back to article Roses are red, this is sublime: We fed OpenAI's latest chat bot a classic Reg headline

Most neural networks are like people with savant syndrome: they have extraordinary capabilities in a very narrow range of tasks. Now a new system built by researchers at OpenAI is more of a polymath, and has learned to perform simple language tasks without human supervision nor task-specific training. Modern neural-network …

  1. LordHighFixer

    interesting

    But it doesn't seem to be any more lucid than my Markov bot, and I am still feeding it. Did someone let AMfM escape?

  2. Bitsminer Silver badge
    Facepalm

    gigo

    Jack Clark, policy director at OpenAI, said the content could potentially "generate misleading news articles or impersonate others online".

    The original data came from Reddit and you are surprised at this? You are funny.

    1. cat_mara

      Re: gigo

      The original data came from Reddit and you are surprised at this?

      "But we trained it on r/iamverysmart! Stands to reason it's very smart now, don't it?"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: gigo

        I can't help but feel that his claim is more to do with generating publicity and giving the impression that they've created something wonderful than anything else.

  3. Pete 2 Silver badge

    The fourth e-state?

    > Some of the information it generates is also just plain wrong. Jack Clark, policy director at OpenAI, said the content could potentially "generate misleading news articles or impersonate others online".

    So, ideal for writing stories in almost every daily newspaper.

  4. Mage Silver badge

    Not safe, can't release it, so brilliant.

    Screams of hype, not brilliance.

    Besides untrained people thought Eliza was real in 1966. The bar isn't high for a chat bot or fake news generator.

    ST-TNG had Data the wrong way round. Natural English, like in certain soaps or newspapers isn't hard. Emotion simulation is easy. Playing an instrument from a score or copying art is no big deal. It's all the other autonomous everyday decisions that are impossible for AI. Is that a cat with a skin condition or a small elephant? As for actual problem solving and acceptable artistic creation? Computers can't provide decent spelling checkers or grammar correction. Yes, the word is spelled correctly but it's a completely different meaning. No, that IS correct, doubled words are not always wrong. Why do I have to look up dozens of words and add them to the "dictionary". Why doesn't the spelling checker understand context or show the definition of the suggested replacement?

    Sorry, this is just hype. It's Social Media that's unsafe, not yet another text generator or chat bot.

  5. Muscleguy

    It seems rather nerdlike in the dog answer, too much information dude. A domesticated animal of the order carnivora would suffice.

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Trollface

      But I never knew a dog could "be either female (males) or male (females)". This vital information about transgender canines should be promulgated to... um, the Westboro Baptist Church?

    2. DropBear

      I'm almost certain it just vaguely realised on some level that "what is" tends to be associated with looking for the "definition" of a thing, and "a dog" means the thing is "dog", so just yanked the closest thing it had to a Wikipedia article and quoted it nearly verbatim - mixing it up with some other words just enough to make sure we realize it has no idea what it is doing...

  6. IceC0ld

    We fed OpenAI's latest chat bot a classic Reg headline

    I can see that this sort of behaviour in the not too distant future will be classed as hate crimes against AI :o)

    the poor bloody algorithm must have shit a new one when that one dropped in LOL

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: We fed OpenAI's latest chat bot a classic Reg headline

      I really, really wonder what would happen if you fed it Lewis Caroll's Jabberwocky.

  7. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    Err, yes. But is it real smart,

    or fake smart?

    The flexibility seems quite an improvement over the usual "Can classify in 1 task and spit out results of 1 type" NN.

    But is it?

    1. Evil Auditor Silver badge

      Re: Err, yes. But is it real smart,

      Real smart of fake smart. Either way, it sounds just like our PHB (w/o the pointy). So for now I seem to know how they did his oral output. Still wondering though how his almost human-like appearance was made. Darn, it's really not easy to distinguish from a real, human being.

  8. A-nonCoward

    It's learning...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ozaFbqg00

  9. Johnny Canuck

    Hmph!

    A Man from Mars is much better.

  10. Starace
    Flame

    The Musky smell of hype.

    Comes across like the pronouncements of certain other outfits - 'look at the wonderful thing we've done! It's better than anything ever! But no you can't have it yet, and don't look too closely at what it actually does or ask awkward questions about how'.

    Maybe that stuff would fool some people but to me it still comes across as incoherent gibberish of exactly the sort you'd expect to get if you chopped up vast amounts of source material then pushed the fragments out of the grinder with some general matching for subject and some statistically driven ordering. Fucking wow!

    Like a lot of modern AI it seems like a lot of resource burnt to produce something that doesn't really do much and certainly isn't intelligent. But hey, LOOK AT US!!

    1. cat_mara

      Re: The Musky smell of hype.

      Sssh, don't blaspheme Neckbeard Jesus or he'll call you a nonce on Twitter or something

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, hang on

    This thing generates random factoids that, apart from irrelevant, may be wrong or very wrong? And it "tends to wander off incoherently after a few paragraphs"?

