[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.