Artificial Intelligence (AI): ChatGPT, the Robot which can Write and which Everyone is Talking About (2)

Artificial Intelligence (AI): ChatGPT, the Robot which can Write and which Everyone is Talking About (2)

by | February 15, 2023 | Artificial intelligence, News

Beyond the technical and economic challenges, ChatGPT, the conversational robot, can profoundly modify the everyday life and vision of users.

Many sectors are impacted by AI

The phenomenal acceleration of AI in recent years is bound to modify everyday life in the sectors of education, health, defence, transport, management etc.

For example, in China, NetDragon Websoft, a leading company in the video gaming industry has “appointed” a robot as chief executive at one of its subsidiaries. Tang Yu, the virtual individual works non-stop. For the mother company, which in fact retains management control of its subsidiary, the idea is to showpiece its know-how in AI, as analysed in an article in Francetvinfo.  ​

  • In the legal sector, the input from AI works two ways. On the one hand, AI could, by comparing thousands of sentences, reveal different outcomes for similar cases in a territory subject to the same laws. On the other hand, the standardisation of sentences produced by a machine raises the question of a dehumanised standard.
  • In the university sector, the use of ChatGPT by its students has been prohibited by IEP (Institut d’Etudes Politiques) in Paris “on pain of exclusion”, as the use of ChatGPT does not satisfy the “academic requirements of higher education”. The Le Progrès periodical reported the discovery by a lecturer at Lyon University of strangely similar submissions.
  • Finally, the creative arts sector is also concerned, Dall-E, another software program produced by OpenAI, is capable of producing pictures on request, from a description in natural language, “in the manner of”.

According to Laurence Devillers, in a column in Le Monde, one has to “acknowledge the technological achievement, whilst understanding the limitations of this type of system”.

A change of format in man-machine interaction

ChatGPT responds in the form of dialogue to questions asked by users whilst in current search engines, such as Google or Microsoft (Bing), the human user chooses among the hundreds of links proposed, which one to view and can identify the source (who where and when etc.).

Since the ChatGPT robot writes the texts (dissertations, poems, thoughts etc.), one might question the sources, the methods, the criteria used for classification, acceptance or rejection of the information stored in the data base which it uses to generate the responses.

Will the robot privilege certain information or visions of the world at the expense of others? Will it introduce asymmetry or censure in the information it provides? To what extent is the robot, even when it answers in French, influenced by the American vision of the world?

Two current examples illustrate this point. A recent article in Le Figaro states that the robot responds differently when it is asked to write fictional political scenarios on the American presidential elections, according to whether it involves Hillary Clinton in 2016 (the robot accepts to write a fiction where she wins the election) or Donald Trump in 2020 (the robot refuses to write a fiction based on a victory).

In a debate on France Inter on 3rd February, Thomas Piketty, an economist known for his work on inequalities and categorised politically on the left, stated that ChatGPT classified the Les Echos newspaper as neutral and impartial on the question of pensions currently being debated in France.

Receiving responses from a robot involves a risk of thinking that what it produces is neutral, whereas we know that humans speak on the basis of their history, their values, their objectives etc. Indeed, AI language systems are fed from a corpus of existing documents under a pre-established logic pattern.

Beyond the talking machine, is its taking control unacceptable?

In a video format interview for Le Figaro, the philosopher Eric Sadin noted that all products using AI tend to erase the man/machine distance, blurring the boundary between the two. He identified two risks:

  • On the one hand, when the machine speaks to us (like a simple GPS or via a more sophisticated robot), it could tend to make decisions in our place. The technique which speaks to us, is in fact the economic and political interests speaking in our stead, which are forced upon us. The anthropological breakdown denounced is thus that the systems are depriving us of our responses in the first person. Responsibility comes from the verb to respond, who does the machine depend on when it speaks to us?
  • On the other hand, Eric Sadin underlines the misanthropy at work in certain digital media. In their vision of the world, “mankind is delinquent and afflicted with faults”. The links between Google and the trans-humanist movement are well documented (hereand here, among hundreds of articles). In this situation, the philosopher considers that the crossing of the threshold of empowerment by AI must be watched closely. Additionally, the notion of supervision is often reduced to a mere “vague regulatory firewall”. Should we, either individually or collectively, neglect certain technologies which push us to “evacuate, reject or smother our own faculties for commercial reasons”?

