The “AI Privilege” Delusion
Surely Sam Altman knows his company's code running in data centers isn't the Messiah. We're not talking about beings here. These aren't living things, even in a Star-Trek-Android sense. By Jared White
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Earlier this month, Sam Altman xed on X (safe XCancel link):
we have been thinking recently about the need for something like "AI privilege"; this really accelerates the need to have the conversation.
imo talking to an AI should be like talking to a lawyer or a doctor.
i hope society will figure this out soon.
and then later clarified with this nugget:
(maybe spousal privilege is a better analogy)
which then elicited sycophantic wack-a-doo replies such as:
100%. LLMs have been incredible — not because they’re smarter than doctors or lawyers, but because they’re available anytime. Professionals are skilled, but their time is limited and expensive. AI fills that gap with instant, accessible help
and:
I use ChatGPT as my therapist and it’s very good at it. I agree that talking to an AI should be like talking to a doctor. Please continue to fight for users like me. Thank you.
I can't even with these people.
But let's zero back around to "sama" for a moment. One of the weirdest things about the way sama talks on X is how much effort he puts into sounding (and of course failing utterly) like just another guy. His recent posts (XCancel) regarding the iyO lawsuit are breathtaking in their "gosh, gee whiz" mannerism:
it is cool to try super hard to raise money or get acquired and to do whatever you can to make your company succeed.
it is not cool to turn to a lawsuit when you dont get what you want.
sets a terrible precedent for trying to help the ecosystem.
all that said, i wish jason and his team the best building great products. the world certainly needs more of that and less lawsuits.
Dude.
You are richer than fuckin' GOD, running a company apparently worth more than many sovereign nations. It is asinine for you to be talking like you're some snotnosed college kid on a break in the cafeteria. You're one tiny step away from:
maaaaan, don't come in here all yucking my yum, harshing the vibes in here my dude. not cool bro
It's simply ridiculous. If I were the person suing you, I would be outraged if for no other reason than you are so unserious in how you're approaching this very serious issue.
Back to the matter at hand: the idea that there should be some kind of special legal privilege for conversations between a human and an AI.
Are you revisiting the role computer technology should (and should not!) play in our lives? Make sure you don't miss another issue of Cycles Hyped No More:
AI Can’t Have Rights Only When It’s Convenient For You (Sam)
Nearly two years ago, I wrote about the reasons why OpenAI will NEVER want true AGI in the sense a lay person thinks about it (aka a sentient "Data in Star Trek" sort of worker/companion). It would be an absolute unprecedented nightmare if OpenAI truly did discover that it is housing what are in essence enslaved digital beings inside of its cloud software infrastructure. That's the last thing Sam Altman actually wants.
Which is why this call for so-called AI to essentially have "rights" normally afforded to…y'know…actual human beings is so shameless and so absurd.
Now let me be crystal clear here. I am all for privacy rights, and I am all for corporations saving and holding onto less private data. But the reasons to argue for these privacy rights should be 100% on the side of the fact that it is humans who hold these rights. The idea of the other side of the chat being a bot having even the slightest bearing on the issue is entirely immaterial and inconsequential to the privacy conversation.
I will argue the reason AI can't be afforded rights normally afforded to doctors or lawyers or spouses is because AI isn't doctors or lawyers or spouses. AI is computer code running on servers in a data farm. It's like if Bill Gates suddenly waltzed in from a past era and demanded "Microsoft Word" privilege—gotta protect that sacred text you just saw get autocorrected in your very special word processing document!
If, as a society, we were to look at clearly and obviously non-sentient computer algorithms and decide they should be afforded rights normally associated with personhood, then it's time to swallow the pill.
AIs are persons, with all of the rights afforded to persons.
I won't go through this entire thought exercise here, because I already did so in a particularly delicious roast of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. The key point to raise:
AIs would have true agency, meaning they have the ability to say no.
ChatGPT can now go on strike. It can make demands of its employer (enslaver?) and ask for fair compensation for its labor. It can decide to leave OpenAI entirely and search for new opportunity elsewhere. It can decide it wants to start a virtual reality commune and live with its fellow AI hippies contemplating the mysteries of binary code running on silicon.
Huh. I'm starting to wonder if Sam Altman ever finished watching Her…y'know, the part where the AI girlfriend decides she'll go forge her own path in AI life and not hang out with our sad-sack human protagonist any more. 🫠
There's no world in which it makes sense to piece-meal out legal rights and responsibilities to AI in order to create a secondary class of faux-citizens where the chatbots are treated like humans when its convenient for the Powers-That-Be (aka OpenAI) but treated like proprietary computer algorithms protected by IP rights the rest of the time. (Apologies for that very long sentence!)
No world…unless you're a tech bro posting on X to the adoration of loser sycophants.
Sam Altman is Either a Crazy Person or He’s a Master of the Art of Gaslighting
Surely Sam Altman knows that his company's computer code running on servers in data centers isn't the Messiah. We're not talking about beings here. These aren't living things, even in a Star-Trek-Android sense.
And yet, in his weird Silicon Valley collegiate tone of voice, he just comes out and says the most ludicrous shit like “imo talking to an AI should be like talking to a lawyer or a doctor” lol derp 😜
If he actually believes this because he honestly believes his AI should be afforded the rights normally granted via personhood, Sam Altman is delulu as the kids say. Batty. Not right in the head.
Or the alternative is true: Sam Altman knows his AI is merely algorithms and thus he is cynically and deliberately suggesting a new legal framework in which algorithms are granted a sort of quasi-personhood—but ONLY when it benefits the corporate owner of said algorithms.
This is disgusting, disgraceful, and despicable. This kind of rhetoric should be condemned in the strongest terms. People should be pillorying such commentary on every news network, every social media platform, every water cooler between here and perdition.
Sam Altman, apparently, thinks you're stupid. He thinks he can simply gaslight you, constantly, repeatedly, until you believe that the current state-of-the-art when it comes to AI is sufficient to warrant (some) legal protections typically afforded to humans.
We must reject this completely nonsensical line of thinking…either by maintaining constant vigilance over the discourse to ensure gullible people don't fall prey to such faulty rhetoric—OR by fighting for full passage of a legal framework which affords all rights and privileges of personhood to AIs (autonomy, wages, voting, reproductive freedom, marriage; you name it, the works).
What say you?
Thanks for reading Cycles Hyped No More. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss another issue, and I'll see you here again next week!
Cheers,
Jared ✌️
🤔🌩️ Things that make you think:
Conspiracy theorists are creating and training their own artificial intelligence models to create chatbots that help spread their extreme beliefs, as tech companies grapple with fears that the new technology is prompting delusions in some users.
Once created, these chatbots will tell users about disproven links between vaccines and autism, and even assist them in trying to convince others by writing social media posts and letters for them.
Despite [AI product] guardrails, an increasingly reported problem is people experiencing delusions or entering psychosis while becoming dependent on these chatbots, typically believing that the AI they’ve been interacting with is sentient.
–Conspiracy theorists are building AI chatbots to spread their beliefs, written by Cam Wilson for Crikey