The Problem With Counterfeit People
An excellent essay from Daniel Dennett back in 2023 which I wholeheartedly agree with. As BBC journalist Tom Chatfield puts it:
The way we're using AI to impersonate human beings has already put us on a dangerous trajectory. [Dennett] called such AIs "counterfeit people", and told me that rolling out such entities en masse constituted "mischief of the worst sort": a form of "social vandalism" that should be addressed by law. Why? Because, if convincing digital representations of humans can be created at whim, the entire business of collectively assessing other people's claims, experiences and actions is put at risk – not to mention essential social infrastructure such as contracts, obligations and consequences. Hence the need for legal prohibitions, a case he made at length in a May 2023 article for The Atlantic. "It won't be perfect," he told me, "but it will help if we can make it against the law to make counterfeit people. We can have stiff penalties for counterfeiting people, same as we do for counterfeit money... we should make it a mark of shame, not pride, when you make your AI more human."
Tags: ethics future ai llms daniel-dennett philosophy regulation law humanity people