In case you're curious, I have a degree in computer science with a concentration in AI and ML. I'm not saying ML is a "dead end" but there are limited things it can do if humans cannot already do them because ML models need training data to work and that data must be produced by a human. This is all in it's current state - it would take a revolutionary change in ML to break free of the need for training data, particularly for generative models like chat bots or image generators.

2nd, ML has basically nothing to do with philosophy - at least, not in a way that philosophy could help develop it. Had you said psychology? That's a much more related field, and the entire concept of a neutral network is modelled after the human brain.

>Like I alluded to above, if 1% of the data out there is that which would train a human to be Nazi racist, then we should expect 1% or AI’s to become Nazi racist.

It may be true for 1% of the dataset to not influence the model much, but ML models are very hard to predict or analyze. As that percentage increases, the model will non-linearly learn that data more and more strongly. In the case of the digits, if 85% of the dataset is 1s, not only is it being presented 1s more frequently to learn on, but when it gets better at recognizing a 1, it isn't just getting better at recognizing that 1, it gets better at recognizing all 1s. Better recognition of 1s is better recognition of 85% of the dataset, while other digits is only a measly 2 or 3.

There are methods to prevent this issue - for example, you could sample your digits from the internet, and then only take a certain number of each digit from your sample, so all are equal.

This is much harder with training data for a chat bot. How do you know if something expresses a racist sentiment? How do you know if something is inaccurate? The only two options are to train an AI to do it for you, or produce a curated dataset. And to train the AI to do it for you? You would have to feed it a curated data set as well.

I'm not saying that using training data straight from the internet and getting a feasible AI is impossible - but with ChatGPT, and pretty much every language model that does or has ever existed, it is foolish and can be manipulated. People will find a way. The only solution is curation until we have an AI good enough to curate for us.