debug

The operations used OpenAI’s technology to generate social media posts, translate and edit articles, write headlines and debug computer programs, typically to win support for political campaigns or to swing public opinion in geopolitical conflicts.

"It took a lot of hours staring at a computer, and a lot of debugging, frantically texting and emailing each other to figure this out," Santos recalls.

The only exception was that each team was permitted one laptop for work on the project, but it had to be handed over to be scanned, debugged, and approved for use.

Few tasks are more tedious than debugging software — a process that can consume as much as 50% of an engineer’s time.

That should help debug systems and also benefit safety, the researchers say: If an AI is planning something dangerous, a human operator can tell and can intervene.