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'It cannot provide nuance': UK experts warn AI therapy chatbots are not safe

(www.theguardian.com)
165 points distalx | 3 comments | 10 May 25 15:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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drdunce ◴[10 May 25 17:29 UTC] No.43947353[source]▶
As with many things in relation to technology, perhaps we simply need informed user choice and responsible deployment. We could start by not using "Artificial Intelligence" - that makes it sound like a some infallible omniscient being with endless compassion and wisdom that can always be trusted. It's not intelligent, it's a large language model, a convoluted next word prediction machine. It's a fun trick, but shouldn't be trusted with Python code, let alone life advice. Armed with that simple bit of information, the user is free to choose how they use it for help, whether it be medical, legal, work etc.
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EA-3167 ◴[10 May 25 17:48 UTC] No.43947490[source]▶
What we need is the same thing we've needed for a long time now, ethical standards applied across the whole industry in the same way that many other professions are regulated. If civil engineers acted the way that software engineers routinely do, they'd never work again, and rightly so.
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immibis ◴[11 May 25 10:42 UTC] No.43952855{3}[source]▶
http://thecodelesscode.com/case/118
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drdunce ◴[11 May 25 11:58 UTC] No.43953190{4}[source]▶
Are you suggesting working flexibly (maybe "agile"), is at odds with working ethically?
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1. immibis ◴[11 May 25 15:03 UTC] No.43954302{5}[source]▶
> If civil engineers acted the way that software engineers routinely do, they'd never work again, and rightly so.

This part is what I take issue with. Software is simply different from buildings.

replies(1): >>43955539 #
2. EA-3167 ◴[11 May 25 17:52 UTC] No.43955539[source]▶
Software still gets people killed, a lesson that should have been learned decades ago with the Therac-25. Of course "software is different from buildings," but the responsibility to build both ethically and responsibly isn't one of the differences. Granted the impacts of software are often less direct than a building collapse, but they still exist and the people involved in making it need to stop pretending that this is still the digital wild West.
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3. immibis ◴[11 May 25 20:50 UTC] No.43957046[source]▶
The process of building a building ethically, and the process of building software ethically, are completely unrelated and different.