Safeguards have improved drastically since then.
> Many continue to ignore the fact that they're hurting kids for profit.
That's a rather hyperbolic way of putting it. A side effect of this particular product is that it occasionally harms kids. They're not profiting off of the harm, nor is the harm deliberate.
Cars harm kids. There's decades of unsafe toys harming kids. The FDA exists to make sure food doesn't harm kids. We used to use lead paint and asbestos, which harm kids. Climate change harms kids.
I'm sure some kids have used The Internet to Google Search this same information. There are books you can check out from the library on the topic.
It's definitely worth acknowledging the edge cases, but it's absurd to act like the AI companies are some unique evil - IKEA has probably killed more kids than every LLM combined. I don't even have to pull out the big guns like "cars".
Source? Seriously. I'd love to see data showing deaths–or even frequencies–have dropped. My views on AI for under-16s is still evolving.
Given how the AI companies are fighting these cases in court, and given their backers’ public rhetoric, I suspect they aren't seeing a one-off risk.
> Cars harm kids
This is tobacco-industry rhetoric. The relevant facts are frequency, magnitude and novelty (the last indicating we may be mis-sampling the first two).
> FDA exists to make sure food doesn't harm kids
Mm hmm. Where’s the FDA for AI and social media?
> worth acknowledging the edge cases, but it's absurd to act like the AI companies are some unique evil
I agree with this. AI isn't a unique evil. But AI companies are uniquely defensive, dismissive and negligent when it comes to harming kids. Call it the Mosseri Effect. When an industry continuously promotes people who predate on kids and their parents' wallets, the edge cases are going to wind up inside the lines.
> This is tobacco-industry rhetoric. The relevant facts are frequency, magnitude and novelty
Cars are literally the number one killer of children 0-14 in the United States. More than cancer, more than guns, more than the next 7 reasons combined.
> But AI companies are uniquely defensive, dismissive and negligent when it comes to harming kids.
You should see how people feel if you ask them to give up some street parking to make streets safer for kids and everybody else! Jesus Christ himself gave them the spot in front of their house and fuck you for suggesting they park across the street or on their own property!
Cars are heavily regulated. Require licenses to use. Entail massive losses of freedoms when used, e.g. you can be randomly breathalyzed or whatnot.
Cars are dangerous. Comparing anything to a car (or, per Altman and now Dario, to a nuke) means it should be tightly regulated and controlled.
> Cars are dangerous.
You can kill yourself with a kitchen knife in your own kitchen. Should be "heavily regulate" that too? How about we have remotely-locked drawers and medicine bottles and you have to talk with a government shrink before opening?
> Comparing anything to a car ... means it should be tightly regulated and controlled
Popsicles come in many colors, just like cars! Regulate the popsicles!
AI is, so far, like having a bottle of acetaminophen. Deadly if used incorrectly. It should be easy to lock away from children. It is not for the government to get in the way of how adults want to use it.
You can kill yourself with anything. That doesn’t make everything dangerous in the way we’re using the word.
Earlier you said “cars are literally the number one killer of children 0-14 in the United States.” That makes them dangerous in a way kitchen knives, which aren’t commonly killing children outside hypotheticals, are not.
> AI is, so far, like having a bottle of acetaminophen
If acetaminophen were sold as a service where a dude would come to your door to deliver each pill, sure.
Oh, and the delivery guy is paid a commission. And it isn’t a percentage of each delivery, but a multiple.
Mandatory perhaps but you're already likely to receive a sentence on your second one at the judge's discretion. That's how it should be IMO as mandatory sentences subvert the justice system thus shouldn't be permitted.
So that's a great example: harm adults because young people have access to something which is hardly dangerous, but set them free with multi-ton killing machines once they turn 16 years old and let them buy an actually-deadly medicine with no restrictions.
Regulation which says "adults should easily be able to enable client-side child protection settings on retail devices" would be fine. It's not okay for government to make it necessary for LLM providers to verify my identity.
What do the numbers look like from before bottles were child locked?
Get into a hit and run and there’s almost no chance anyone finds who did it. There’s a near 100% chance the person that did it paid the registration fee for their car though, paid to get it inspected, paid to renew their license with no exam, etc.
If true (quite probable; there aren't that many reported cases that I found-less than 40, all-time, worldwide), then we can't meaningfully distinguish between willful negligence on Anthropic's side and a "shit can happen for any reason" class situation. Especially considering those accidents seem to tend to involve various mental health issues, particularly including preexisting suicidal ideations as a comorbidity. Probably fewer than there are cases of other bona fide people talking kids into harm (verbal abuse, dares, etc.).
And if so, I guess ethics suggests that we shouldn't assume unproven malice in such a case unless there's proof of actual intent. A suspicion is not entirely without basis, but "hurting kids for profit" feels too provocative in its implications, to the extent it starts to feel misleading.
As it happens, Anthropic has also been calling for the creation of such a regulatory agency!
> AI companies are uniquely defensive, dismissive and negligent when it comes to harming kids.
You know cigarette companies still exist? And companies selling candy-flavored vapes targeted at teenagers? Like... c'mon, you know they're nowhere near the worst offenders.
Of course they're defensive when sued. What's the alternative?