Comment by JumpCrisscross
3 hours ago
> purpose of a gun is to kill things
I’ve fired guns. Never to kill things. I’ve also used chat bots to be entirely useless. I wouldn’t endorse this dichotomy of purpose as a basis for any judgement.
3 hours ago
> purpose of a gun is to kill things
I’ve fired guns. Never to kill things. I’ve also used chat bots to be entirely useless. I wouldn’t endorse this dichotomy of purpose as a basis for any judgement.
A gun puts holes into things. This has a pretty consistent effect on anything alive.
Many gun proponents seem to think of them like most people do knives when knives have many, many domestic purposes beyond killing things that have a life. Same things with cars given there's many things cars can do besides get people and things from place to place.
> whereas the purpose of a chat bot is to help people.
I'm flabbergasted you'd say such a thing.
The purpose of a chat bot is to have an interesting experience with an AI. That it may help you is secondary (and perhaps necessary for the provider to make a profit).
Even "purpose" might be anthropomorphizing the chatbot
Not at all. A hammer has a purpose. So does a knife. So does a bottle.
1 reply →
Fair but my point is simply, if a gun kills a person it's functioning as intended, but you can't say the same about a chat bot.
> if a gun kills a person it's functioning as intended, but you can't say the same for a chat bot
Of course you can. AI has been deployed in multiple military campaigns.
> a chat bot
We are clearly not discussing deployments in military campaigns.The suit in question is specifically regarding "ChatGPT" used conversationally.
2 replies →
A gun doesn't kill a person without being driven to action by a human. There are numerous alternative weapons to use, like using a candlestick in the conservatory or a rope in the lead pipe in the study for example.
> A gun doesn't kill a person without being driven to action by a human.
See: p320 uncommanded discharge controversy.
Their job is to generate text if that text is good or bad they are functioning as intended.
you're just flipping it the opposite wrong way, just because I don't use something for its intended purpose doesn't change the intended purpose
guns were purpose-designed as killing machines, the fact that you can also shoot targets with them doesn't really change that... it's no mistake that many common paper targets are human or animal shaped
you could also shoot targets all the same with something designed to be non-lethal
whatever the justification, buying a gun carries on the behavior that has resulted in pretty much the most widespread trades of a lethal device in history... small arms trade worldwide is absolutely brutal
> you're just flipping it the opposite wrong way
I'm not. Rejecting a dichotomy doesn't mean endorsing its opposite. Guns are absolutely more dangerous than chatbots. But I don't think going off a narrow purpose concludes anything about this lawsuit.
You're still bristling at the core concept by softening it again. Guns are weapons designed to kill, it's their originating and still primary purpose.
3 replies →
I have a really hard time with this argument because I'm _positive_ 99.99% of bullets fired in the US are NOT being fired to kill things. So I see people this arguments and its like, hm, interesting. Interesting that the overwhelming vast majority of the use of this thing is NOT the use that you are claiming it is used for. Doesn't hold up.
Small arms are one of the greatest scourges of machinery humanity has ever seen. It doesn't matter how many bullets have been fired. Their circulation has, and continues to, cause endless chains of suffering in nearly every corner of the world.
The vast majority of bullets fired from most guns would be military training.
And even the military would acknowledge that a lot of the bullets they fire in a war aren't really intended to kill people specifically either.
And yet none of that makes this bizzare attempt to argue guns aren't designed and intended as lethal weapons any less ridiculous.