Ethics is Important, yes, in STEM
This whole thing was triggered by a discussion on Ethics in science and technology, more specifically at the cutting edge of science, be it programming or writing proposals on a blockchain, or designing Chat Bots or using them or using other similar Large Language Models. So I have been reading a 'post' by Marc Andreessen The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.
For those of you who do not know Marc Andreessen. He is a VC guy who is the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which is a VC firm with $35B AUM (asset under management). Marc is also the co-founder of Netscape, Mosaic and Opsware. He is basically a tech geek and a VC guy who gets a lot of attention in the technology space. So he write these long 'manifesto's often which triggers a lot of people both in a good ways and bad.
What triggered me on this is the way he started his rhetoric just like the deranged and fired fox news guy Tucker Carlson. It read almost like a right-wing monologue, as opposed to a technology product. He starts by saying that we are fed this 'lies' that technology is eating out jobs, destroying the environment, etc.......Sorry Marc. I must say NO. Nobody is feeding us this.
Then obviously he provides the solution! Technology is the ultimate answer to every human problem. Marc urges society to remove all barriers to technology adoption and development and sail into the glorious techno future! Oh I wish! Mind you I am a scientist. I have a PhD in geology and I use my scientific knowledge everyday in finding hydrocarbon. However, if you ask me, please go find and develop oil and gas fields around the world, by any means necessary without any regulatory body, oh, just be responsible. I will laugh at you! Not only that is impractical, but also it is unsafe. You don't want any energy company to go explore for oil and gas without any regulatory oversight, and expect them to be responsible, do you? You also do not want any banks and mutual funds to play with customer deposits on snake oil futures! LOL. So why is it you are considering letting the Large Language Models to go amok on Chat GPT without any ethical control?
No Marc, people are not being mean to technology. We as a society recognize the advent of technology and its benefits, but we also see how its potential misuse will be detrimental to the society. There is clear and present danger if that manifesto is taken as a gospel (it is not) we could be in trouble.
Let me explain, we see that a lot of people are big fan of AI, especially use of AI in large language models, including right here in hive. Now I have seen a button in peakD which can enable me to write a post based on a single prompt. I even have multiple option. I can post that as a content every day, and have have it auto-voted for rewards. Is it content? Is it worth the reward? Is it ethically correct? I’m not an individual who is intuitively opposed to optimism around technology, and I will not trade space with my grand parents, but I do see the danger in uncontrolled use of ChatGPT in a write-for-reward platform for hive. Honestly, I do not think there is enough eyes out there to protect the platform from abuse from AI, so why are we making it easy for user to abuse it?
