What is the main reason for the many misconceptions about AI?

Many misconceptions about AI arise primarily due to a frequently one-sided reporting that heavily focuses on ChatGPT and Microsoft products. This leads to a distorted perception of the possibilities and capabilities of AI.

Why isn't ChatGPT always a good solution for complex tasks?

ChatGPT is suitable for everyday tasks and frequent tasks, but often unsuitable for professionally processed tasks, such as summarizing texts without hallucinations or finding knowledge. It cannot comprehensively retrieve information or provide accurate results.

Why are the costs for training large language models often portrayed as zero?

The training of large language models, such as ChatGPT, requires dozens or even hundreds of servers simultaneously, which incurs high costs. Inference, i.e., querying the model, is often free, as the hosting costs are borne by the providers.

What legal issues arise from the use of AI systems for content extraction (Crawling) from websites?

Automated access to content from websites, especially through crawlers, raises copyright issues. As most content is protected and automated access without the rights holder's consent is illegal, this represents a significant legal risk.

What is the author's main argument against the assertion that AI systems are merely an algorithm?

The author argues that AI systems, particularly language models, cannot be viewed as simple algorithms. They are characterized by complex learning and adaptation processes that go beyond the mere execution of a predefined rule.

What is a token and why is it relevant for data protection?

A token is a number used to represent text in language models. Since the conversion of text into tokens preserves all information, personal data can be transmitted within the tokenized text, raising privacy concerns.

What is the problem with the Hamburg theses from the author's point of view?

The Hamburg Thesis Paper is criticized by the author as fundamentally wrong, as it supports the assumption that AI systems do not store personal data. This ignores the fact that the tokenized representation of text can actually encode personal information.

How are personal data stored in language models?

Personal data is stored in language models by being processed with massive datasets during pre-training. These datasets often also contain information about people that is not publicly known.

Myths and Misconceptions about Artificial Intelligence

Everyone finds AI somehow cool. That's why everyone expresses an opinion about AI. Because AI is a technically complex field, numerous half-truths or false claims arise. This is fueled by marketing promises from Microsoft and others. This article clarifies what is correct and what belongs more to the realm of alternative facts.

Common Misconceptions about AI

Due to a frequently one-sided reporting situation, which repeatedly revolves around ChatGPT or Microsoft AI products, numerous misconceptions arise. Some of these are:

Speech models would be based on statistics and therefore not intelligent.
An AI-system is an algorithm.
AI be a tool.
An AI system could work exactly.
ChatGPT is not intelligent.
ChatGPT be the best solution.
AI can be equated with ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Mixtral (Mistral) or Command R+ (Cohere). There is nothing else.
Data is safe at Microsoft.
AI can be operated in a legally compliant manner.
Tokens are not real data.
AI models do not store personal data.

From these wrong assumptions, false conclusions often arise. Some of these will be clarified below. As a representative for other cloud services, only ChatGPT will be discussed hereafter.

Falsehoods about AI

The following statements were read somewhere similar in social media. The statements were generally formulated at the locations where they were found, or specific and yet still wrong.

ChatGPT is not intelligent

According to the definition of AI in Dr. DSGVO, ChatGPT is intelligent. This definition of AI is:

Even after Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician during World War II and decipherer of the Enigma cipher machine, ChatGPT is intelligent: ChatGPT passes the Turing Test. The test checks whether a machine's responses are indistinguishable from those of a human. On the contrary: ChatGPT often (one could almost say always) delivers significantly better answers than the average intelligent human.

The new definition of the AI Regulation of AI defines ChatGPT (hopefully) also as intelligent. See Article 3 AI Act from 12.07.2024.

What is intelligence? Just now the definition of artificial intelligence was given. Simply strike out the attribute "artificial" twice from the definition. Already, there stands the definition of intelligence. Humans have no claim to the intelligence monopoly, even if many would like it that way.

Intelligence is based on human standards

Many believe that intelligence is something that humans define. The EU's AI Regulation had, in a now-revised definition of what constitutes Artificial Intelligence, written that Artificial Intelligence should aim to achieve goals "defined by humans…".

There is no single reason for this misjudgment. Humans are irrelevant regarding the determination of what intelligence is. Up until now, he could at most be used as a yardstick. In the future, this will probably no longer be the case.

By the way, some animal species are also attributed with intelligent behavior. Apparently, animals are not humans.

ChatGPT be the best solution

It depends on what it's for. For everyday tasks, ChatGPT is often a great answer machine. This is especially true for general knowledge or common tasks that are also found in ChatGPT's training data.

For all concrete tasks that should be handled fairly professionally, ChatGPT appears unsuitable. An example: Summarizing a text without hallucinations. Another example: Finding knowledge.

ChatGPT certainly cannot and will not scrape a larger portion of the internet or a website for you. After all, you either pay with your data and the data of others, "only". Or you pay $20 per month or a small amount per API call.

ChatGPT can therefore only access content that is either already known or unknown and has a small scope. By "small scope" is meant the number of documents or web pages.

For tasks like the digitization of documents, ChatGPT is not a good solution because many special considerations need to be taken into account.

ChatGPT is bad

It depends on what for. ChatGPT is not a search engine. Anyone who uses the system contrary to its intended purpose should not be surprised by mediocre answers. An AI system is also not designed to count the letters of a word.

An AI is good at creatively solving complex tasks. The same AI is bad at performing precise work. Just like a human!

AI training is expensive

Correct is: Training large language models like ChatGPT is very expensive and time-consuming.

It is also correct that training your own AI language models is very affordable. The reason is that these models can be specialized for specific use cases. Training such models is often possible on a laptop or your own AI server within a few hours.

Because own AI trainers are usually always on and running, the costs for AI training are zero.

AI-training is therefore in most cases free of charge.

Inference is expensive

Inference is questioning an AI model, for example, chatting with a language model like ChatGPT.

Correct is: Large language models like ChatGPT require dozens or even hundreds of servers simultaneously to generate a response to your question. That is expensive.

Correctly stated is also this: If a self-operated AI language model is queried, it costs nothing.

Therefore, inference costs are usually zero. What OpenAI pays for its servers is as irrelevant to us as it is to OpenAI what we pay for our computers.

Microsoft Azure and ChatGPT are secure

Many sell their "solution" as innovative. A bank even spoke of introducing its own (private) AI, meaning Microsoft Azure by that. Azure is the opposite of secure. Microsoft itself is the subject of numerous hacker attacks. Furthermore, it must be noted that Microsoft does not prioritize security highest.

This is in addition to Microsoft's massive data appetite. The new Outlook wants to retrieve customer emails for its own purposes; Windows continuously sends user data to Microsoft, etc.