The Age of Pluribus: One Consultant for Everyone

What happens when everyone asks the same consultant? Millions of people turn to LLMs for advice daily, consulting on various personal topics, from how to learn a new skill to how to write a message to their best friend. Each interaction might feel special, but behind them all are the same models. Large language models are trained on an abundance of human data, compress different sources of knowledge, views, and opinions into a single set of model parameters - E Pluribus Unum Consilium [1] . What used to be the job of many different consultants has been centralized to the same handful of models. Pluribus , an Apple TV show, offers a striking analogy. In the show, most of humanity joins a single collective consciousness called the joined . The horror of the show is not that they are cruel, they are not. The joined are actually calm, peaceful, and nice. A Previous blog presents the analogy using similarities between the joined and AI. We want to extend this analogy and use Pluribus as an illustration to explore the potential risks humanity faces as millions of people are using the same consultants as their primary source of judgment. Loss of Agency In Pluribus, every person who is part of the collective, automatically consults with "them" (the joined) before acting on anything. We observe a similar pattern in our relationship with AI. We are looking for confirmation and approval before acting. The email we won't send before we let AI check it, the trip we ask help planning. It…