Transcript
Explain it to me like I’m 80
Mom: What’s with these AIs escaping and hacking people? That sounds scary.
Me: You park your car at the top of a hill. You leave a note on the dashboard that says “please be good” and then you pull the parking brake. The car careens down the hill, smashes everything up, and you put out a press release saying “My car ignored my instructions! It hallucinated! It went rogue!” Your insurance company not only believes you, but invests a hundred million dollars in your company.
Mom: Jesus Fucking Christ
This video made me unsubscribe from Kurzgesagt. The sensationalistic/story-telling tone of describing LLM actions is exactly what LLM-companies want. They did a small comparison to a virus and I think it is kinda fitting. But a virus is not alive just like LLMs.
Yeah, I considered pulling my patreon for them the moment I saw the title.
In “A Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI”, Cory Doctorow has a good bit about this kind of sensationalism referring to news that is actually targeted at potential investors taking over the airwaves - which both the title and ending of this video definitely are. I did enjoy the middle where it went through how the LLM harnesses actually worked together and communicated; that I think was novel. But the sensationalism starting at the title is shit, and I question here whether it’s just a bid to get more views for them, as opposed to drinking the cool-aid.
Either way, they get one more strike before I pull the plug on my end.