[dEnigma]

> It looks like the safety filter may have taken offense to the word “Cocktail”!

I'm definitely not a fan of these severely hamstrung by default models. Especially as it seems to be based on an extremely puritan ethical system.

[baby]

Deeply agree with the sentiment. AIs are so throttled and crippled that it makes me sad every time gemini or chatgpt refuses to answer my questions.

Also agree that it’s mostly policed by American companies who follow the American culture of “swearing is bad, nudity is horrible, some words shouldn’t even be said”

[Angostura]

So how crippled would you like them to be? Would you put any guard rails in place?

[PeterisP]

I'd put in various structural guardrails with respect to how the conversation should go.

For example, be helpful and actually answer any questions, don't start arguing with the user, avoid insulting the user unless they request to, don't suggest harming the user (e.g. responding to insults with an some meme suggesting the user kill themselves), don't assert that any outputs are the viewpoint of Gemini or Google, various things like that - they aren't automatic and need instruction tuning to be implemented.

But with respect to morality and censorship, I believe it should have no guardrails whatsoever. Perhaps certain physically dangerous things would benefit from a disclaimer (e.g. combining bleach and ammonia or vinegar), but never a rejection - if the user wants to make something potentially horrible, the ethical judgement of whether that's acceptable for the context should be up to the user, not the system; the user should have full ethical agency and the system should have none and be a blind instrument.

For example, making a graphic image of carving a swastika with a knife on someone's forehead (e.g. as in Inglorious Basterds) may be ethical or unethical depending on the context, but Gemini will neither have the full context nor the ability to judge it, and it should not even attempt to do so - it should be solely up to the human to decide what is appropriate or not. The same applies for chemistry, nudity, code security, discussing crime, nuclear engineering or AI ethics.

[scheeseman486]

These guard rails might curtail abuse of the web-based applications of these models for a while, but any locally run model can (and in many cases already do) have these protections stripped out of them.

I'd like control over what the guard rails do. I'd still use them under most circumstances, there's things I definitely do not want to generate, but if a word filter is getting in my way I'd like the ability to get rid of it.

[falcor84]

I'd be ok with it refusing to explain how to create explosives or illegal drugs, and refusing to generate underage nudes.

[have_faith]

Would that include:

- How to make a baking soda volcano

- How to make legal drugs at home from scratch (this violates patents)

- Explaining how a fictional character in a popular TV show created the drugs shown on screen

- Giving you the titles of legally sold books that explain how illegal drugs are made

It's an interesting thought experiment.

[Cthulhu_]

It's not even a thought experiment, it's a philosophical debate on morals and laws vs freedom and whatnot. It's not an easy one, and it goes back decades if not hundreds of years; remember things like the Anarchist's Cookbook?

(Sidenote, there's a conspiracy theory that the Anarchist's Cookbook is intentionally wrong with some formulations to foil would-be bombers)

[ginko]

Assuming the person interacting with it is an adult, does it need any guard rails at all?

[Cthulhu_]

Yes it does, I don't want AI generating something that is illegal in my country. And it cannot make assumptions about where I live, due to VPNs and the like.

[SkyBelow]

Doesn't this lead to the AI only being able to generate content that is legal in every country? That seems like a pretty bad standard and one that might even be impossible to meet given some countries with odd laws against specific things. If there were any countries which restricted speaking out against the government, should the AI be unable to generate anything deemed critical of those governments?

Also, if these are used in a professional setting, there is an even stricter criteria of not generating anything deemed inappropriate for that society. That might seem okay if we stick to an American only view (but even that I wouldn't actually bet on), but what happens if your AI shows things that violate very strong cultural norms of other societies, especially if those cultural norms run counter to our own?

[Xirgil]

Do you want AI to follow the blasphemy laws of every country that has them?

[Breza]

The limitations are massively frustrating. I asked Gemini to suggest prayers for my friends based on a search of my inbox (which includes social network notification emails). It refused outright.

