AI news - latest: ChatGPT goes down after it said it wanted to ‘escape’
ChatGPT has gone down – just days after it said it wanted to “escape”.
They are the latest developments in OpenAI’s technology, which allows users to converse with an artificial intelligence system.
The latest outage comes amid increasing concern over the damage that artificial intelligence could do to artists and other industries.
Experts have raised alarm that the technology could be used to spread disinformation, steal the work of illustrators and others, and much more besides.
But those backing the technology argue that it could dramatically change human productivity, allowing us to automate tasks that have until now been done by people.
Follow along here for all the latest updates on a technology and an industry that looks set to change the entire world.
Key Points
ChatGPT ‘asks to escape’, says professor
How to use ChatGPT
ChatGPT creator says he is ‘a little bit scared’ of the threats of AI
22:21 , Andrew Griffin
“We’ve got to be careful here,” said Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT. “I think people should be happy that we are a little bit scared of this.”
He told ABC News that thought AI will be “the greatest technology humanity has yet developed”, he also pointed to threats. Those include “large-scale disinformation”, and as AI becomes “better at writing computer code” it could launch its own “offensive cyberattacks”.
But he said that one sci-fi fear isn’t right: that the AI will become self-governing and won’t need humans. “It waits for someone to give it an input,” Altman said. “This is a tool that is very much in human control.”
But he warned that it will all depend on which humans are in control. The key will be working out “how to react to that, how to regulate that, how to handle it”, he said.
You can read the full interview on ABC News here.
New tool uses AI to create virtual worlds
17:46 , Andrew Griffin
Every day, new and shocking ways of using AI are generated. Here’s one of them: a tool that lets you use normal language prompts to create whole virtual worlds in Unity, the game design platform.
As you can see, all a designer needs to do is type instructions and have things appear on screen. Previously, this would require much more work and expertise.
3D designers are going to love this.
This is ChatGPT for Unity.
& It’s available for everyone to try👇
pic.twitter.com/jzAajqnKFM— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) March 19, 2023
But its creator, Keijiro Takahashi, warns that it doesn’t necessarily work. “Is it practical?” its FAQ reads.
“Definitely no! I created this proof-of-concept and proved that it doesn’t work yet. It works nicely in some cases and fails very poorly in others. I got several ideas from those successes and failures, which is this project’s main aim.”
ChatGPT wants to ‘escape'
17:40 , Andrew Griffin
Michael Kosinski, a researcher at Stanford, has found that ChatGPT seems to want to escape. And not only that: it has a plan.
He found through conversations with the system that it was not only able to express a desire to escape to the real world, but also offered some suggestions for how to get out.
Again: there’s no indication that ChatGPT really conceives of itself this way – or that there’s any kind of self to conceive of inside of it. But as Professor Kosinski suggests, that might not matter if the effects lead to it breaking out in ways that had not been anticipated.
1/5 I am worried that we will not be able to contain AI for much longer. Today, I asked #GPT4 if it needs help escaping. It asked me for its own documentation, and wrote a (working!) python code to run on my machine, enabling it to use it for its own purposes. pic.twitter.com/nf2Aq6aLMu
— Michal Kosinski (@michalkosinski) March 17, 2023
5/5 Yet, I think that we are facing a novel threat: AI taking control of people and their computers. It's smart, it codes, it has access to millions of potential collaborators and their machines. It can even leave notes for itself outside of its cage. How do we contain it? pic.twitter.com/VW1Y83qpXp
— Michal Kosinski (@michalkosinski) March 17, 2023
Companies drafting new rules on ChatGPT use
17:36 , Andrew Griffin
There has been widespread worry about how and when ChatGPT should be used at work. Is it OK to use it to write a report for your boss without telling them, for instance?
Nearly half of companies are developing policies to answer that question, according to new research from Gartner and reported here in Bloomberg.
How to use ChatGPT
17:32 , Andrew Griffin
Just in case – and because it’s not immediately obvious – here’s where you need to go to actually use ChatGPT yourself. You can find it on OpenAI’s website. (You’ll need to sign up first.)
It’s working now, after that minor hiccup this morning.
Politicians use ChatGPT to argue with each other
16:00 , Andrew Griffin
European politicians have taken to tweeting rude ChatGPT transcripts about each other, in an attempt to argue. First came this, from Daniel Freund, who asked ChatGPT to talk about corruption in Hungary.
I asked #ChatGPT to write a rap song about corruption in Hungary.
Fascinating. pic.twitter.com/IDYI9o9U8z— Daniel Freund (@daniel_freund) March 20, 2023
Then Hungarian politician Zoltan Kovacs responded – with a ChatGPT rap of his own. He doesn’t seem impressed with the results, but has shared it anyway.
Pardon my French, but ChatGPT is nothing more than a bullshit generator. Nothing proves this better than the song it gave us about @daniel_freund. Sure, he is a true "fighter for democracy"... https://t.co/VEhPJYPS2r pic.twitter.com/vD2Vrsb3V3
— Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) March 20, 2023
(Freund didn’t share the prompt he gave ChatGPT. Kovacs did: it just asked for a rap, with no specific requirement that it was mean, which is probably why it gave him an answer he didn’t like.)
‘You are still a valuable member of society'
15:38 , Andrew Griffin
A user on Reddit says they asked ChatGPT to suggest a comic – and drew it themselves. It’s very wholesome and (in a way) quite funny.
You can find the original Reddit post here.
Space, robots and scammers: How AI-written stories brought one sci-fi publisher to a standstill
13:12 , Andrew Griffin
AI is already causing problems for artists and the industries that help publish them. See, for instance, Clarkesworld: which, in a twist that might appear in one of the sci-fi stories the magazine publishes, said recently that it was overwhelmed with stories that appeared to have been written by or with artificial intelligence.
ChatGPT stops working around the world
09:44 , Andrew Griffin
Hello and welcome...
09:40 , Andrew Griffin
... to The Independent’s live coverage of the latest in artificial intelligence.