AI

From a moral perspective, we believe that each person has the ability create, to build, to connect in ways that are not replaceable by machines. We have lived in an economy built on manipulation, tapping into our core instinctual drives to engage and excite us at every moment. In this age of LLMs, we must not believe the marketing that tells us that soulless, polished output is better than an inspired idea. A diamond in a paper back is better than a plastic jewel in beautiful display case.

From a policy perspective, we propose two key questions for legislation:

1)        What decisions do we want AI to make?

2)        Whose will be responsible for those decisions?

When you ask an LLM to make a decision, how is this moral judgement determined? Whose morality is it? What is it optimizing for?

LLMs are trained on as much data as possible, then refined through reinforcement. Both of these encode mortal judgement and thus are a reflection of the data and training they have received. We know that LLMs encode the same biases as the data sets they start from, and that the reinforcement learning may not align with the judgement and values of the organization using the LLM. They are optimized for engagement and usage, the things that make the companies the most money.

In alignment with the German court, corporations must be liable for the output of their LLMs and the consequences of that output on the people receiving it. We have seen LLMs giving instructions and encouragement for people to commit suicide. If an employee of that same company gave the same advice they would be potentially criminally liable.

When these LLMs imperfectly simulate the morality of organizations or societies of human beings, with no intervening oversight, it is a huge risk to all of us.

We, as a society, must decide which decisions we prohibit from being made by these simulations, which we are only comfortable being made with human oversight, and which are so inconsequential that we are ok with them being made autonomously.

We need to legislate this responsibility and these rules in a way that protects us. We will not defer our judgment, our creativity, our souls to the rounded together work of all of us. We will not defer our humanity in service to the ever-rising stock prices of the largest corporations and their billionaire owners.