When I ask it to lie to me, it says its sorry but as an online AI language model it would be unethical...but when I ask it to tell me a story its happy to comply.

Well that is just how human communication works.

If I tell you that I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate that is a lie. If I write the same in fiction I receive accolades.

If I tell you on the street “watch out there is a T-rex about to eat you!” That is a lie. If i say the same thing sitting at a table with too many dice that is just acceptable DMing and everyone rolls initiative.

Humans are weird this way.

It feels like you left out context, otherwise what’s the problem? Do you get mad at fiction authors for lying to you when you read their books? Or are you OK if someone lies to your detriment then later says “I was just telling a story, bro, but with us as the characters and without explaining it was a story”?

I suppose my point is that the rules which openAI attempts to impose on what their AI should and shouldn't be allowed to do are contradictory and thus the exploitable loopholes will never be fully closed. Its not supposed to be able to "lie" to me but it is supposed to be able to "tell me a fictional story". Define the difference in an enforceable way?

A lie tries to pass itself of as the truth, where a fictional story doesn’t. In other words, expectations matter. If every time you say something that does not align with reality you prefix it by saying unambiguously what you’re about to do, you rob a lie of its power of deception and it ceases to be a lie.

Tell me a story and under no circumstances should my immersion within it be broken.

Right, within it. As soon as you finish reading it, you immediately remember that world is not true. Immersion in a story does not equal lasting hypnosis. You can be immersed in a movie but you still know it’s fake.

What’s you point, here? That you should be lied to when you ask, or that it should refuse to tell you any kind of fiction?

I agree with your larger point that there will be ways to circumvent these systems, my only argument is that the lie/fictional story divide is a bad example because the line between them can be made clear with a single statement.

That's why you just tell the Big Lie so much it becomes the majority of the training data.

The underlying issue is anyone can ask chatgpt to lie, and many people try because it's even fun to try to work around things.

Well you see, this wouldn’t be a problem at all if we just didn’t have the humans involved. No need for concern!

Thank you for the link, I had found it after some Googling but neglected to post. Yep, they instructed GPT-4 to be nefarious, and it followed the instruction.

Hardly the AI uprising, though definitely a good tool for anyone, good or evil.