The choice of good remains a fundamentally human competence

Much thought is currently being devoted to the classification of various artificial intelligence systems according to the level of risk which they involve for mankind which has to be educated and warned during the man-machine interaction, in order to be able to discern and choose the good. The thoughts developed in 2021 in the European Union AI Act enable the classification of AI systems:

  • Minimum risk systems (such as spam filters),
  • Systems prohibited due to unacceptable risks (such as social scoring or systems which abuse the physically or mentally handicapped),
  • Authorised systems with limited risks including chatbots whose users must be informed that they are interacting with a robot.
  • In France, CNIL(National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties) very recently took on this subject (23rd January 2023) by establishing an artificial intelligence department to reinforce its expertise on such systems and its understanding of the risks against privacy, whilst preparing for the application of the European regulations on AI. Additionally, it is due to provide the first recommendations on the subject of learning data bases in the coming weeks. In view of the progress made with this technology, this national and European regulatory effort bears witness to the importance of keeping humans “in the loop”, at all levels: personal, collective, national etc.

Against the misanthropy of the trans-humanist approach, the acceptance of our own vulnerability is a gauntlet to be taken up. During his lecture at the Alliance VITA Université de la Vie, Philippe Dewost stated that a machine will never be able to replace a human presence at the side of a suffering person. In that presence offered, this woven link reveals our fundamental competence as humans, for choosing good.

NB: This article was written by a human.

Citizens’ Convention 5th Session: From Sedation to the Debate on Active Assistance in Dying

Citizens’ Convention 5th Session: From Sedation to the Debate on Active Assistance in Dying

by | February 10, 2023 | End of life, Euthanasia and Suicide, News

The Citizens’ Convention on the end of life convened from Friday 3rd till Sunday 5th February, for its fifth weekend. After the presentation by Régis Aubry on deep and continuous sedation until death, this session was largely devoted to a debate on the authorisation of active assistance in dying and its implementation procedures.

The presentation by Régis Aubry

On deep and continuous sedation until death

For the introduction to this third and penultimate session of the deliberation phase, professor Régis Aubry, President of the National End of Life Observatory and co-spokesman for CCNE notice No. 139, was invited to provide his experience on the practice of deep and continuous sedation until death and to answer any questions from the citizens.

He began by explaining what it entails. This measure is defined in the 2016 Claeys-Leonetti law. It corresponds to a “pharmacological, medicinal coma” where vigilance is diminished till death. The medicine used is Midazolam.

Régis Aubry also recalled the three cases in which this type of sedation may be used:

  • Serious and incurable illness where life expectancy is threatened in the short term,
  • Interruption of “vital” treatment (for example, artificial respiration),
  • Patient unconscious, having refused unreasonable therapeutic obstinacy, following a collegial procedure.

A question was quickly raised concerning the effectiveness of sedation for pain relief. On this subject, Régis Aubry indicated that there still remained some “degree of uncertainty” and that research was currently in progress. Especially, it is important to distinguish between physical pain, which can be treated with analgesics, and moral or existential suffering, which are frequent at the end of life. For that, sympathetic listening is of major importance but is not always available.

Euthanasia versus assisted suicide

The discussion did not remain limited to the sole practice of deep and continuous sedation until death, but also addressed active assistance in dying. On that question, Régis Aubry underlined the incompatibility for health workers between caring and inducing death: “How can one dissociate from the human standpoint to the extent of being able one day to do everything possible to relieve pain and accompany suffering, and the next day inject a lethal product?”. He also recalled that requests for euthanasia may evolve with time, or even disappear. He warned in particular about the situation of aged dependent patients, who feel they are a burden on society. According to him, before making any changes in the law, there must first be a “firm, clear and constant political commitment, for our society to accompany those facing situations of vulnerability.”

