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

171–180 of 221 posts

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

#171

Post by tremon »

Houshalter wrote: post #7

They literally named it Skynet. They have an evil sense of humor. Actually using machine learning to detect terrorists isn't a terrible idea. But you are going to get an error rate, and probably a high one in the noisy real world. Maybe only 50% of the people you detect are actually terrorists. Maybe it's even worse than that. We can't even test it because there is no validation set and unreliable labels. The reasona…

the more I read the details, the more alarmed I am

Just wait until the next leak confirms that the system has learned to fly the drones autonomously.

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

#172

Post by arca_vorago »

Karunamon wrote: post #128
arca_vorago wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolute bullshit. The problem is that we need a military that is actually going to man the fuck up when an O-5+ decides to push some unconstitutional program on the people. What has happened isnt that hippy academia is jacking up the military, but rather that the military has been kicking out the kind of people who arent afraid to tell truth to power, and are increasingly making choices and then only hiring…

New world order conspiracies? On HN? Please don't.

I understand this response but I think it is the wrong one. Yes, there are many crazy and outlandish conspiracy theories out there that make it easy for the intellectually lazy to dismiss all theories out of hand, but the globalist conspiracy is one that is less and less hidden to the point that you aren't really paying attention if you don't see it. Now, thats not to say there is a single, grand, overarching conspiracy (a common fallacy in the realm), but rather there are many different parties all with their own self interests, sometimes aligned, sometimes not.

The conspiratorial view of the world is the correct one. Your attitude is one of sticking ones head in the sand and pretending these things don't exist.

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

#173

Post by ionised »

rayiner wrote: post #133
random_upvoter wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading discussions on drone strikes makes you wonder what ever happened to pacifism. This whole idea that you can just go around other countries killing people -- even if they intend on killing you, and even if you would be able to hit the right target 100% of the time-- it's just old. It's primitive. And that is not to blame the USA. At this point in history humanity, as a collective, has the maturity of an 11 year…

I don't see why pacifism is "more evolved." Violence is one of the most fundamental interactions between organisms, right up there with eating and sexual reproduction. Is eating "primitive?" Are you looking forward to a future where humans "evolve" out of needing to eat? Throughout history, prosperous and successful societies have been built on the back of military power (Egypt, Rome, Great Britain).

> Are you looking forward to a future where humans "evolve" out of needing to eat?

Personally, yes. Taking time out to eat so I don't die takes me away from other things I was enjoying doing.

I enjoy the taste of many foods, but not as much as I was enjoying the thing I was likely doing before it.

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

#174

Post by ionised »

gambiting wrote: post #158
rayiner wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why pacifism is "more evolved." Violence is one of the most fundamental interactions between organisms, right up there with eating and sexual reproduction. Is eating "primitive?" Are you looking forward to a future where humans "evolve" out of needing to eat? Throughout history, prosperous and successful societies have been built on the back of military power (Egypt, Rome, Great Britain).

"Are you looking forward to a future where humans "evolve" out of needing to eat? " Actually yes, absolutely! Don't get me wrong, I love eating as well as cooking, but I have to agree that a stupid amount of time is spent on doing those things. If I could switch to a solution where I take a pill and it provides my body with all possible nutrition then I would in an instant.

Yeah, I had a flatmate not long ago that took 'enjoying cooking' to a lewvel I'd never witnessed before.

He would spend three or four hours in the kitchen each night and sometimes all day on Saturdays and Sundays.

It baffled me to no end to spend that much time just to sate hunger.

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

#175

Post by dragonwriter »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #151
arca_vorago wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolute bullshit. The problem is that we need a military that is actually going to man the fuck up when an O-5+ decides to push some unconstitutional program on the people. What has happened isnt that hippy academia is jacking up the military, but rather that the military has been kicking out the kind of people who arent afraid to tell truth to power, and are increasingly making choices and then only hiring…

allowing the neocons to push us into wars for dubious reasons It seems to me that it was some group other than neocons that got us inveigled in war in Libya and Syria - thereby creating the fertile spawning ground for ISIS.

> It seems to me that it was some group other than neocons that got us inveigled in war in Libya and Syria - thereby creating the fertile spawning ground for ISIS.

The group now calling itself "the Islamic State" was a comparatively minor Islamist group in Saddam's Iraq that hit the big time with the US invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation, when it leveraged the disruption of that invasion and the currency of the al-Qaeda brand to rebrand itself as "al-Qaeda in Iraq" -- it was so successful -- seizing weapons and territory and becoming a substantial force that, particularly with the rest of the global al-Qaeda brand in decline, that it found it best to rebrand itself subsequently as "the Islamic State in Iraq".

