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Opinion | Artificial Intelligence
The Ghosts in the Machine
How human personas haunt large language models
Researchers are now finding evidence that LLMs develop internal representations corresponding to different personas, character types and behavioral traits.
Archetypes in Fiction
There is a curious theme repeating through much of our popular stories. You’ve seen it in The Exorcist, Constantine, Ghostrider and many others. It’s where a human host is “possessed” by either a single or multiple identities, all of whom attempt to control and dominate the conscious element.
There is something about this conflict between competing personas that reaches deep into the human psyche. We keep returning to it because the idea of something else speaking through us, thinking through us, perhaps even taking control of us remains an enduring source of horror.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise then to learn, Artificial Intelligence carries echoes of this ancient fear inside its language models.
AI is built out of an immense record of human thought and expression. It concentrates the knowledge, stories, hopes, fears…