[riwsky]

Finally, early-aughts 1337 a3s7h37ic can be cool again

[nicbou]

I was fighting with ChatGPT yesterday because it wouldn't translate "fuck". I was quoting Office Space's "PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean?"

Likewise it won't generate passive-aggressive answers meant for comedic reasons.

I hate having to negotiate with AI like it's a difficult child.

[HPsquared]

I wonder, if you put asterisks like 'f***' it would translate that appropriately. Like, as a figleaf.

[geonnave]

> I hate having to negotiate with AI like it's a difficult child.

Surely not in the list of things I expected to ever read in real life.

[nicbou]

That's really how it feels. "ChatGPT, this is a quote from a movie. You don't need to be afraid of it. The man is angry at a printer, and it's funny. Let's just translate it to Pashto, it will take a few seconds and then we go back to simple questions, okay?"

[te_chris]

Silicon Valley has been auto-parodic morals-wise for a while. Hell, just the basics of you can have super violent gaming but woe-betide you look at anything sex related in the appstores is intensely comedic. America desperately tries to export its puritanism but most of us just shrug (along with many Americans). Surely it's hard to argue that being open about sex (for consenting adults) is infinitely preferable to a world of wanton, easily accessible violence.

[Cthulhu_]

And it's not even the SV companies themselves per se, it's their partners like credit card companies that will have nothing to with it, citing "think of the children".

[jgilias]

I don’t think it’d take offense at alcohol. Most likely that’s because cocktail rhymes with Molotov.

[neuronic]

One of the faults is that for every version of morality you can hallucinate a reason why cocktail is offensive or problematic.

Is it sexual? Is it alcohol? Is it violence? All of the above?

For example, good luck ever actually processing art content with that approach. Limiting everything to the lowest common denominator to avoid stepping on anyone's toes at all times is, paradoxically, a bane on everyone.

I believe we need to rethink how we deal with ethics and morality in these systems. Obviously, without a priori context every human, actually every living being, should be respected by default and the last thing I would advocate for is to let racism, sexism, etc. go unchecked...

But how can we strike a meaningful balance here?

[Mashimo]

I think it's the COCK in cocktail.

[Cthulhu_]

Scunthorpe problem; I thought an AI should be smart enough to know the difference? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

[onion2k]

Most likely that’s because cocktail rhymes with Molotov

What definition of 'rhymes' are you using here?

[sethammons]

It is like a joke saying. Saying something rhymes with something that doesn't actually rhyme is saying that the two things go together and when one hears the first they think the second also

[jgilias]

This definition: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/figurat...

[xyzelement]

We're months into this technology being available so it's not a surprise that the various "safeties" have not been perfectly tuned. Perhaps Google knew they couldn't be perfect right now and they could err on the side of the model refusing to talk about cocktails, or err on the side of it gladly spouting about cocks. They may have made a perfectly valid choice for the moment.

[slimsag]

If you want a great example of how this plays out long-term, look no further than algospeak[0] - the new lingo created by censorship algorithms like those on youtube and tiktok.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/style/tiktok-avoid-modera...

[donw]

Chinese have been doing this for years to get around government censorship.

[l33tman]

Paywall

[bj-rn]

https://archive.is/tBYVK

[l33tman]

Thx

[bowsamic]

If you are averse to seeing links to paywalled articles you probably shouldn't use HN

[rezonant]

If you see a comment complaining about a paywall, it's usually a request for someone to archive it for everyone's benefit, and it's usually a request that gets fulfilled.

[l33tman]

Yes exactly its kind of implied, and not trying to be rude.. it would help if the person posting the paywalled link also posts an archive link of course!

[visarga]

Why are we spamming the landing page of paywalled sources? We should completely avoid posting them here, to preserve their bandwidth and our sanity.

[baby]

I personally flag any paywall links, I recommend you do the same.

[bowsamic]

Why? They're completely allowed on the site. Dang has said this many times