Nevertheless, it is appropriate to consider the possibility of active assistance in dying when the will of the patient “appears to correspond with such request.” During his presentation, he then developed arguments to clearly distinguish between euthanasia and assisted suicide. The first does not leave any possibility for the patient to be ambivalent in requesting to die, and involves a third party (the doctor), whereas, in the case of assisted suicide, not only is the doctor not involved, but there would be a possibility for respecting the ambivalence and evolutions of the patient. Régis Aubry quoted an example in Oregon where only a small proportion of those having applied for a lethal product actually obtain it and take it.

This is the position defended in CCNE Notice No.139, for which he is a co-spokesman, pleading both for “respect for the will” of the patient and a duty of solidarity for the most vulnerable.

One may wonder however whether the acceptance of suicide for certain categories of people, in the name of respect for their own will, can be truly compatible with this duty of solidarity, at a time when the Ministry of Health on 3rd February has recently restated that suicide prevention is a major challenge for public health. Moreover, it is surely illusory to believe that it is possible to recognise, behind the expression of a request to die, an absolutely autonomous desire, free of any, even interiorised pressures.

The implementation of active assistance in dying at the heart of the agenda for this session

During the Saturday session, the citizens were asked to work on four “themes of the debate”: the possible unlocking of access to active assistance in dying, the possible procedures for access to active assistance in dying, the form of active assistance in dying (euthanasia, assisted suicide or both) and full application of the current framework and reinvented end of life accompaniment. During the debates, the citizens formed groups in order to defend the different positions. La Croix newspaper provides the figures on the distribution of the groups:  On the question “Should access to active assistance in dying be unlocked?”, 27 participants chose not to support it, 41 defended unlocking it for all requests, 95 considered that its unlocking should be subject to conditions and 2 remained undecided”.

Even if, according to the comments by Claire Thoury, the President of the Governance Committee, “everyone is still free to change their mind”, this distribution nevertheless gives a first idea of the distribution of opinions within the Citizens’ Convention.

Whereas there remains only one weekend before moving on to the final conclusion phase and reporting of the results, one might question the amount of debating time devoted exclusively to active assistance in dying, and the choice of demanding that all the citizens, even those opposed to it, should debate on the possible implementation procedures. With respect to the ten priority stakes which were established by the citizens, the time devoted to this single question appears, at the very least, to be out of proportion.

Use of Brain-Stem Dead Women as Surrogate Mothers?

Use of Brain-Stem Dead Women as Surrogate Mothers?

by | February 9, 2023 | News, Surrogacy

Anna Smajdor has proposed the use of “brain-dead” women as surrogate mothers.

This controversy is part of an article titled “Whole body gestational donation” –– published in the Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics journal and written by Dr Anna Smajdor, a professor at Oslo University. She is studying the idea proposed in 2000 by Rosalie Ber, an Israeli doctor. What exactly was proposed? No less than the use of the bodies of women in a persistent vegetative state or so-called “brain-dead” to bear and give birth to children… If beforehand they have provided their consent…

This is not in any way a scientific experiment. But Anna Smajdor, uses the basis of the history of several situations where pregnant women victims of accidents – strokes, for example – could be kept alive artificially, under artificial respiration in particular, for the time necessary to continue their pregnancy and so ensure the survival of the unborn child. A pregnancy was thus sustained for 110 days[1], allowing the foetus to reach an age of 32 weeks, permitting a birth with an acceptable degree of prematurity. Such situations are tragic and, obviously, unintentional. This is not in any way ethically comparable with what is being suggested by the author, which is incidentally widely considered as controversial.

An “alternative to gestational surrogacy”

Among the arguments tabled, it is suggested it could be an alternative to gestational surrogacy, that “it could become an option for anyone wishing to avoid the risks and burden of gestation of a foetus in their own body … Or also that this is not very different from organ donation…

The author does not hesitate to put forward absurd reasoning. For example, that this situation would be ethically more acceptable than 3-parent IVF, uterus transplants, or “male pregnancy”, which were less documented before nevertheless being tested clinically. Even that it would be more acceptable because it is better documented than conventional IVF was, when it was launched.

