[todd3834]

I don’t think OpenAI ever reported to be profitable. They are allowed and should make money so they can stay alive. ChatGPT has already had a tremendous positive impact on society. The cause of safe AGI is going to take a lot of money in more research.

[shafyy]

> ChatGPT has already had a tremendous positive impact on society.

Citation needed

[todd3834]

Fair enough, I should have said, it’s my opinion that it has had a positive impact. I still think it’s easy to see them as a non profit. Even with everything they announced at AI day.

Can anyone make an argument against it? Or just downvote because you don’t agree.

[sgt101]

I think ChatGPT has created some harms:

- It's been used unethically for psychological and medical purposes (with insufficient testing and insufficient consent, and possible psychological and physical harms).

- It has been used to distort educational attainment and undermine the current basis of some credentials as a result.

- It has been used to create synthetic content that has been released unmarked into the internet distorting and biasing future models trained on that content.

- It has been used to support criminal activity (scams).

- It has been used to create propaganda & fake news.

- It has devalued and replaced the work of people who relied on that work for their incomes.

[VBprogrammer]

> - It has been used to distort educational attainment and undermine the current basis of some credentials as a result.

I'm going to go ahead and call this a positive. If the means for measuring ability in some fields is beaten by a stochastic parrot then these fields need to adapt their methods so that testing measures understanding in a variety of ways.

I'm only slightly bitter because I was always rubbish at long form essays. Thankfully in CS these were mostly an afterthought.

[zztop44]

What if the credentials in question are a high school certificate? ChatGPT has certainly made life more difficult for high school and middle school teachers.

[VBprogrammer]

In which ways it it more difficult? Presumably a high school certificate encompasses more than just writing long form essays? You presumably have to show an understanding in worked examples in maths, physics, chemistry, biology etc?

I feel like the invention of calculators probably came with the same worries about how kids would ever learn to count.

[munksbeer]

> It has devalued and replaced the work of people who relied on that work for their incomes.

Many people (myself included) would argue that is true for almost all technological progress and adds more value to society as a whole than it takes away.

Obviously the comparisons are not exact, and have been made many times already, but you can just pick one of countless examples that devalued certain workers wages but made so many more people better off.

[sgt101]

Sure - agree... but

- because it's happened before doesn't make it ok (especially for the folks who it happens to)

- many more people may be better off, and it may be a social good eventually, but this is not for sure

- there is no mechanism for any redistribution or support for the people suddenly and unexpectedly displaced.

[munksbeer]

Well then, are we in agreement that you can't use the argument that ChatGPT replaced some people's work as an overall negative without a lot more qualification?

[vbo]

and so has the internet. some use it for good, others for evil.

these are behaviours and traits of the user, not the tool.

[sgt101]

I can use a 5ltr V8 to drive to school and back or a Nissan Leaf.

Neither thing is evil, or good, but the choice of what is used and what is available to use for a particular task has moral significance.

[jll29]

I think it's fair to say that after a lot of empty promises, AI research finally delivered something that can "wow" the general population, and has been demonstrated to be useful for more than an single use case.

I know a law firm that tried ChatGPT to write a legal letter, and they were shocked that it use the same structure that they were told to use in law school (little surprise here, actually).

[latexr]

I also know of a lawyer who tried ChatGPT and was shocked by the results.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/lawyer-cited-6-f...

[u32480932048]

I used it to respond to a summons which, due to postal delays, I had to get in the mail that afternoon. I typed my "wtf is this" story into ChatGPT, it came up with a response and asked for dismissal. I did some light editing to remove/edit claims that weren't quite true or I felt were dramatically exaggerated, and a week later, the case was dismissed (without prejudice).

It was total nonsense anyway, and the path to dismissal was obvious and straightforward, starting with jurisdiction, so I'm not sure how effective it would be in a "real" situation. I definitely see it being great for boilerplate or templating though.

[shafyy]

For what it's worth, I didn't downvote you.

Depends on what you define as positive impact. Helping programmers write boiler plate code faster? Summarize a document for lazy fuckers who can't get themselves to read two page? Ok, not sure if this is what I would consider "positive impact".

For a list of negative impacts, see the sister comments. I'd also like to add that the energy usage of LLMs like ChatGPT is immensely high, and this in a time where we need to cut carbon emissions. And mostly used for shits and gigles by some boomers.

[sebzim4500]

Your examples seem so obviously to me to be a "positive impact" that I can't really understand your comment.

Of course saving time for 100 million people is positive.

[mejutoco]

Not arguing either way, but it is conceivable that reading comprehension (which is not stellar in general) can get even worse. Saving time for the same quality would be a positive. Saving time for a different quality might depend on the use-case. For a rough summary of a novel it might be ok, for a legal/medical use, might literally kill you.

[shafyy]

"Positive impact" for me would be things like improve social injustice, reduce poverty, reduce CO2 emissions, etc. Not saying that it's a negative impact to make programmers more productive, but it's not like ChatGPT is saving the world.