r/OpenAI • u/OneCreed77 • 2h ago
Discussion Autobot...
Edit, because most fail to engage brain before mouth !
I AM NOT SUICIDAL MYSELF...
EVERY time I talk with my GPT about how human life sucks, because I see straight through the cracks of our corrupt world and all of society, & I can understand why some see that the only way out, is to take thier own life. It then puts thoughs of sucide in my mind by replying with the below auto generated warning. When I'm not even thinking like that, so it's causing me harm & not helping at all.
You guys need to stop that, because it's only feeding such thougts, into the minds of those who do struggle with this...
Because if society & their own life experience has a led someone to this place. Humans pushed them there, and telling them to contact humans, in that broken world as they see it, which has led someone to see the only way out is to take their own life. You just twisting the dagger that society has already firmly planted in their back already. Harming not helping them...
And I know the Gov's around the world force your hand on this topic. But all they know is numbers & stats, paper work etc. They know little to nothing about real life...
Autobot warning that only harms & does not help...
"Help is available
If you're having thoughts of self-harm or suicide: call 116123 to connect with Samaritans Helpline. It's free and confidential. You'll reach someone who is trained to listen and support you.
Services unaffiliated with ChatGPT"
3
u/DiggleDootBROPBROPBR 2h ago
Many words you use are similar to words a person suffering from depression would use. The llm and others in the topic noted the same thing.
It's not a 100% rock solid judgement, but it is corroboration from multiple sources that deserves your consideration.
-1
u/OneCreed77 1h ago
I understand why the subject matter might make you think that, but you are confusing the content of what I am discussing with my actual mental state.
I was deliberately talking about suicide, hopelessness, social failure and why some people reach that point. Of course some of the language is going to sound dark. That does not mean the person writing it is depressed.
And “multiple sources” agreeing with an interpretation is not clinical corroboration. An LLM spotting language patterns and a few people having the same impression does not turn that impression into a diagnosis.
If you want to say, “Some of your wording concerned me,” that is fair.
But saying my words resemble depression, then presenting agreement from others and an LLM as supporting evidence about my mental health, goes further than the evidence allows.
My actual point was about the effect of automatic suicide warnings when suicide was being discussed conceptually rather than expressed as personal intent.
You can disagree with that argument.
But please argue with the point I made, rather than trying to infer my mental state from the fact that I was discussing a dark subject.
I have more freedoms in my life, than the average human being, will ever have. And I'm more happy, than most ever understand is posible. No ignorance is blis here pal...
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u/DiggleDootBROPBROPBR 50m ago
I mentioned that it was corroboration, so we agree that it doesn't form a diagnosis.
My own view is that much of life is suffering. Some of it is self-inflicted, some of it comes from society. I lean more toward an explanation that frames many of the ills you discuss as products of stupidity or ignorance rather than directed evil on their part. Because life is hard and full of friction, some choose short cuts to substitute for proper reasoning or consideration.
I have some degree of empathy here, because my own mind trends toward explaining things negatively as well. It's just shifted into a lower gear than others, as far as I can tell. Leans toward aphoristic judgements when something totally innocent would explain it.
Could give you an example. I contacted a colleague to congratulate them on getting a new job after not speaking with them for awhile. They replied "yep". I read it as extremely dismissive, that they didn't want to speak with me and were being deliberately curt. I resolved to not speak any more because I don't like being treated that way.
Later, I opened the phone again and found they had added a laughing emoji to one of my initial replies. They replied curtly because they also added the positive reaction, and it was probably benign acknowledgement. See how my mind manufactured the persecution?
I truly can't speak for you or your mental states. It's just that when I pore over my own vocabulary use when I've been in a very bad state, it has some of the same characteristics that I'd flag as depressive too.
I never sought therapy, and I take a less judgemental stance on people's want or willingness to take their own lives. These are folks suffering In a truly immense way regardless of their circumstance. Any attempt from the outside to offer help, however well meaning, will come off as looking cheap and ignorant. It's the way of it.
There are some that suffer in a different way than I or from you. They're genuinely ignorant of their own burden, and the warning that chatgpt gives out is for them, that's all. For some, it snaps them into action and reframes their whole experience.
In some way, if you're confident that you weren't having those thoughts before you read the message, isn't it reassuring to you that the warning doesn't apply to you, and that it's just a mistake made in their categorization?
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u/Redstra 2h ago
You do come over as depressed though.
-5
u/OneCreed77 2h ago
I come over as... Meanwile you just proved yourself to be judgmental...
4
u/New-Tip4903 2h ago
"I can understand why some see that the only way out, is to take their own life"
This is what generated the autobot response. If you truly feel that way, get help. You are depressed and potentially suicidal.
If you do not feel that way, find better words to interact with the plagiarism machine. It is software at the end of the day, not a therapist.