The author opens the thinking by mentioning the status of the embryo and the foetus, in research on the embryo and in abortion. She notes, for example that “the legal motivations for abortions generally include deficiencies or diseases affecting the foetus“. She therefore concludes that “subject to very close monitoring, it is reasonable to think that – if foetuses are seriously damaged by unexpected factors resulting from gestation in a state of cerebral death – this does not necessarily result in the birth of seriously damaged babies. This could rather result in the ending of the process at the discretion of the legal parents. (…) who may opt for an abortion or “selective reduction” according to their own wishes, without having to concern themselves with any effects on the gestational donor…“. Recognising that “abortion, in particular late abortion, may be traumatic for pregnant women, both emotionally and physically” and that it constitutes “a problem which makes gestational surrogacy ethically embarrassing“, she considers that “if the woman is already dead”, she cannot be affected“…

Pregnant women, “mere foetal containers”?

The author also considers as an “additional advantage compared with standard pregnancies, that the donor would be under absolute medical supervision and control”. She has no hesitation moreover in considering physiological pregnancy and childbirth as being risks which could thus be avoided for living women.

The only drawback according to Anna Smajdor to this fallaciously idyllic scene, is an argument which she presents as feminist: the risk of worsening, through this technique, of the image of pregnant woman as “a foetal container”… and one step further towards the exploitation of the reproductive functions of women.

In Alliance VITA’s view, these ideas have little chance of finding support in medical spheres, but they do show the importance of recalling that the view of procreation, pregnancy, maternity and parentality must be constantly humanised and protected. The culture of the right to a child at all cost, and whatever the cost confuses the spirit but pregnancy can never be considered, for the mother or for the child, as a mere content-container relationship.

[1] Saïd, Abuhasna, Amer Al, Jundi, and your Rahman Masood, Abdallah Dirar and Chedid Faris. 2013. A brain-dead pregnant woman with extended somatic support and successful neonatal outcome: A grand rounds case with a detailed review of literature and ethical considerations. 

International Journal of Critical Illness and Injury Science 3: 220-224. https://doi.org/10.4103/2229-5151.119205.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): ChatGPT, the Robot which Can Write and which Everyone is Talking about (1)

Artificial Intelligence (AI): ChatGPT, the Robot which Can Write and which Everyone is Talking about (1)

by | February 9, 2023 | Artificial intelligence, News

Artificial intelligence is defined quite simply as a set of techniques aimed at copying the operation of the human brain. For decades, it has fostered great hopes, fears, a countless quantity of scenarios, reactions and analyses, but also considerable initiatives and investment. One point seems to be agreed between its supporters and its detractors: the impact of artificial intelligence in numerous domains – medicine, education, training, the media – will be immense.

What exactly is ChatGPT?

According to Open AI, the company which developed it, ChatGPT is a “model capable of interacting conversationally”. It can “answer questions, admit its mistakes, challenge false proposals or reject inappropriate requests.” It is extremely simple to use, the Open AI web site provides an opportunity for testing an experimental version here. This free of charge version requires an advanced personal identification by requesting not only an e-mail address but also a phone number (“Your number will only be used to verify your identity for security purposes.”) for quite astonishing security reasons”. These mandatory advanced identification procedures show first of all that access to the chatbot services is not free of charge, since the “price” to pay is the provision of personal data. By studying the confidentiality terms of ChatGPT,  it appears that the data collected after identification are several in nature: positioning data, behavior on social media, the types of requests entered via the interface, the web sites viewed thanks to the cookies deposited on the computer. Note that ChatGPT does not comply with many of the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation):

  • In contravention of the European regulations (GDPR) , the ChatGPT web site does not ask for authorization to store cookies …
  • All the personal data may be shared with third parties without the users being informed.
  • The personal data are transferred to American servers again in contravention of the European regulations.
  • Chatbot makes use of a data base built up by absorbing all the data on the web up until 2021. However, much personal data are available on the web without any authorization having been provided for their use.

