The very funny writer Simon Rich just wrote a very funny opinion piece for Time Magazine about the serious topic of AI and its threat to the livelihood of writers.
An article I just read from Futurism (https://futurism.com/ai-trained-ai-generated-data-interview) interviews the people who wrote a scholarly article on what happens when generative AI is trained on output from generative AI. They liken it to Mad Cow Disease and the comparison seems apt. Eventually, generative AIs will run out of non-generative AI text, pictures, videos, etc on which to train. This can even happen unwittingly as people post their AI creations that will then be scraped and used to train the next generation of generative AI.
As far as I understand it—which is admittedly not very much at all—this problem will become inevitable and there is no way good way of stopping it, especially as generative AI businesses seek to put out more “advanced” models to sell. While this doesn’t get to the heart of what you were writing about it, I do think it is important to consider when speaking about AI now. Unless there are massive changes made—and again, my lack of understanding couldn’t even begin to think what those changes might be—generative AI has a decent chance of eating itself whole.
I think so. The generative AIs Simon Rich was shown have yet to be released upon the world. They exist in a vacuum. The fake Onion headlines and the short story show that the advancement of generative AI is farther along than we thought, yet these AIs will also need fresh content if they are not to become repetitive. Once they start to train on new data they will also succumb to MAD (Model Autophagy Disorder). It seems inevitable.
If anyone is interested in the original paper the Futurism article talks about, it’s up on Arxiv right now; here’s the link: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.01850.pdf
"But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought." — General Jack D. Ripper, played by Sterling Hayden
"Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines." —General "Buck" Turgidson, played by George C. Scott
"General Turgidson, I find this very difficult to understand. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons." —President Merkin Muffley
"That's right, sir, you are the only person authorized to do so. And although I, uh, hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like, uh, General Ripper exceeded his authority." —General "Buck" Turgidson
As a writer, I've seen the...well, *writing* on the wall for a while now. It's not just that AI will replicate our ability to produce words but also that humans care less and less for the written word anyway. On one hand, it's a bummer. On the other, I'll be dead soon enough so why fret?
Yeah, this is my current panic attack. My creative work is all my family has to keep us afloat, and I was pretty confident in myself that I was special enough to keep swinging it until fairly recently. Now it seems like I had better just get ready for life to hand me my own ass again. It's mostly Meta's platforms that pay my bills right now, but I know the minute that Zuckerberg can just generate AI content to replace what I do, it's over. Honestly, I'm sure that he already can and is just tweaking things and waiting for the right moment to announce his next big breakthrough in automated content creation.
I can already see his beaming face at the presser.
An article I just read from Futurism (https://futurism.com/ai-trained-ai-generated-data-interview) interviews the people who wrote a scholarly article on what happens when generative AI is trained on output from generative AI. They liken it to Mad Cow Disease and the comparison seems apt. Eventually, generative AIs will run out of non-generative AI text, pictures, videos, etc on which to train. This can even happen unwittingly as people post their AI creations that will then be scraped and used to train the next generation of generative AI.
As far as I understand it—which is admittedly not very much at all—this problem will become inevitable and there is no way good way of stopping it, especially as generative AI businesses seek to put out more “advanced” models to sell. While this doesn’t get to the heart of what you were writing about it, I do think it is important to consider when speaking about AI now. Unless there are massive changes made—and again, my lack of understanding couldn’t even begin to think what those changes might be—generative AI has a decent chance of eating itself whole.
So, maybe there's some hope?
I think so. The generative AIs Simon Rich was shown have yet to be released upon the world. They exist in a vacuum. The fake Onion headlines and the short story show that the advancement of generative AI is farther along than we thought, yet these AIs will also need fresh content if they are not to become repetitive. Once they start to train on new data they will also succumb to MAD (Model Autophagy Disorder). It seems inevitable.
If anyone is interested in the original paper the Futurism article talks about, it’s up on Arxiv right now; here’s the link: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.01850.pdf
The State was one of the items in NYT's Connections game today
i don't want to like this
"But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought." — General Jack D. Ripper, played by Sterling Hayden
"Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines." —General "Buck" Turgidson, played by George C. Scott
"General Turgidson, I find this very difficult to understand. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons." —President Merkin Muffley
"That's right, sir, you are the only person authorized to do so. And although I, uh, hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like, uh, General Ripper exceeded his authority." —General "Buck" Turgidson
“I’m sorry,Dave. I can’t do that. “
Hal 9000
"We’ve reduced our humanity to a large language model. Maybe that’s all it ever was."
This made me a little sad. I'm going to tell myself that AI wrote this.
Haha.
As a writer, I've seen the...well, *writing* on the wall for a while now. It's not just that AI will replicate our ability to produce words but also that humans care less and less for the written word anyway. On one hand, it's a bummer. On the other, I'll be dead soon enough so why fret?
One very weird feature of the AI story: We are on track create consciousness before we understand it.
That sucks.
Yeah, this is my current panic attack. My creative work is all my family has to keep us afloat, and I was pretty confident in myself that I was special enough to keep swinging it until fairly recently. Now it seems like I had better just get ready for life to hand me my own ass again. It's mostly Meta's platforms that pay my bills right now, but I know the minute that Zuckerberg can just generate AI content to replace what I do, it's over. Honestly, I'm sure that he already can and is just tweaking things and waiting for the right moment to announce his next big breakthrough in automated content creation.
I can already see his beaming face at the presser.
Yeah, we're all pretty much fucked.