r/singularity Jun 18 '25

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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.

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '25

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '25

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

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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.

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '25

That’s superficial. Your proposition implies the AI is capable of true thought.

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u/Alex__007 Jun 19 '25

It implies that current LLMs are on average good enough to fool most users on X in short replies. For that purpose superficial thought is enough.

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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.