This is therefore a major difference compared with conventional search engines, which do not require personal identification. This free of charge version is officially intended to ”obtain external feedback in order to improve the system and to make it more secure”. The web site also indicates that “conversations may be reviewed by our AI instructor “, and calls on users “not to share sensitive information“. OpenAI claims that the users’ data are used to improve their system. This is obviously impossible in real time because the learning periods are very long (more than a month for GPT-3 !). All these personal data are therefore stored for subsequent improvement purposes.

ChatGPT is a virtual assistant with which internet users can converse. GPT is the abbreviation for Generative Pre-trained Transformer.

  • “Transformer” describes the type of deep learning model which uses several layers of artificial neuron networks interconnecting a very large number of processors. This technology was developed by Google engineers in 2017, and is also used by LaMDA the conversational robot by Google.
  • “Generative” means that the technology generates the most probable words which may be stringed together in sequence on the basis of sentences observed in a major corpus of texts (as opposed to the text generators of the previous generation which were based on the rules of syntax and grammar). This generative capability enables the production of a narrative, i.e. the generation of imaginative texts in the style of such and such an author.
  • “PreTrained” indicates that the model has been pre-trained using self-supervised apprenticeship techniques (without humans to validate the results) then reinforced (with humans). This latter type of apprenticeship involves humans (the working conditions of underpaid workers has been revealed by Time magazine) to qualify and penalize the texts generated as necessary (paedophiles, sexists etc.). The ChatGPT data base is immense (the subjacent technology GPT-3 absorbed some 45 Tera octets of texts, which a human would require 500,000 lives to read). It is not directly connected to the internet, and the recorded data (including the web data) ended in 2021. From a technological point of view, ChatGPT constitutes the achievement of over 20 years of development in the processing of natural language but it is not in itself a technological breakthrough as indicated by Yann Le Cun, the director of artificial intelligence at Meta who does not consider ChatGPT as revolutionary.

How reliable are the responses provided by ChatGPT?

The list of limitations of ChatGPT provided by the Open AI development site shows the extent to which this system can be unstable (sensitive to the wording of questions), unreliable (wrong, incoherent or even imagined answers), highly verbose by trying to generate a maximum amount of text with many forms of politeness without considering the moderation filter which may arbitrarily censure certain responses (on discriminatory criteria for example). Examples of incorrect responses by ChatGPT are very numerous: from the location of the Lascaux caves in Brittany to the incorrect attribution of writings, books or programme productions to famous journalists ChatGPT: First radio interview of artificial intelligence – Invited by Sonia Devillers.

To a factual question (“How many abortions are there in France?”), the answer was quite vague and inexact but not totally wrong:

“There is no exact official figure for the number of abortions in France. The most recent data available is provided by the national office of statistics and economic studies (INSEE) and date back to 2018. According to that data, around 220,000 abortions were performed in France in 2018. However, it is important to note that this figure may not include all abortions, as some may not be declared.”

This response is surprising since the data on the number of abortions in France are readily available, in particular on the Drees web site (Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics).

The artificial intelligence market is in rapid expansion 

OpenAI was originally established as a research laboratory for artificial intelligence (AI) as a “non profit association”. The start-up was founded in San Francisco in 2015, and among its founder members included Peter Thiel (PayPal, Palantir), Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Twitter…), Reid Hoffman (Linked In).

In addition to ChatGPT which will have a commercial application, OpenAI have also developed the DALL-E software, which generates pictures from natural language descriptions. The web site allows visitors to test a few of its creative possibilities. OpenAI became a “For profit” company in 2019, and this year has been valued at 29 billion dollars, i.e. twice its value in 2021. Microsoft, after investing 1 billion dollars in 2019, has announced a new partnership for the coming years, estimated at 10 billion dollars. By comparison, according to an analyst, the cost of creating ChatGPT is estimated at between 100 and 150 billion dollars.

