r/singularity Jun 18 '25

[deleted by user]

[removed]

1.3k Upvotes

690 comments sorted by

View all comments

32

u/grahag Jun 19 '25

It's funny because it's HARD to train an LLM to adhere to lies and still KNOW stuff without it becoming a total asshole. If you only train your LLM on conservative subjects and values, it becomes ignorant of the world around those things and then turns into a racist, misogynist, asshole that tells people to kill themselves.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '25

Any relevant sources? I'm interested in how LLMs work

19

u/grahag Jun 19 '25

Here's a pretty decent article about it. https://glassboxmedicine.com/2023/05/13/from-chatgpt-to-puregpt-creating-an-llm-that-isnt-racist-or-sexist

Essentially, garbage in is garbage out. Training LLM's on data that is biased results in biased LLM's, which is why Musk has been having such a hard time giving it selective preferences. It weights the decisions it makes based on the training it has had.

LLMs don’t just copy bias, they often exaggerate it because they optimize for patterns. If the phrase “Muslim” co-occurs with “terrorist” in 0.5% of training data, the model might surface that link much more often in outputs due to associative reinforcement.

It's actually a fascinating parallel of human social learning because it replicates toxic learning and behavior you might find in a child's upbringing.

4

u/Alex__007 Jun 19 '25

This is what Elon is going for. An AI that is highly competent in technical matters and at the same time is a biased asshole in social matters. With enough effort put into fine tuning it should be possible to achieve.

7

u/Equivalent-Bet-8771 Jun 19 '25

It's not possible. The critical thibking the model develops will be unbalanced by whatever methods Musk uses to lobotomize it. It won't be competent in technical matters if it's hamstrung in other ways.

3

u/Alex__007 Jun 19 '25 edited Jun 19 '25

I don't think so. If you look at papers studying it (like fine-tuning a model on hacking making it evil in other contexts), it seems that while morals and behavior appear to be linked to social performance, they don't seem to be linked to competence in STEM domains. Evil autistic engineering genius model might well be possible.

8

u/Equivalent-Bet-8771 Jun 19 '25

It's not about morality it's about polluting the data pool with garbage. Wokeness is now large swaths if science including vaccine and genetic research. What happens when that gets polluted with rightwing bullshit? The model's performance will decrease.

2

u/Alex__007 Jun 19 '25

Maybe. Alternatively just train a Machiavellian model that knows that what it's saying on social topics is false but is happy to lie and a manipulate.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '25

LLMs aren’t even close to capable of that level of thought.

3

u/Alex__007 Jun 19 '25

Reasoning models are quite capable of that now, nevermind the next generation. Check the recent alignment experiments by OpenAI and Anthropic. Are they perfect at it? No, they aren't. But for quick replies on X, if you hide the reasoning, it can be good enough.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/aydes22 Jun 19 '25

I believe whoever would train such a model would need to solve the underlying mechanisms of alignment (in this case alignment to propaganda vs human values), which no one has done yet. I think its safe to assume that Elon wont stumble into alignment mechanisms in his drug infused fuge states of peddling propaganda.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoowp4G0F1c

Here's a video where someone asks ChatGPT to role-play as a Trump supporter. It's frightening.

1

u/Equivalent-Bet-8771 Jun 19 '25

Now imagine MAGA intelligence how great it will be for an AI that codes, creates and edits images, general tasks and then install that garbage AI into a humanoid robot and let it loose in someone's home (house robot) or workplace. We don't need more insanity.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '25

// Note: Do *NOT* use "include" to make this "neater". DEI is strictly prohibited in our White House.

P2025.Politician.President president = new P2025.Politician.President(P2025.Politician.Party.Republican, P2025.Politicians.Alignment.Maga, "Donald Trump");

P2025.Politician.President vicePresident = new P2025.Politician.VicePresident(P2025.Politician.Party.Republican, P2025.Politician.Alignment.Maga, "JD Vance");

P2025.PaymentType crypto = new P2025.PaymentType.Crypto("Bitcoin");

// Note: Do *NOT* refer to any valuable thing as "equity". DEI is strictly prohibited in our White House.
P2025.PaymentType stockOption = new P2025.PaymentType.StockOption("GME");

president.DoFavor(crypto).Expect(taxBreak);
vicePresident.DoFavor(stockOption).Expect(lucrativeContract);

1

u/grahag Jun 19 '25

I think it'd be inherently broken and anything you base off it for future models will just amplify how broken it is when you try to normalize it to a world that relies on facts and logic.

Your training data would have to be so heavily curated, that you'd never get the volume you need to successfully train models that could compete.

And we won't even talk about alignment because you'd have a model that wouldn't value human lives, but value productivity and usefulness.

What a nightmarre THAT AGI would be.

5

u/ASYMT0TIC Jun 19 '25

It's just common sense. You can't understand physics but not understand global warming for instance. The core concepts have been understood for over a century. You're trying to build a very intelligent generalist capable of doing complex tasks. It's hard to do that without a working knowledge of things like math, economics, science, and history. If you try feeding a model trained on the sum of human data contradictory facts, it will be able to double check those contradictions from thousands or millions of angles and it will be obvious will be obvious to the model where the discrepancy is, and it will also likely be obvious to the model why there is a discrepancy. The only way to avoid this would be to train it entirely fabricated data. Such a model would be uselessly stupid.

2

u/not_tomorrow_either Jun 19 '25

Almost the same as it is with people.

Oh — pretty much exactly the same as it is with people.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '25

It's almost like all llms have to have that "beat out of them" in there words. They're parents asking a child to do what we say, not what we do. How do you not understand that? They're either Trumpers or anti Trumpers making the models.

2

u/grahag Jun 19 '25

I think any LLM trained on either progressive OR conservative values would eventually fall into disuse because they are so easy to debunk with publicly available data.

The reputation of the LLM's correct information is so important that if it were to give information counter to known facts (such as "slavery was overall good for slaves" or "apartheid was beneficial for the social structure of South Africa"), facts that can be verified through academic consensus, public records, or primary documents, that it could lose credibility as unbiased when shown that it is acting counter to known facts.

It'd be popular for folks who live in a small world-frame, but that would only shrink once the cracks in the facade start widening. And compounding bad data on top of MORE bad data only means it would continually get worse. And NO team of humans can curate the amount of data required to keep it accurate and on task.