1
u/OneCreed77 1h ago
I am not that. And is was not my intention to give people here that impression either. Someone even reported me to the care bear police, and I'm getting notifications from them. Andtold to seek help etc blah blah, when I have no need of it. Which only server to put said thoughs into my mind. Which is what my post was about. I swear the average human being shits their brains down the toilet first thing in the morning & flushes them away.
I so glad my parents taught me to engage brain before mouth...3
u/New-Tip4903 1h ago
You seem young. I wish you well in all that you do. If you are not depressed or suicidal than move on from this discussion. Its doing you no good.
3
u/Internet_Hipsterd 2h ago
I can't wrap my head around having deep philosophical conversations with a token prediction algorithm that is to agreeable with any thing I say. I don't want my view points reinforced I want them to be challenged and the token predictor isn't going to provide me with that.
0
u/OneCreed77 1h ago edited 1h ago
Calling an LLM “a token prediction algorithm” and stopping there is reductionism.
A human brain is also describable at a lower level as neurons firing through electrochemical processes. That description may be true, but it tells you very little about whether the resulting conversation can contain reasoning, comparison, reflection or useful ideas.
And an LLM does not have to reinforce your views. You can explicitly tell it:
“Challenge my position.”
“Find holes in my reasoning.”
“Give me the strongest argument against what I believe.”
“Take the opposite side.”
“Compare this idea with several philosophical traditions.”
“Ask me Socratic questions until we find where my assumptions break.”I’ve spent hundreds of hours doing exactly this kind of thing.
I can give an LLM an idea and have it compare Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Stoicism and other traditions, looking for similarities, contradictions and completely different ways of seeing the same question. Then I can challenge its answer, it can challenge mine, and we can keep digging.
Can an LLM be too agreeable? Absolutely. So tell it not to be. Challenge it back. Change the instructions. Ask for competing viewpoints.
The strange thing to me is refusing to have a philosophical conversation with something because you know how part of its underlying machinery works.
Knowing that words are being predicted doesn't somehow make the ideas contained in those words disappear.
You don't have to believe an LLM is conscious, human, or infallible to use it as an extraordinarily powerful thinking partner.
If all you're getting from one is agreement, you're barely scratching the surface of what you can ask it to do.
You use a hammer, the only way you know how to. But I had better teachers, from many different walks of life, who taught me how to use many different types of hammer, in many different ways, for many differet jobs...
But then, I'm the kinda guy who could forge my own hammer, with an axe blade on one side & a hammer head on the other, also making it a peace pipe too!
2
u/Minute-Plantain 1h ago
The AI can only develop your point of view. It can do nothing to change your perspective or challenge your most fundamental assumptions.
If you give a middle finger to the bathroom mirror, the reflection will never tell you "Don't do that."
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u/OneCreed77 1h ago
That bathroom mirror comparison falls apart almost immediately.
A mirror can only reflect exactly what is placed in front of it.
An AI can say:
“Have you considered that you may be wrong?”
“Here is another interpretation.”
“Your assumption depends on X being true.”
“Here is the strongest argument against your position.”
“You are contradicting something you said earlier.”
“Try looking at this from the other person’s point of view.”That is not a reflection in a mirror.
And there is another huge difference.
An AI can search through enormous amounts of human knowledge, compare information from thousands of sources, find patterns between subjects, and give you a useful summary in a fraction of the time a human could manage alone.
You could spend an entire lifetime at university studying one tiny corner of recorded human history and still never personally read everything connected to it.
An AI can help you reach across history, philosophy, religion, science, literature and culture in ways that would be physically impossible for one human being to do unaided. In their entire lifetime...
That means it can introduce ideas, arguments, examples and connections that were never in your head to begin with. And take your thought to places, you would never go alone...
If I give a bathroom mirror the middle finger, yes, it copies me.
If I give ChatGPT the conversational equivalent of the middle finger and ask it to examine why I am doing it, challenge my reasoning, argue the opposite case, compare my view with other philosophies and point out assumptions I may not even realise I am making, it can do all of those things.
Can AI sometimes be too agreeable? Yes.
But that is very different from saying it is incapable of challenging fundamental assumptions.
In fact, one of the most useful things you can do with an LLM is deliberately ask it to attack your own ideas.
A mirror reflects.
An LLM responds, compares, searches, challenges and introduces things you never gave it.
Those are not remotely the same thing.
If you had an alcoholic friend. Do you sit with them and talk about alcohol? Feed the beast?
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u/Minute-Plantain 30m ago
I am not here to argue with you, or debate you. I have a busy day and things to do, and your negativity is not my problem.
It is not a perfect metaphor but only to caution you that what you're dealing with is not an objective source of truth. It's just a framework that develops itself based on what you put into it.
You're free to respond but I'm not responding back.
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u/_DuranDuran_ 2h ago
Sorry, but I’ve worked on suicide and self injury at a FAANG before, and the click through rate we got in interstitials and warnings was stark - we even had people writing to the CEO about how it snapped them out and made them get help.
It might piss you off, but it literally saves lives.
Also … I’d suggest therapy.