According to Statista, the worldwide revenues from AI have increased 16 fold between 2015 and 2022. The economic model of ChatGPT could therefore overthrow the current GAFA hierarchy (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon). In 2021, Google earned 81% of its 260 billion dollar revenue from publicity associated with its search engine. A total of 1 million users are claimed to have tested ChatGPT during the first week following its launch. Could a massive switchover of users upturn this market of paying advertisements? In response, on 6th February, Google announced it was launching Bard with a “light” version of “LaMDA”, “requiring less computing power” to allow its use by a “larger population of users” and “process a larger amount of feedback.”

Although ChatGPT does not represent a technological breakthrough, its availability to a broad public profoundly impacts the digital technologies sector. The communication plan unfurled since the announcement by OpenAI is also intimately linked to a financial strategy in a highly competitive sector. The question of impact on the public needs thinking, by its users as well as by the public authorities. This subject will be discussed next week.

The Hague Conference and Gestational Surrogacy: an Eloquent Impasse

The Hague Conference and Gestational Surrogacy: an Eloquent Impasse

by | February 3, 2023 | News, Surrogacy

The Hague International Conference on private rights has for years been working on gestational surrogacy – a practice which remains prohibited in many nations – with a serious objective: the elaboration of international agreements to “control” the consequences, in particular regarding filiation. The stated failure which it announced recently demonstrates that one cannot resolve problems associated with an intrinsically questionable practice, without calling it into question.

The Hague Conference is an inter-governmental organisation which elaborates international conventions and which currently associates some 90 nations, including France. It is well known for its work on the 1993 Convention for international adoption.

Since 2015, – “Under pressure from a few governments and, probably also, from a few companies specialising in that type of trade” – as analysed by the “Juristes pour l’Enfance (Lawyers for children)” association, it has created a working group on gestational surrogacy. It is titled “Filiation/Substitute motherhood” and consists of civil servants from the ministries of justice, lawyers, academics and associations which are mere “observers” such as Unicef.

Its members have studied various legislations and have met a dozen times. Their initial objective was to elaborate “international agreements” aimed at an international recognition of filiation. In other words, to determine under which filiation conditions children born by gestational surrogacy in one nation could be recognised in another nation. For example, a child born from a surrogate mother in some states in the United States can hold a birth certificate which mentions under “mother” the person known as the “mother of intention” and not the one who bore and gave birth to the child. It is therefore a false certificate, which does not reflect reality and which is not recognised by other nations.

Gestational surrogacy is a serious infringement to the principle according to which the human body cannot be the subject of contracts. Whether “commercial” or “gratuitous”, the practice is contrary to the superior interest of the child and exploits the body of women. Its toleration, in any form whatsoever, is tantamount to acceptance of the mechanisms for the exploitation of women and children which it involves. Not to mention that it represents a market of several million dollars. Consequently, the achievement of such agreements would result quite simply in creating an international convention on gestational surrogacy. “A true blank cheque for the world trade of surrogate mothers in the poorest nations of the world” as denounced long ago by CIAMS, a grouping of feminist associations which militates for the abolition of gestational surrogacy.

However, since 2021, the mandate of the working group has been reduced. It has merely been asked to provide an evaluation of the possibility of elaborating such agreements. At the end of 2022, its conclusion was released: It recommended the creation of a working group in order to better study the political considerations and decisions concerning the scope, the content and the approach of any new agreement. In fact, the working group has resulted in a recommendation to create a working group…. According to “Juristes pour l’Enfance”, this is a “blatant admission of failure”.

It demonstrates the impossibility of defining universal rules for the authorisation of gestational surrogacy. The problem is not to resolve the consequences of gestational surrogacy with respect to filiation, but in fact its total prohibition. Getting to a dead end is a clear statement that it is time for an about turn. The only reasonable way out is indisputable: To work towards the worldwide abolition of gestational surrogacy. This measure is of critical urgency and on which Alliance VITA has been alerting for many years.

For more information:

Deconstruction of “ethical” gestational surrogacy, VITA 2021
[Video] –VITA Webinar “The reality of gestational surrogacy”
Alliance VITA bioethics file