Scammers are using AI to copy the voice of children and grandchildren, and make calls urgently asking to send money. It's also being used to scam businesses out of money in similar ways (copying the voice of the CEO or CFO, urgently asking for money to be sent).

Sure, the AI isn't directly doing the scamming, but it's supercharging the ability to do so. You're making a "guns don't kill people, people do" argument here.

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seizethecheese 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not at all. I’m saying AI doesn’t exist to scam elderly, which is saying nothing about whether it’s dangerous in that respect.

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only-one1701 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Perhaps you’ve heard that the purpose of a system is what it does?

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the_snooze 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Exactly this. These systems are supposed to have been built by some of the smartest scientific and engineering minds on the planet, yet they somehow failed (or chose not) to think about second-order effects and what steady-state outcomes their systems will have. That's engineering 101 right there.

	▲	jacquesm 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's because they were thinking about their stock options instead.

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rcxdude 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This phrase almost always seems to be invoked to attribute purpose (and more specifically, intent and blame) to something based on outcomes, where it should be more considered as a way to stop thinking in terms of those things in the first place.

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irjustin 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In broad strokes - disagree.

This is the knife-food vs knife-stab vs gun argument. Just because you can cook with a hammer doesn't make it its purpose.

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solid_fuel 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> Just because you can cook with a hammer doesn't make it its purpose.

If you survey all the people who own a hammer and ask what they use it for, cooking is not going to make the list of top 10 activities.

If you look around at what LLMs are being used for, the largest spaces where they have been successfully deployed are astroturfing, scamming, and helping people break from reality by sycophantically echoing their users and encouraging psychosis.

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pixl97 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I do mean this is a pretty piss poor example.

Email, by number of emails attempted to send is owned by spammers 10 to 100 fold over legitimate emails. You typically don't see this because of a massive effort by any number of companies to ensure that spam dies before it shows up in your mailbox.

To go back one step farther porn was one of the first successful businesses on the internet, that is more than enough motivation for our more conservative congress members to ban the internet in the first place.

	▲	paulryanrogers 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Email volume is mostly robots fighting robots these days. Today if we could survey AI contact with humans, I'm afraid the top 3 by a wide margin would be scams, cheating, deep fakes, and porn.

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christianqchung 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is it possible that these are in the top 10, but not the top 5? I'm pretty sure programming, email/meeting summaries, cheating on homework, random QA, and maybe roleplay/chat are the most popular uses.

	▲	jacquesm 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The number of programmers in the world is vastly outnumbered by the people that do not program. Email / meeting summaries: maybe. Cheating on homework: maybe not your best example.

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only-one1701 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I was going to reply to the post above but you said it perfectly.

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wk_end 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No one - neither the author of the article nor anyone reading - believes that Sam Altman sat down at his desk one fine day in 2015 and said to himself, “Boy, it sure would be nice if there were a better way to scam the elderly…”

	▲	username223 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		An no one believes that Sam Altman thinks of much more than adding to his own wealth and power. His first idea was a failing location data-harvesting app that got bought. Others have included biometric data-harvesting with a crypto spin, and this. If there's a throughline beyond manipulative scamming, I don't see it.

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burnto 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Fair, but it’s an exaggerated statement that’s supposed to clue us into the tone of the piece with a chuckle. Maybe even a snicker or giggle! It’s not worth dissecting for accuracy.

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NicuCalcea 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I can't think of many other reasons to create voice cloning AI, or deepfake AI (other than porn, of course).

	▲	rgmerk 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There are legitimate applications - fixing a tiny mistake in the dialogue in a movie in the edit suite, for instance. Do these legitimate applications justify making these tools available to every scammer, domestic abuser, child porn consumer, and sundry other categories of criminal? Almost certainly not.

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criley2 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure, phones aren't directly doing the scamming, but they're supercharging the ability to do so.

Phones are also a very popular mechanism for scamming businesses. It's tough to pull off CEO scams without text and calls.

Therefore, phones are bad?

This is of course before we talk about what criminals do with money, making money truly evil.

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only-one1701 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Without phones, we couldn’t talk to people across great distances (oversimplification but you get it).

Without Generative AI, we couldn’t…?

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shepherdjerred 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Are you really implying that generative AI doesn't enable things that were not previously possible?

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Larrikin 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's actually a fair question. There are software projects I wouldn't have taken on without an LLM. Not because I couldn't make it. But because of the time needed to create it.

I could have taken the time to do the math to figure out what the rewards structure is for my Wawa points and compare it to my car's fuel tank to discover I should strictly buy sandwiches and never gas.

People have been making nude celebrity photos for decades now with just Photoshop.

Some activities have gotten a speed up. But so far it was all possible before just possibly not feasible.

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jamiek88 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Name some then! I initially scoffed too but I can only think of stuff LLM’s make easier not things that were impossible previously.

	▲	pixl97 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Isn't that the vast majority of products? By making things easier they change the scale it is accomplished at? Farming wasn't previously impossible before the tractor. People seemingly have some very odd views on products when it comes to AI.

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solid_fuel 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can you name one thing generative AI enables that wasn't previously possible?

	▲	6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		[deleted]
	▲	pixl97 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Can you name one thing a plow enables that wasn't previously possible? This line of thinking is ridiculous.

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freejazz 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> were not previously possible?

How obtuse. The poster is saying they don't enable anything of value.

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queenkjuul 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For the most part, it hasn't. What do you consider previously impossible, and how is it good for the world?

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JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Therefore, phones are bad?

Phones are utilities. AI companies are not.