    Man, this is going to save me so much time! I'll be able to delegate all my internet posting to this machine. Where do I get a licence?

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

      Re: So, hang on

      I think speech writers for many politicians might be very, very afraid of this development

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No so fast.

        No, this outputs coherent speeches. So I think you made an error.

  12. DJV Silver badge

    Jeffrey Archer's been using this softwre for years!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Absolutely fu$%#ng insane

    A piece of lame software spewing idiotic nonsense and they claim "software is fascinating and impressive from a technological and academic point of view"! Gosh, those academics are so easily impressed that I'm truly scared by the future they envision for human kind.

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Terminator

      Re: Absolutely fu$%#ng insane

      That's exactly what an AI would say, to lure us all into a feeling of false security.

      You're not fooling anyone you metal menace!

  14. MacroRodent
    Thumb Down

    Premature fears

    Article: OpenAI says it is withholding portions of the software to prevent it being abused to automatically churn out the equivalent of deep fake videos for the written word

    Judging by the samples, a very, very premature concern. A human would do a much better job of faking someone's writing. In fact, this "AI" is very far from fooling anyone who reads more than a few paragraphs of the output.

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Premature fears

      But nowadays, no-one bothers to read beyond the second... Ooh, look a butterfly!

  15. deadlockvictim

    El Reg Headlines

    Flak for Slack chaps in yak app hack flap: User database whacked

    El Reg Headlines are often poetry and require an understanding of humour and much deeper language skills.

    I'm not surprised that the poor AI engine needed a Solpadeine and a lie-down. You were asking it to get meta.

    Maybe a Gumby brothers icon ("My brain hurts! my brain hurts!").

    YouTube clip for those who have temporarily forgotten it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7AihnLbw1E

  16. Popsi
    Flame

    Perfect Spambot

    I agree that this bot is dangerous, but not for the reasons stated. The content it produces is garbage, even when it's written in understandable English. Could it be confused by something written by a human? Sure, just read how all those NPC are regurgitate their party-line. It's hard on the same level.

    With this bot spamming forums and discussions until any semblance of content is gone will be easy. For the moderators, it'll become a nightmare to sort out your average angry internet-citizen with too many pet-peeves from a bot. Keeping up a no-censorship policy will become even harder if you still want to keep useful content.

    The icon because it'll make flamewars even easier.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: Perfect Spambot

      I think you missed the joke icon, as we don't need AI for that to happen [looks over at just about any forum ever visited], yep, aldread a firepit in a firepit of fire.

  17. Herby

    Goes to show: Artifical Intelligence...

    ...isn't!

    And probably never be.

  18. Keith 20

    Balance

    In the interests of balance for this bot, are there any examples where the output isn't complete crap ?

    Dangerous AI I think not...

  19. Nick Kew

    It was a dark and stormy clock

    ... and I was more impressed when I first saw moderately-convincing AI-generated stories, nearly 40 years ago.

  20. Kez
    Pint

    Hmmm

    Perhaps before we start drawing up Asimovian rules for AI, such as "a robot must never lie to a human", we should teach them the difference between fact and fiction! Incidentally, how did El Reg play with this thing? I smell an opportunity... Train the wordy bot on my past catalog of emails and ticket notes, let it loose on my PC, and sneak out early for a ---------->

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh no...

    "Dogs can be either female (males) or male (females). "

    This thing is learning how to categorize things. Its partially failing, but it seems it's building up tiny models of its world.

  22. Havin_it

    The penguin and cat story

    I teared up a bit, NGL. Shit can escalate so easily.

  23. Gnoitall
    Trollface

    GPT-2 can't hold a candle to amanfromMars.

    Because GPT-2 doesn't have hands.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      But does amanfromMars ?

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Where do your Sources of Knowledge and Life Come From? Old Books and New Programs?

        But does amanfromMars ? ... Yet Another Anonymous coward

        Hands that do wishes need brains for the rushes, Yet Another Anonymous coward.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Where do your Sources of Knowledge and Life Come From? Old Books and New Programs?

          From SomeTHInG

    2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      The Perennial OpenAI Conundrum for Resolving with AIMaster Pilot ProgramMING into Such Projects

      GPT2 will not be able to hold a candle to anything or anyone if serially led by heads of policy without a clue about what to do about what can be so easily done nowadays.

      While GPT2 is potentially groundbreaking, OpenAI is not ready to share it with the world just yet. Its head of policy told the Guardian that GPT2 needs to be tinkered with for a while to find out whether it could be used for mischief. .... AI firm is keeping a text generating tool under wraps amid fears

      Whether it could be used for mischief? Oh, I was thinking much more about however do you limit and/or mitigate mischievous use, ignorant misuse and arrogant abuse. And how to efficiently terminally punish and illiquidate the crazily dangerous miscreant in cases of constant abuse and perfectly understood misuse to extremis and beyond.

