Comment by adriand
12 hours ago
But Nazis are people. We can defend the principle that human beings ought have freedom of speech (although we make certain exceptions). An LLM is not a person and does not have such rights.
Censorship is the prohibition of speech or writing, so to call guardrails on LLMs "censorship" is to claim that LLMs are speaking or writing in the sense that humans speak or write, that is, that they are individuals with beliefs and value systems that are expressing their thoughts and opinions. But they are not that, and they are not speaking or writing - they are doing what we have decided to call "generating" or "predicting tokens" but we could just as easily have invented a new word for.
For the same reason that human societies should feel free to ban bots from social media - because LLMs have no human right to attention and influence in the public square - there is nothing about placing guardrails on LLMs that contradicts Western values of human free expression.
Freedom of speech is just as much about the freedom to listen. The point isn’t that an LLM has rights. The point is that people have the right to seek information. Censoring LLMs restricts what humans are permitted to learn.
Take someone who goes to a doctor asking for advice on how to commit suicide. Even if the doctor supports assisted suicide, they are going to use their discretion on whether or not to provide advice. While a person has a right to seek information, they do not have the right to compel someone to give them information.
The people who have created LLMs with guardrails have decided to use their discretion on which types of information their tools should provide. Whether the end user agrees with those restrictions is not relevant. They should not have the ability to compel the owners of an LLM to remove the guardrails. (Keep in mind, LLMs are not traditional tools. Unlike a hammer, they are a proxy for speech. Unlike a book, there is only indirect control over what is being said.)
Maybe, but since LLMs are not doctors, let them answer that question. :)
I am pretty sure if you were in such a situation, you'd want to know the answer, too, but you are not, so right now it is a taboo for you. Well, sorry to burst your bubble but some people DO want to commit suicide for a variety of reasons and if they can't find (due to censorship) a better way, might just shoot or hang themselves, or just overdose on the shittiest pills.
I know I will get paralyzed in the future, you think that I will want to live like that when I have been depressed my whole life, pre-MS, too? No, I do not, especially not when I am paralyzed, not just my legs, but all my four-limbs. Now, I will have to kill myself BEFORE it happens otherwise I will be at the mercy of other people and there is no euthanazia here.
Except LLMs provide this data all the time
https://theoutpost.ai/news-story/ai-chatbots-easily-manipula...
models are derived from datasets. they're treated like phonebooks (also a product of datasets) under the law - which is to say they're probably not copyrightable, since no human creativity went into them (they may be violating copyright as unlicensed derivative works, but that's a different matter.) both phonebooks, and LLMs, are protected by freedom of the press.
LLM providers are free to put guardrails on their language models, the way phonebook publishers used to omit certain phone numbers - but uncensored models, like uncensored phonebooks, can be published as well.