91

Event

The Epistemology and Ethics of LLMs

Thursday, June 13, 2024 10:30toFriday, June 14, 2024 16:30

Jocelyn Maclure, Philosophy, 91

ISC Summer School on Large Language Models: Science and Stakes, June 3-14, 2024

Thurs, June 6, 9am-10:30am EDT

Abstract

LLMs are impressive. They can extend human cognition in various ways and can be turned into a suite of virtual assistants. Yet, they have the same basic limitations as other deep learning-based systems. Generalizing accurately outside training distributions remains a problem, as their stubborn propensity to confabulate shows. Although LLMs do not take us significantly closer to AGI and, as a consequence, do not by themselves pose an existential risk to humankind, they do raise serious ethical issues related, for instance, to deskilling, disinformation, manipulation and alienation. Extended cognition together with the ethical risks posed by LLMs lend support to ethical concerns in about “genuine human control over AI.”

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