      Sound safe advice from all of that? ...... Don't be a crazily dangerous miscreant, for enemies are myriad and all-consuming/stealthy and designedly deadly when no prisoners are required.

      1. Cliff Thorburn

        Re: The Perennial OpenAI Conundrum for Resolving with AIMaster Pilot ProgramMING into Such Projects

        I think you shoud take a stress pill amfM ...

        1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

          Re: The Perennial OpenAI Conundrum for Resolving with AIMaster Pilot ProgramMING into Such Projects

          I think you shoud take a stress pill amfM ... .....Cliff Thorburn

          What on Earth for, Cliff T, whenever everything is going so perfectly well. :-) ..... Deeply Embedded into SCADA Systems and MetaDataBase Mining and Prospecting with COSMIC Partners.

          And be assured, Heavenly is not Stressful :-) Extremely Exciting Definitely yes and Never Overwhelming to That and Those of the Ken is the Right Devil of a Temptation to Satisfy with Constant Success for Entry into that Supreme Ancient Sublime Program.

          As you will have to imagine, that is one helluva journey to travel always by all ways made available.

          1. Cliff Thorburn

            Re: The Perennial OpenAI Conundrum for Resolving with AIMaster Pilot ProgramMING into Such Projects

            Glad to hear :-)

            After another depressing Saturday, what I like to refer to as ‘Psy Ops Live Operational Virtual Environments’ curtailing Valentines Day, but not showing much love mostly hate, I often wonder if the sheeple actually are concious of their concerted activities, or the true hands who rock the cradle.

            Think I may pop a stress pill myself, and contemplate whether humanity will ever return to more aspirational centrist morality instead of dancing round the maypole of tortious criminality.

            1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

              Re: The Perennial OpenAI Conundrum for Resolving with AIMaster Pilot ProgramMING into Such Projects

              I often wonder if the sheeple actually are concious of their concerted activities, or the true hands who rock the cradle. .... CT

              Methinks the default virtual state for practically everything but a blessed and/or cursed few is Blissful Ignorance, CT .... which is probably just as well for whenever the masses be told, and it cannot be disproved, that they have been used and abused as the expendable playthings of an Exclusive Executive Administrative Operating System, with levers pushed and pulled by a Corrupted and Perverse Elite, will there be No Secure Hiding Place and No Safe Haven for the Worthy of Retribution and Just Merciless Revenge/Merciful End.

              Capiche, El Reg? Are you working out what has already been done and where everything is going?

              Words Create, Command and Control and Destroy Cruel Worlds in a Flash with a Crash of Intelligence Systems Revealing 0Day Vulnerabilities to Exploit and Explore/Wield and Monetize especially if of particular and peculiar interest to you and any following supportive partners/Angel Investors.

              :-) For AI, but not as you were expecting it to be in IT.

              1. Cliff Thorburn

                Re: The Perennial OpenAI Conundrum for Resolving with AIMaster Pilot ProgramMING into Such Projects

                “Capiche, El Reg? Are you working out what has already been done and where everything is going?”

                I’m pretty sure El Reg regulars, and even the not so regular are intelligent enough to understand that many, much and most of the worlds, and Brexit woes are much more than the SIMple decision of what mobile network to select, and more akin to catastrophic failures and corroborated corruption elsewhere down the pipeline, and failure to accept responsibility for such.

                Ministers of War, manic panic, and failure to uphold the very virtues proclaimed at the very heart of the West and Midwest’s best.

                1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

                  Ladies & Gentlemen, Start your Engines ......... Prepare for Battles Royale and AIdDecisive. ‽ :-)

                  I’m pretty sure El Reg regulars, and even the not so regular are intelligent enough to understand that many, much and most of the worlds, .... Cliff Thorburn

                  Oh? As much as that would be nice and exciting, I'm pretty sure they are not, given the fact that they are so subservient and apathetic to serial abuses by ....... well, they would be that and those whose identifier be membership and/or unquestioning support of the powers that be [TPTB] both politically adept and inept, corrupt and subversive.

                  Things however are rapidly changing, and evolving and mutating in the rancid theatres of FUD and SNAFU ........

                  “The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was." Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, wrote in an essay introducing the conference. “We are experiencing an epochal shift; an era is ending, and the rough outlines of a new political age are only beginning to emerge. No matter where you look, there are countless conflicts and crises"
                  ......... and such progress in unstoppable.

                  Would there be any/many who would disagree and posit such as nonsense and fake news reported and in so doing, prove the initial uncomfortable assertion above true and a fact afloat in seas and sees of fiction?

                  1. Cliff Thorburn

                    s .

                    Well it cant be said that I havent done what has been suggested amFM, from electricuted lift door buttons, to yet even more wasted money, have lost count of it all now to be completely honest.

  24. This post has been deleted by its author

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like