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

191–200 of 221 posts

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

#191

Post by dcposch »

This story is hugely important. It gets to a deep question everyone here should ask themselves -- beyond immediate concerns of salary, equity, and learning value, is my specific work making the world a better place or a worse place?

This story goes to the core of ethics in engineering.

It's all of 9 hours old and has 341 points -- yet it's already off of the front page where nobody will see it. You could check HN literally every day and still easily miss this story.

Meanwhile, the front page is full of unimportant links to obscure tech trivia, many of which have less than 20 points.

We know that HN automatically penalizes submissions containing certain words, including "NSA", in the title. Certain prolific HN users have also said that they "automatically flag" submissions they consider "political".

But I really think HN would be a better place if the front page cycled out a little slower, if stories like this were not suppressed, if they got at least one day's worth of attention and discussion.

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

#192

Post by kafkaesq »

spacehome wrote: post #187
alanwatts wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A few notable ones off the top of my head: WW2 American Revolutionary War The Roman-Carthaginian wars Genocide of the Ainu in Japan Genocide of the Neanderthals by Homo Sapiens in Europe (Maybe; it's theorized at least) The Gombe Chimpanzee War I'm sure I can come up with more if you like. The primary reason Jews, Christians, and Muslims are having trouble solving their problems using violence is that they're not usi…

American Revolutionary War

Which led to the perpetuation of slavery for another 90 years (which the British were in the process of abolishing throughout their holdings), among other "issues."

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

#193

Post by kafkaesq »

Hmm:

Behavior-based Analytics: - Low [cell phone] use, incoming calls only - Frequent handset changes - Frequent detach / power-down

Visits to other countries - overnight trips - permanent move

I guess that makes me an extremist militant, also.

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

#194

Post by dilemma »

rdancer wrote: post #159
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…

It took one executive order to start this, it will take one executive order to stop it. The election is in a year's time. Make your vote count!

Which candidate do you mean will stop it?

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

#195

Post by Houshalter »

milesftl wrote: post #135
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…

did you post this on the corresponding reddit thread as well? if not then someone literally copy pasted your comment, which I have been noting a lot more lately on there.

Yeah that was me.

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

#196

Post by MichaelBurge »

dilemma wrote: post #194
rdancer wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took one executive order to start this, it will take one executive order to stop it. The election is in a year's time. Make your vote count!

Which candidate do you mean will stop it?

Rand Paul would. Bernie Sanders might.

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

#197

Post by Houshalter »

kafkaesq wrote: post #192
spacehome wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few notable ones off the top of my head: WW2 American Revolutionary War The Roman-Carthaginian wars Genocide of the Ainu in Japan Genocide of the Neanderthals by Homo Sapiens in Europe (Maybe; it's theorized at least) The Gombe Chimpanzee War I'm sure I can come up with more if you like. The primary reason Jews, Christians, and Muslims are having trouble solving their problems using violence is that they're not usi…

American Revolutionary War Which led to the perpetuation of slavery for another 90 years (which the British were in the process of abolishing throughout their holdings), among other "issues."

That's irrelevant, and massive hindsight bias. If the British still held the South, they might have kept slavery too. And if they did try to abolish it, the civil war/revolution probably would have happened anyway and they might have won.

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

#198

Post by Houshalter »

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.

"The simple fact is that non-violent means do not work against Evil. Gandhi's non-violent resistance against the British occupiers had some effect because Britain was wrong, but not Evil. The same is true of the success of non-violent civil rights resistance against de jure racism. Most people, including those in power, knew that what was being done was wrong. But Evil is an entirely different beast. Gandhi would have gone to the ovens had he attempted non-violent resistance against the Nazis. When one encounters Evil, the only solution is violence, actual or threatened. That's all Evil understands."

-- Robert Bruce Thompson

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

#199

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

spacehome wrote: post #187
alanwatts wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A few notable ones off the top of my head: WW2 American Revolutionary War The Roman-Carthaginian wars Genocide of the Ainu in Japan Genocide of the Neanderthals by Homo Sapiens in Europe (Maybe; it's theorized at least) The Gombe Chimpanzee War I'm sure I can come up with more if you like. The primary reason Jews, Christians, and Muslims are having trouble solving their problems using violence is that they're not usi…

>> The primary reason Jews, Christians, and Muslims are having trouble solving their problems using violence is that they're not using enough violence.

The problem of those groups is that they can't prosper in peace. Violence is not a solution for that. Rather, violence is the essence of their problem.

Basically, if you want to be realistic there can never be "enough violence". Reasonable people prosper because they understand this and seek to solve their problems in a peaceful manner rather than to escalate the violence until one side perishes.

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

#200

Post by Karunamon »

arca_vorago wrote: post #172
Karunamon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conspir…

The conspiratorial view of the world is the correct one.

Not when said conspiracies are dumped, explanation-free, into the middle of a post without any backing what so ever.

Buzzwords like "new world order" are both loaded and uninteresting, and that goes double when most people who've have examined the "evidence" have found it wanting. If globalization is meant, say "globalization".

Post reply on HN