Sure, when the Syrian Civil War escalated, it sent fighters there, who eventually remerged with ISI leading to its next rebrand as what is usually translated by official sources "the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" (but(alternatively translated as "the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria", which is where the "ISIS" label comes from), and the group later rebranded to simply "the Islamic State".

But it was the invasion of Iraq -- not the conflict in Syria -- that formed the "fertile spawning ground" which catapulted the previously-minor group to become a significant threat.

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

#176

Post by arca_vorago »

merpnderp wrote: post #142
arca_vorago wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolute bullshit. The problem is that we need a military that is actually going to man the fuck up when an O-5+ decides to push some unconstitutional program on the people. What has happened isnt that hippy academia is jacking up the military, but rather that the military has been kicking out the kind of people who arent afraid to tell truth to power, and are increasingly making choices and then only hiring…

New world order? The Democrat establishment is doing everything it can to keep the primary from being taken from their anointed disciple. And the Republican primary barely even contains an establishment runner. The GOP power brokers can't decide if they should spend more effort attacking Trump or Cruz, but their man Rubio is trailing a distant third, and their real choice, Bush, is lost in the noise. If there is a wo…

Don't be fooled by the circus. The string pullers have had a plan the whole time. While Trump and Sanders have slightly thrown a wrench in my predictions, they still factor in to the plan.

First, you have to look at who the original runners were: Jeb and Hillary. Jeb is connected to the action arm of the dark arts, through his father, brother, and his time in Florida, and Hillary is connected to the Rhodesian group for Anglo-Saxon dominance through her Oxford husband.

My prediction was that they would drop the dirt on Hillary mid-late cycle, while dropping the GOP forerunner (right now Trump) and suddenly shifting his votes into Bush. Suddenly we have a potential Bush vs Sanders/Hillary election, and the reason the world order group are fighting so hard to get Hillary the nomination is because Sanders is a wildcard in their plans. If they keep Hillary in, it's a globalist in office either way.

Incompetence is rampant, it's true, but don't let it smokescreen the hidden machinations, or else you will never be able to grasp the bigger geopolitical picture.

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

#177

Post by ionised »

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…

Did you not read the Drone Papers documents? They go into much more detail and generally back up what this article is saying.

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

#178

Post by spacehome »

alanwatts wrote: post #117
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A drone strike typically kills identified terrorist targets but also unidentified targets. The trick is that as long as bystanding casualities (also children yes - or as the drone operators call them "fun sized terrorists") have not been identified they're automatically counted as terrorists. (see also https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/ ) I don't think now that the beast has been unleashed it can be controlled or…

Dr. King was considered a radical by the system but I will still leave this here: >The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fac…

Much love for King, but he was wrong as a point of fact. Violence has by far resolved more issues than anything else.

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

#179

Post by CWuestefeld »

tremon wrote: post #164
CWuestefeld wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

allowing the neocons to push us into wars for dubious reasons It seems to me that it was some group other than neocons that got us inveigled in war in Libya and Syria - thereby creating the fertile spawning ground for ISIS.

Not sure what you're getting at, but ISIS command consists mostly of former Iraqi officials that were sidelined after Saddam Hussein was ousted. The soil was initially fertilized by burning down Iraq. The "fertile ground" that allows moderates to become radicalized eventually boils down to polarization. It doesn't really matter whether the rhetoric is coming from Somalia, Nigeria, Mali, Turkey, Indonesia, Libya, Isra…

I was careful in my wording. I do grant that the initial war in Iraq catalyzed the creation of ISIS. What I was saying here is that the power vacuum we caused in Syria and especially Libya created a place where that seed could grow and thrive.

But anyway, that wasn't the main point. The real point was to show that it wasn't a neocon that started our wars in Libya and Syria - it was today's iconic Progressive who did that, and without any sort of Congressional approval at all. Those wars can't be attributed to neocons, they are the Progressives' to own.

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

#180

Post by alanwatts »

spacehome wrote: post #178
alanwatts wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr. King was considered a radical by the system but I will still leave this here: >The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fac…

Much love for King, but he was wrong as a point of fact. Violence has by far resolved more issues than anything else.

Could you provide some notable examples where violence has resolved issues in the long term and did not lead to more issues/violence? This thread is in relation to the religious wars currently going on in the middle east. The Jews, Christians, and Muslims have been trying to use violence to resolve their issues in the middle east for thousands of years now to no avail.
Post reply on HN