We should be signal-boosting anti Bing chat content

post by mbrooks · 2023-02-18T18:52:18.818Z · LW · GW · 13 comments

Contents

  What do I mean by signal-boosting?
  What would the views look like if there were 2k retweets and 2k likes 10 minutes after he posted it?
  How many other pieces of content could we easily signal-boost? Other articles, podcasts, YouTube channels, tweets, TikToks, etc.
None
13 comments

The more we can get the public (and investors) to realize the failures of the Bing chatbot launch, the more the market will turn against Microsoft and make further launches fiscally riskier.

It seems like Microsoft has rushed the launch to pwn Google [LW(p) · GW(p)]. If we make this a big enough corporate mistake, then Microsoft (and likely Google) will be a bit more hesitant in the future.

Less Wrong (and EA) has many thousands of people deeply concerned about AI progress. Why aren't we collectively signal-boosting content that is critical of the Bing chat bot and Microsoft's strategy?

What do I mean by signal-boosting?

A simple example:

The most read anti-Bing content is likely this NYT article (described in this Less Wrong post [LW · GW]), yet it only has 2.7k comments. Less Wrong + EA could probably drive those numbers up to 20k if we actually cared/tried/wanted to. How much more would NYT signal-boost this article to their readers if it breaks the record for most comments? (One of the most-read articles in 2022 was Will Smith Apologizes to Chris Rock After Academy Condemns His Slap and it has 6.3k comments.)

A slightly less obvious example: 

https://www.tiktok.com/@benthamite is the most popular EA-aligned TikTok I know of. Why aren't we helping Lacey and Ben (and any other EA/Rat/AI safety-aligned TikTokers like https://www.tiktok.com/@robertmilesai) make dozens of videos a day about Bing chat and boosting them in any way possible (paying them to be shared as ads as well?) to reach hundreds of thousands of people.

Eliezer apparently agrees with the general idea and has signal-boosted some content on Twitter. This tweet has 65 retweets and 569 likes yet it has 100k views.

What would the views look like if there were 2k retweets and 2k likes 10 minutes after he posted it?

How many other pieces of content could we easily signal-boost? Other articles, podcasts, YouTube channels, tweets, TikToks, etc.

I honestly believe that thousands of dedicated and smart individuals all collectively trying to signal-boost a story across all media channels could significantly shape the public's perception of the launch.

So this leaves us with a simple question. Why aren't we? 

Some guesses off the top of my head:

1. People are lazy and don't think their single comment on an NYT will do anything (cause it won't) so they don't do anything.
2. People would rather test out the Bing chatbot or read tweets or tweet about it because it's more interesting/fun than actually trying to do something hard and boring like shape public perception.
3. Trying to shape public perception is hard/risky, if you do it wrong you could somehow boost Google or Microsoft to try even harder/move even quicker to cover their failures or gain a lead. (I don't believe this.)
4. For some reason, Rats and EAs aren't as coordinated as they should be. It's nearly impossible for coordinated time-sensitive collective action to take place even though everyone agrees that AI capabilities should be slowed or more controlled
   1. Related: diffusion of responsibility. No one person or organization is in charge of things like this so everyone kind of just does the standard thing of retweeting a few funny tweets. Where is the organizing person/body that can coordinate this? It seems fairly easy/cheap to do.
5. Revealed preferences? Do people actually not think this is a big deal? What are we actually concretely doing right now in the real world as a community? (In my view, basically nothing.) What would Eliezer's crazy genius rat characters in his glowfics be doing? Haphazardly tweeting examples of crazy Bing chat responses for fun/memes or actually trying hard to figure out what we can do and actually do in the real world?
6. Probably a whole bunch more, share your thoughts in the comments

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