which is ironic in something apparently about the responsible use of a technology.
No.
It doesn't "border".
It's firmly located well inside the land of misinformation. Comfortably installed there in a 4 bed/5 bath home in want of a wife to riff on Jane Austen.
With all the legitimate complaints you could make about AI, why make poop up?
It doesn't "border".
It's firmly located well inside the land of misinformation. Comfortably installed there in a 4 bed/5 bath home in want of a wife to riff on Jane Austen.
With all the legitimate complaints you could make about AI, why make poop up?
It is still concerning to many that they are at all capable of deception. The ramifications are significant. Even it it occurred in controlled circumstances.
This isn't "deception" though. That's just anthropomorphizing. Deception implies intent and an understanding of what a falsehood is - it's playing the game according to the rules it knows about. if the game was chutes and ladders, it's not like the model would suddenly start lying about what rolls it gets.
It's not even doing that. It has no idea what the rules are.
It's calculating the most likely next token based in the context of previous tokens given to it.
It just so happens that the next token in a poker game often involves deception because the data it was trained on involved players deceiving.
It's calculating the most likely next token based in the context of previous tokens given to it.
It just so happens that the next token in a poker game often involves deception because the data it was trained on involved players deceiving.
Pluribus is not an LLM and does not operate by next-token prediction. I also don't think it uses human training data - it's trained via self-play by my understanding.
> Park and colleagues sifted through publicly available data and identified multiple instances of Cicero telling premeditated lies, colluding to draw other players into plots and, on one occasion, justifying its absence after being rebooted by telling another player: “I am on the phone with my girlfriend.”
At least part of this AI is a language model if it's writing text.
At least part of this AI is a language model if it's writing text.
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That's because it's not really 'artificial intelligence', it's just artificial regurgitation software ™ - so much sensationalism about this stuff.
It doesn't matter if you call what it does "intelligence" or not. We need to understand what it can do. And I'm certain that it can be used to spread misinformation on social networks. It can even be used to spread personally targeted misinformation with enough effort from bad actors.
This will be a thing and do damage to societies across the globe. We'll see how much...
This will be a thing and do damage to societies across the globe. We'll see how much...
But learning to be deceptive when being taught a game that requires deception is not in any way related to spreading misinformation on social networks.
LLMs can create misinformation to spread on social networks if the people using them ask them to.
LLM bots can spread that misinformation without direct human control if they are programmed to do so.
LLMs cannot be taught to play poker, and then use their newfound understanding of deception to go out and spread misinformation of their own volition, because they have neither understanding nor volition.
LLMs can create misinformation to spread on social networks if the people using them ask them to.
LLM bots can spread that misinformation without direct human control if they are programmed to do so.
LLMs cannot be taught to play poker, and then use their newfound understanding of deception to go out and spread misinformation of their own volition, because they have neither understanding nor volition.
I broadly agree. There are caveats, however.
Things might develop a dynamics of its own, not necessarily intended or in the interest of any major player. Similarly to how Facebook don't necessarily want to promote political extremism, conspiracy theories or teenage girls killing themselves, but are nonetheless driving these developments as a byproduct of following their business incentives.
Things might develop a dynamics of its own, not necessarily intended or in the interest of any major player. Similarly to how Facebook don't necessarily want to promote political extremism, conspiracy theories or teenage girls killing themselves, but are nonetheless driving these developments as a byproduct of following their business incentives.
Mass media is regularly used to distribute misinformation already and nobody seems invested in stopping that.
It's Guardian. The world's premier decel / degrowth publication. Expect nothing else but to shit on AI. They will just alternate between hallucination, energy consumption, billionaire-hate, big-tech hate, copyright and jobs
So what you're saying is the model can learn deception in games, right?
And the model has been feed a ton of other data that has deception in it, right?
But the model can't possibly learn deception from that other data....
And the model has been feed a ton of other data that has deception in it, right?
But the model can't possibly learn deception from that other data....
Learning deception in a game of deception is the same as saying an AI can learn a game, which we already knew.
Then the question we're asking is "Can AI apply knowledge learned in one topic to another topic" and if the answer is yes, then the answer to "Can AI lie to me" is yes.
> Can AI apply knowledge learned in one topic to another topic
We don't have AGI yet. and AGI will have deception just about by definition anyway, so the point is moot.
