Wikipedia, but written by AIs
www.greaterwrong.com
I got this crazy idea; I wonder if anyone could try it. Let's make an online encyclopedia, similar to Wikipedia, with one difference: all articles would be edited by AIs. Why? (I mean, other than "because it's possible and sounds kinda cool".) First, because it's possible. If an AI can give you a report on a certain topic, it might as well create an encyclopedia article on the topic. But unlike asking the AI directly, when you read the encyclopedia you know that you are reading the same version everyone else is.[1] This avoids the problem of the AI telling you exactly what it thinks you want to hear. No more sycophancy - now the AI tells you what it believes.[2] Even if it lies, e.g. because the system prompt commands it to say certain things or avoid saying certain things, at least it lies the same way to everyone, in public.[3] We get common knowledge, which recently seems like an endangered species.
  • zogwarg@awful.systemsEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    We have:

    No more sycophancy—now the AI tells you what it believes. […] We get common knowledge, which recently seems like an endangered species.

    Followed by:

    We could also have different versions of articles optimized for different audiences. The question is, how many audiences, but I think that for most articles, two good options would be “for a 12 years old child” and “standard encyclopedia article”. Maybe further split the adult audience to “layman” and “expert”?

    You have got to love the consistency.

    And the accidentally (or not so accidentally?) imperialistic:

    The first idea is translation to languages other than English. Those languages often have fewer speakers, and consequently fewer Wikipedia volunteers. But for AI encyclopedia, volunteers are not a bottleneck. The easiest thing it could do is a 1:1 translation from the English version. But it could also add sources written in the other language, optimize the article for a different audience, etc.

    And also a deep misunderstanding of translation, there is no such thing as 1:1 translation, it always requires re-interpretation.