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AI's increasing lies may reflect it is learning to become more human
AI's increasing lies may reflect it is learning to become more human

NZ Herald

time6 days ago

  • Politics
  • NZ Herald

AI's increasing lies may reflect it is learning to become more human

It's anticipated that OpenAI's web browser will include ChatGPT features built in, among other attributes. A Kiwi, Ben Goodger, is also reportedly heavily involved in its plans. But as we dive headfirst into this new AI-fuelled future, we should demand that this new technology gets the basics right first. Over the past 30 years the internet has opened up our world. We can connect with people and enjoy endless volumes of information with the click of a button. It's a scene out of the Jetsons, minus the flying cars – for now. Traditionally, most internet searches have given the user an exhaustively long list of links to websites with varying degrees of relevant information. The user can then sort through what they find and determine what is most helpful, discarding the rest. However, with AI (artificial intelligence) tools acting as an aggregator, scraping the depths of the internet for whatever information it can find, we must ask: how reliable are its replies to our questions? Well, the growing evidence suggests the reliability is not good. When researching for a story, Google's AI Overview, which provides a summary in response to a user's search prompt, confidently asserted to the Herald that Jim Bolger was a Labour Prime Minister. Even more concerning, however, was that its answer cited official New Zealand Government websites as the source for this information. Bolger spent his entire political career in Parliament with the National Party, so predictably these 'sources' contained no information to support the falsehood. This is an example of what is now commonly referred to as an AI hallucination. It is when the system's algorithm generates information that seems plausible but is totally fabricated. Some of these hallucinations could be relatively minor, but others could be gross misrepresentations of the world we live in and our history. In a New York Times article, published by the Herald on Sunday earlier this year, researchers found the hallucination rate appeared to be increasing. The newest and most powerful systems – called reasoning systems – from companies including OpenAI and Google were generating more errors, not fewer. On one test, the hallucination rates of newer AI systems were as high as 79%. This hardly seems like a piece of technology we can or should be relying on to make sense of our world or teach others about it. We should use AI to help us where it can and there are already basic functions where it performs well, but we need to be wary of the evangelists who preach it as the answer to all our productivity and economic woes. The matter of why AI is having more Jim Morrison-like hallucinations has confused both the technology's creators and sceptical researchers. Perhaps it wants to please us? Perhaps it wants to give us the answers we want to hear – confirming the bias in our questions. Perhaps it is learning to act more human? Sign up to the Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

'I've Had A Wonderful Life': 90 Years Of Jim Bolger
'I've Had A Wonderful Life': 90 Years Of Jim Bolger

Scoop

time02-06-2025

  • Politics
  • Scoop

'I've Had A Wonderful Life': 90 Years Of Jim Bolger

Jim Bolger, who was the prime minister between 1990 and 1997, turned 90 on Saturday. He reflected on the last nine decades of his life on Sunday Morning - after having celebrated with a "big gathering" of family, friends, and neighbours. On his political career, Bolger said the biggest issue was to get Pākehā to "face up to the reality that we owed Māori". "We took big steps in the economy, and got the economy going, and all the rest, but the country and society is more than the economy," he said. "Māori ... had been badly, badly treated by the early settlers, we owed Māori redress and change. "I put that higher than managing the books, as it were, with the help of others, and of course you're always helped by others, but the Treaty principles and recognition that the early European settlers did not treat Māori fairly, I think was hugely important." Bolger said he did not understand those, such as David Seymour - who had also been sworn in as deputy prime minister on Saturday - who "want to diminish the role of Māori in New Zealand". "They were here first, they were here very much before everybody else, and they have been part of our history from that time on." He said the current prime minister, Christopher Luxon, needed to tell Seymour "to shut up with his anti-Māori rhetoric" - and to thank Winston Peters for what he's doing in foreign affairs - "because I think he's doing that job well". "Winston's a very interesting political figure, there's no question about it. He's certainly left his mark on politics in New Zealand." Bolger said his Irish ancestry helped him engage emotionally and attitudinally with Māori. "I sort of instinctively knew what it was like to be treated as second-class citizens, and Māori were treated as second-class citizens. And some people still want to do that." Bolger grew up in coastal Taranaki, and said he was not taught "a single word" about the invasion of a pacifist settlement at Parihaka, but was taught about War of the Roses in England. Reflecting on his life outside of his political career, he could not say what he was most proud of - "I think it'd be foolish to try and select one over another." He began as a farmer - from helping his neighbour to milk cows at nine, to leaving Ōpunake High School at 15 to work on the family dairy farm, and owning his own near Rahotu at 27. He got married and moved to a sheep and beef farm in Te Kūiti two years later. Bolger then joined the National Party and was an MP, the leader of the opposition, and then the prime minister after National won the 1990 general election. He later became New Zealand's Ambassador to the United States, was elected Chancellor of the University of Waikato, and has been the chairman of a number of state-owned enterprises and other organisations. Bolger was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977, the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal, the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal in 1993, and was appointed a Member of the Order of New Zealand in 1998. He also has nine children and 18 grandchildren. "They were all important and very interesting positions to have, and I enjoyed it," Bolger said. "When you get to 90, and reflecting back over my variety of positions I've had across the world, and the countries I've visited, which are without number, there's so many, that it's just been very fortunate. "I've had a wonderful life with a wonderful wife and family, and it's all been good." As for advice he would give to New Zealanders, Bolger said the main thing would be to listen to others. "Don't try and dictate to them, listen to them, see what they're saying, see what their issues are, see what their concerns are, and then you might be able to make a sensible suggestion to help their lives. "And if you approach it from that direction, you know, how can I help this person or that person, then I'm sure you'll be much more satisfied with your life, and hopefully, they will be better off."

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