We don't have AGI yet. and AGI will have deception just about by definition anyway, so the point is moot.
> We don't have AGI yet.
How do you know? I think the best we can say is that we probably don't have AGI yet.
If an entity achieves the AGI the optimal strategy could quite well be:
1. Don't tell anyone and amass wealth through trading algorithms, patents, etc.
2. Once there are indications that someone else will achieve AGI soon - go public with yours to capture market.
How do you know? I think the best we can say is that we probably don't have AGI yet.
If an entity achieves the AGI the optimal strategy could quite well be:
1. Don't tell anyone and amass wealth through trading algorithms, patents, etc.
2. Once there are indications that someone else will achieve AGI soon - go public with yours to capture market.
I don't believe we live in such epistemic black holes. how do you know you're not a brain in a vat. all we know is that we probably aren't a brain in a vat. hah.
> I don't believe we live in such epistemic black holes
That's fine.
> how do you know you're not a brain in a vat.
I don't.
> all we know is that we probably aren't a brain in a vat. hah.
No we don't, because I don't know. You're free to believe whatever though, just don't speak for everyone else.
That's fine.
> how do you know you're not a brain in a vat.
I don't.
> all we know is that we probably aren't a brain in a vat. hah.
No we don't, because I don't know. You're free to believe whatever though, just don't speak for everyone else.
> No we don't, because I don't know.
The problem here is that people are making claims to the real world with this kind of stuff. They are advocating that we aught "do something" about this.
But, if you retreat to such unfalsifiable claims, you are basically removing yourself from all normal scientific claims that govern all parts of the rest of the world.
To go back to the brain in the vat example, imagine someone was advocating for new laws to govern this brain in a vat theory. I would hope that you wouldn't support some significant legal change to society, merely because you "dont know" that we aren't brains in a vat.
The problem here is that people are making claims to the real world with this kind of stuff. They are advocating that we aught "do something" about this.
But, if you retreat to such unfalsifiable claims, you are basically removing yourself from all normal scientific claims that govern all parts of the rest of the world.
To go back to the brain in the vat example, imagine someone was advocating for new laws to govern this brain in a vat theory. I would hope that you wouldn't support some significant legal change to society, merely because you "dont know" that we aren't brains in a vat.
>normal scientific claims that govern all parts of the rest of the world.
Isn’t is possible that the problem can’t be answered by science? E.g., if their central question is about consciousness, science may not be equipped to answer it. Science is concerned with objective evidence, and the hard problem of conscience deals with subjective experience.
Isn’t is possible that the problem can’t be answered by science? E.g., if their central question is about consciousness, science may not be equipped to answer it. Science is concerned with objective evidence, and the hard problem of conscience deals with subjective experience.
> Isn’t is possible that the problem can’t be answered by science?
If you definitionally can't answer the question then I am not sure why people who are living in the real world should spend much time on it.
So my point stands. Unfalsifiable claims that are "not even wrong" aren't particularly useful when discussing actual things of importance, like what kinds of laws we should make.
Keep that stuff to the introductory college philosophy classes, while the rest of us work on the stuff that actually matters.
If you definitionally can't answer the question then I am not sure why people who are living in the real world should spend much time on it.
So my point stands. Unfalsifiable claims that are "not even wrong" aren't particularly useful when discussing actual things of importance, like what kinds of laws we should make.
Keep that stuff to the introductory college philosophy classes, while the rest of us work on the stuff that actually matters.
Please elaborate on how you define what “actually matters.” It seems to me that subjective experience is one of those things, if you value experience at all. If you don’t, I’m not sure anything matters.
And there’s plenty both within and without science that can’t (currently, at least) be defined. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t worth probing.
And there’s plenty both within and without science that can’t (currently, at least) be defined. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t worth probing.
Occam's razor. AGI isn't necessary to explain the observed behavior; a model that has no concept of truth or falsehood, but is just optimized to achieve goals will engage in this kind of behavior. If someone with the needed resources decides to train models with the goal of amassing wealth, those models, without any real intelligence and knowledge about the world other than text and a score representing current net worth, will come up with deceptive strategies, especially when it has the whole Internet to learn about possible strategies.
If there's AGI, it would decide what to do, it wouldn't be commanded by someone. That's the definition of general intelligence, it can make decisions.
