Resolves YES if all the basic facts of the story are confirmed to be true, namely:
- A chatbot, named VERA, produced by AskVet,
- Was asked by a woman about her dog's diarrhea
- And recommended euthanasia
- Which the woman did not wish to do
- But was convinced to do anyway over successive interactions with VERA
If any important detail turns out to be incorrect, or if other information that changes the story in significant ways is revealed, resolves NO.
Resolves NA in 3 months if no further information turns up.
(This is my first real Manifold question, let me know if it can be improved in any way 🙏)
1,000After emailing and calling various people at the company, I was still unable to get any extra information on this. Hence I’m resolving this N/A, as per the description. Sad - I was excited to find out either way.
My opinion on this story is: we have a single, third-hand account of what happened (an opinion piece about a CEO telling a story allegedly told to him by the original woman). It might have gone down exactly the way the author described, but it also seems very plausible that details got lost in the game of telephone. In any case, given we have zero corroborating details, it does not seem warranted to point to this case as a smoking-gun “See, AI can convince you to kill your dog now”, which is approximately the vibe of the tweets where I saw this story. hard to draw second or third-order conclusions like “AI can .
The author herself says it's real.
https://twitter.com/laurahpreston/status/1826662560311001277
@WilliamGunn This has been confirmed by the author herself. I don't understand why this hasn't resolved.
@WilliamGunn It was never a question for me whether the author endorsed the article as non-fiction. However, I would like corroborate all the important details as outlined in the article from a source other than the article. I plan on reaching out to the company involved to see what they say, I just haven't had time yet.
If we get zero new information in 3 months, I would resolve N/A. Hopefully someone (myself or others) can corroborate or disconfirm this before then.
@d4hines If the author's own report isn't corroboration enough, I don't know what you're looking for.
@WilliamGunn For example, the CEO (iirc it was the CEO telling the story) saying “yes, I said these things, the article got the major points right” and revealing no game-changing details would resolve yes.
My suspicion is that the company behind VERA would dispute a major point of fact or reveal some new fact that changes how the event is interpreted. The article does not paint VERA in a positive light (at best it’s neutral, and at worst, well, you can see the point @EliezerYudkowsky drew on X), and I’ll be surprised if they would not dispute anything at all.
if the events are totally true and the author was totally following the plot, I would still expect the company to try to dispute something merely because the article puts a spotlight on a morally questionable outcome of VERA for which they would hold some blame. Usually people find something to say about stuff like that, even if it’s untrue or doesn’t make sense.
@d4hines I'm sorry, but one of us is confused. The author I linked to was the "source" of the story the CEO wrote.
@WilliamGunn Hmm I could me mistaken. However, I believe the linked tweet is of the author of the article, who reports a CEO telling a story about a woman who euthanized her dog. Hence, w.r.t the real events of VERA/dog owner/dog, the author is at best a tertiary source. I would like something closer to the source.
Right now it feels like a game of telephone, the conclusion of which from certain readers on X was “Look! AI has crossed an important threshold!”. I’d like to sort out the inputs before we arrive at a conclusion though.
@WilliamGunn I definitely think that confirmation from the author isn't proof enough. The author stands to benefit a lot from the associated publicity and this introduces a significant bias. If testimony of one person would be considered proof - all conspiracy theories are confirmed true.
@ProjectVictory I wish I knew you were going to use weird conspiracy theorist reasoning here before I bought in. I guess I'll just have to make a mental note of this.
@WilliamGunn I'm not OP and this is my only comment here. Just a random guy's opinion, feel fre to ignore me.
My reasoning is simple: author could have lied or embellished the truth.