Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

arstechnica.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 221 posts

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#71

Post by coldtea »

Aeolos wrote: post #2

"Obliterated a wedding because people where celebrating by shooting in the air." This is the definition of evil. How and why is the Pakistani government allowing this program to operate within their territories?

>How and why is the Pakistani government allowing this program to operate within their territories?

Because it's a powerless country, and as always those are at the mercy of the top dogs.

At best they can ask for some bargains (foreign aid, some favorable diplomatic stance, etc).

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#72

Post by afsina »

Oh come on "machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands.." just put a "may be" and your BS assertion becomes more plausible? By looking at this, people are having and idea that attack drones (it is rich that article puts one picture of it in the beginning) are loaded with such software and killing by looking at the result of a classifier. Or some super computer gives you a name and says "exterminate".

Apparently these tools only gives operators some clues and save their time. If it is a false positive, probably they just ignore it. Of course, obtaining the information is a different story.

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#73

Post by stevetrewick »

akerro wrote: post #63
agd wrote: post #13

Big data analysis + mass surveillance is a frightening prospect. Of course you can train software to look for 'terrorists', but you could also train it to look for: - whistleblowers - minority groups (e.g. gay people, particular religious beliefs, political affiliation) - political dissidents - journalists whose behaviour changes - personal vulnerabilities (affairs, mental health issues etc) Think what authoritarian…

- political dissidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism And that's what it is used for. Australian gov. used their abilities to mark people who say against coal energy as anti-government, all they did was support renewable sources of energy. https://overland.org.au/2014/07/surveillance-of-activists-is... and Canada: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/14/canada-en... - minority groups FBI was spy…

>Australian gov. used their abilities to mark people who say against coal energy as anti-government

Even the partisan sources you've linked don't support that particular assertion AFAICS. It appears that gov.au placed a group of activists with the potential intent to disrupt energy supplies under surveillance.

'Green' activists suffer from a bad case of noble cause corruption which prevents them from understanding that things they think are wonderful and necessary - like disrupting power grids - are well within the scope of what other people would consider to be terrorism.

There is also no suggestion that any ML or mass surveillance was used in targeting them. Targeted, intrusive surveillance was authorised against them.

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#74

Post by graycat »

afsina wrote: post #72

Oh come on "machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands.." just put a "may be" and your BS assertion becomes more plausible? By looking at this, people are having and idea that attack drones (it is rich that article puts one picture of it in the beginning) are loaded with such software and killing by looking at the result of a classifier. Or some super computer gives you a name and says "exterminate". Apparen…

> If it is a false positive, probably they just ignore it.

And how do they know it's a false positive?

Indeed, if they really knew that, then they would have some more training data.

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#76

Post by dingaling »

fsloth wrote: post #14
Aeolos wrote: post #2

"Obliterated a wedding because people where celebrating by shooting in the air." This is the definition of evil. How and why is the Pakistani government allowing this program to operate within their territories?

My guess would be because Pakistan has had good relations with US since it's independence. "The United States today provides extensive economic, scientific, and military assistance to Pakistan... and is Pakistan's most generous donor of foreign aid"[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan%E2%80%93United_States...

> My guess would be because Pakistan has had good relations with US since it's independence.

More often not.

There was a period from the 1970s when Pakistan was embargoed because of its nuclear power + weapons programmes, mainly in cooperation with France. This pushed Pakistan into the Chinese camp for arms supplies where they have remained firmly lodged ever since.

During the 1980s the USA did supply some silver-bullet assets like F-16s, mainly to atagonise the Soviets in Afghanistan, but later deliveries were again embargoed and the USA only recently reimbursed their purchase fees.

The USA-Pakistan relationship is one of the text-book examples of realpolitik.

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#77

Post by binarymax »

oafitupa wrote: post #67
Aeolos wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. In which freaking world are assassinations without due process legal or even desirable? The mere fact that we are debating whether someone was or wasn't assassinated is a perversion in itself. Arrest them and try them in a court of justice. End of story.

Arrest them? They were in freaking Pakistan. Why would you arrest them? You guys are going crazy. Don't be surprised when you travel and realize the world hates you.

I think the parent means arrest the criminals responsible for killing thousands of people with drones based on a faulty algorithm.

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#78

Post by vladtaltos »

afsina wrote: post #72

Oh come on "machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands.." just put a "may be" and your BS assertion becomes more plausible? By looking at this, people are having and idea that attack drones (it is rich that article puts one picture of it in the beginning) are loaded with such software and killing by looking at the result of a classifier. Or some super computer gives you a name and says "exterminate". Apparen…

the problem is you don't know that 'If it is a false positive, probably they just ignore it.' -> 'probably' is a fucking optimistic view. AND how the hell do you know this is a false positive ? some algorithm tells a soldier that this person is probably a terrorist - what happens then ? do you think they bother to verify this by spending more money ?

In my opinion it is most likely that, the people using this software send the output of this algorithm as a recommendation up the chain and some idiot decides to be 'safe' and recommends execution. because they don't have any accountability. I don't think you would be this relaxed in your opinion if these f-ing drones fly over your head - it is just that most people in the US do not care what happens to some idiot in Pakistan.

from the reports disseminated by the state department they are not even sure how many people they killed ? it is reported as between 2500 and 4000. Isn't this insane ? I have no idea in my mind that US is killing people indiscriminately using drones - and the word is not probably - it should be 'definitely'. i'm sure drones are turning people into terrorists more than they are killing terrorists.

don't tell me this is a bs assertion before US can give the name of every body they killed with a drone and the justification of it.

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#79

Post by botterworkshop »

It's ignorant to assume any targets revealed by this program wouldn't be given a human intelligence analyst to verify accuracy before risking millions of dollars on a predator strike and the potential risk it was bad information. Enough said.

Re: The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

#80

Post by gjm11 »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #41
nl wrote: post #9

This story is stupid. I'm sorry. No fan of the NSA, but the premise behind it is completely ridiculous. There is zero evidence of the repeatably asserted idea that the list this tool generates is any kind of kill list. It's a tool that generates indicators of people that may be worth looking at when trying to find couriers. That's a very specific subgroup of terrorists, and I find it entirely unsurprising that a jour…

> The NSA is many things, but "bad at Math" isn't one of them. I agree, and with the pedigree of cryptology that has come from the NSA (and with alumni like Knuth), that's very well established. But non-technical people tend to have a habit of taking technically brilliant (and often specific) things and using them in a way that they were never designed or intended.

> alumni like Knuth

To the best of my knowledge, Knuth never worked for the NSA. (He did briefly work for the IDA CRD -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Defense_Analyses... -- which in turn did some work for the NSA, but that's not the same thing.)

Post reply on HN