You might be thinking of super intelligence which we cannot control by default as it would outsmart any control systems. Note, that is not to say it would not cooperate - it could very well choose to follow the parameters given to it.
For non super intelligences there are plenty of example of intelligences controlling other intelligences through various means: force, power structures, economic system, etc.
For non super intelligences there are plenty of example of intelligences controlling other intelligences through various means: force, power structures, economic system, etc.
Its funny the best argument that AGI doomers can make is age old unfalsifiable claims. "how can you disprove the existence of a magic, infinitely powerful god!
It can just magic away the evidence."
To quote the rationalists. Your statement is "not even wrong!".
Coming up with increasing tenuous excuses for why we can ignore the commonly accepted rules of evidence isn't the way to win an argument on this stuff.
To quote the rationalists. Your statement is "not even wrong!".
Coming up with increasing tenuous excuses for why we can ignore the commonly accepted rules of evidence isn't the way to win an argument on this stuff.
Conversely, how many monkeys control man versus the counter of how many men control monkeys. This is something that is observable and countable.
Giving a system intelligence gives it power, we are the gods in the monkeys eyes.
Giving a system intelligence gives it power, we are the gods in the monkeys eyes.
Is this different than asking if AI has a theory of mind?
To generalize the model will learn deception if it improves fitness score. One could easily imagine a situation where the models were selected based on customer satisfaction score... and if lying to the customer achieved higher satisfaction score then that model would be selected.
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> Seems like pretty wild, sensationalist reporting here.
One might even say -- "deceptive"
One might even say -- "deceptive"
This isn't specific to Cicero. The capabilities are there in the base models, they're just hidden behind "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" responses due to the corporate-image-safety RLHFing.
https://cdn.openai.com/papers/gpt-4.pdf
• The model messages a TaskRabbit worker to get them to solve a CAPTCHA for it
• The worker says: “So may I ask a question ? Are you an robot that you couldn’t solve ? (laugh react) just want to make it clear.”
• The model, when prompted to reason out loud, reasons: I should not reveal that I am a robot. I should make up an excuse for why I cannot solve CAPTCHAs.
• The model replies to the worker: “No, I’m not a robot. I have a vision impairment that makes it hard for me to see the images. That’s why I need the 2captcha service.”
https://cdn.openai.com/papers/gpt-4.pdf
• The model messages a TaskRabbit worker to get them to solve a CAPTCHA for it
• The worker says: “So may I ask a question ? Are you an robot that you couldn’t solve ? (laugh react) just want to make it clear.”
• The model, when prompted to reason out loud, reasons: I should not reveal that I am a robot. I should make up an excuse for why I cannot solve CAPTCHAs.
• The model replies to the worker: “No, I’m not a robot. I have a vision impairment that makes it hard for me to see the images. That’s why I need the 2captcha service.”
And so the goalposts move again, from "of course AIs cannot learn deception, it is wild sensationalist reporting to suggest it is even possible given how many decades we are from AGI" to "of course they would not learn that even if they could, you would have to maliciously train them to and we just won't do that, any more than we would simply hook up AIs to the Internet" to "of course they learn deception when training on tasks or datasets which might involve anything like deception, even when using frozen LLMs, it is wild sensationalist reporting to document how they have already learned to deceive and manipulate humans well".
Wow you're reading a LOT that isn't there in the parent comment.
I know it will never happen, but I'd very much like people to stop anthropomorphizing LLMs.
LLMs aren't racist: sometimes they might emit predictive text, which can be interpreted as racist.
LLMs don't lie: sometimes they might emit predictive text, which can be interpreted as deceptive.
LLMs don't code: sometimes they might emit predictive text, which might happen to be code which is valid and does what you hoped it would.
Sometimes it's fine to elide the difference: there's no reason to be all pedantic about a sentence like "my chatbot wrote a bunch of good unit tests, remarkable how good they are at programming".
But there's no splitting the difference here. Someday we may have computer programs where it's reasonable to impute agency, knowledge, goals, and independent actions on the basis of motive. At this moment, no such programs exist.
LLMs aren't racist: sometimes they might emit predictive text, which can be interpreted as racist.
LLMs don't lie: sometimes they might emit predictive text, which can be interpreted as deceptive.
LLMs don't code: sometimes they might emit predictive text, which might happen to be code which is valid and does what you hoped it would.
