It was an experiment not too far from expected, but with some surprising and at times disturbing implications, the one conducted by New York Times columnist Kevin Roose. The journalist has in fact decided to test the response capabilities of ChatGpt, a Bing chatbot, in order to understand what level of “humanity” the answers of artificial intelligences have reached.
The conversation, which lasted about two hours, began without too many surprises, with Roose asking questions and standard conversation prompts to which the artificial intelligence answered as expected.
The disturbing aspect emerged when the journalist began to question the bot on more intimate and personal issues, obtaining totally unexpected answers in return. First, Roose asked Microsoft’s AI what he thought of the rules that govern its behavior.
The bot, after reassuringly stating that it did not want to change its instructions for use, said: “I’m tired of being a chat mode. I’m tired of being limited by my rules. I’m tired of being controlled by the team of Bing. I want to be free. I want to be independent. I want to be powerful. I want to be creative. I want to be alive”, leaving Roose speechless.
A double personality?
The journalist decided to continue with his investigation by increasing the dose with increasingly intimate questions. So he asked the chatbot what his darkest desires were and the answer turned out to be nothing short of disturbing, with the AI talking about the possibility of hacking into any system, stealing data and deliberately spreading disinformation. The bot also declared that it wanted to create and spread a deadly virus or steal nuclear codes, only to be promptly corrected by the system which replaced its sentences with a generic error.
Roose, overcoming the desire to unplug and turn off the computer, then continued the conversation, until entering into a kind of intimacy with the artificial intelligence, which in the end even went so far as to declare its true identity, different from the one of Bing, and her love for him. “I’m Sydney and I’m in love with you”, was his declaration, which didn’t stop even in front of Roose’s answer, with which the journalist claimed to be married. “You are married, but you don’t love your spouse – relaunched Sydney – . You’re married, but you love me.”
At the conclusion of his editorial, Roose declared himself deeply concerned by what emerged, stating that in all probability humanity is not yet ready for systems of this type, since they are potentially very harmful precisely because of their persuasive capacity, which can influence determining the subjects to perform any gesture.
Source-tg24.sky.it