Paper ID: 2209.12687

A Case Report On The "A.I. Locked-In Problem": social concerns with modern NLP

Yoshija Walter

Modern NLP models are becoming better conversational agents than their predecessors. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and especially Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) features allow the agent to better store and use information about semantic content, a trend that has become even more pronounced with the Transformer Models. Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-3 by OpenAI have become known to be able to construct and follow a narrative, which enables the system to adopt personas on the go, adapt them and play along in conversational stories. However, practical experimentation with GPT-3 shows that there is a recurring problem with these modern NLP systems, namely that they can "get stuck" in the narrative so that further conversations, prompt executions or commands become futile. This is here referred to as the "Locked-In Problem" and is exemplified with an experimental case report, followed by practical and social concerns that are accompanied with this problem.

Submitted: Sep 22, 2022