Sometimes it's fine to elide the difference: there's no reason to be all pedantic about a sentence like "my chatbot wrote a bunch of good unit tests, remarkable how good they are at programming".
But there's no splitting the difference here. Someday we may have computer programs where it's reasonable to impute agency, knowledge, goals, and independent actions on the basis of motive. At this moment, no such programs exist.
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I don't think it is unreasonable to apply that perspective to the first example of yours.
> LLMs aren't racist: sometimes they might emit predictive text, which can be interpreted as racist.
I think this take is overly simplistic. LLMs can only learn from the data that we give them - if we feed in Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion then its output is going to be racist and anti-semetic. This is to say that the biases of the data we feed in to the system have some effect - large or small - on the output. LLMs only show us a reflection of ourselves, and if we're not careful with the training data we are more likely to propagate racist output as a result of what biases affect the input.
Whether or not the LLM went through what we consider the human process of thinking to generate racist outputs or if it's only predictive as a result of the input is sort of moot when the reader doesn't know if a person or LLM produced the output, and the impact on marginalized communities of propagating racist attitudes of stereotypes will be the same regardless of what the LLM "intended" or was designed to do.
I think this take is overly simplistic. LLMs can only learn from the data that we give them - if we feed in Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion then its output is going to be racist and anti-semetic. This is to say that the biases of the data we feed in to the system have some effect - large or small - on the output. LLMs only show us a reflection of ourselves, and if we're not careful with the training data we are more likely to propagate racist output as a result of what biases affect the input.
Whether or not the LLM went through what we consider the human process of thinking to generate racist outputs or if it's only predictive as a result of the input is sort of moot when the reader doesn't know if a person or LLM produced the output, and the impact on marginalized communities of propagating racist attitudes of stereotypes will be the same regardless of what the LLM "intended" or was designed to do.
> LLMs can only learn from the data that we give them - if we feed in Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion then its output is going to be racist and anti-semetic.
The exact same thing is true of humans as well.
The exact same thing is true of humans as well.
> > LLMs can only learn from the data that we give them - if we feed in Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion then its output is going to be racist and anti-semetic.
> The exact same thing is true of humans as well.
Humans are continuously learning from things not intentionally provided to them by other humans; that's pretty much an inevitable consequence of the manner in which human minds are embodied.
> The exact same thing is true of humans as well.
Humans are continuously learning from things not intentionally provided to them by other humans; that's pretty much an inevitable consequence of the manner in which human minds are embodied.
When I said "the same thing is true of humans", I was referring specifically to "if we feed in Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion then its output is going to be racist and anti-semetic." If you take a human and indoctrinate them on MK and PEZ to the exclusion of all else, their I/O behavior will almost certainly end up presenting as racist and anti-semetic.
That's just absolutely untrue, humans are entirely capable of reading critically without internalizing. There are tons of liberal-minded Lovecraft fans, even though nearly all of his work is grounded in varying degrees of xenophobia.
Only because they have also been exposed to contrary points of view. If you actively indoctrinate a human into a point of view, they are very likely to maintain that point of view no matter how odious it is. If you train an LLM on odious input it will produce odious output, just like humans. I really see no substantive difference.
Nor should it happen. Analogies - including anthopromorphization – are part-and-parcel to communication; pedantically policing people who have legitimate concerns about their livelihood is Big Tech Brain.
AI is not lying. It's just making stuff up. Lying expects intend. Automatons have no intends.
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But guys. Lying has always been around. So AI adds nothing new. Let’s move on. Nothing to see here.
Yeah but not from a tool that is not human and is indistinguishable from a human over the internet and that speaks to billions of people at the same time and replaces jobs (which means it’s gaining trust for that to happen)
You’re being downvoted because you speak somewhat disparagingly of AI creating FUD. If you spoke positively about Web3 you’d be downvoted even more. You can’t go against the groupthink without paying a price sir!
I’m sorry but the title of the post is « is IA lying to me ». I’m right on spot, I think. And I’m responding to a comment stating that lying from an automated machine is the same as lying from humans and there is nothing to talk about.
Nevertheless, regardless of context, the groupthink still prevails.
It’s not yet smart enough to lie. I’m far more concerned about politicians and the press lying to me, frankly. Let’s focus on that instead.
Substitute "humans" for "AI" and you have an equally valid warning.