131–140 of 157 posts
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You make a case why the private sector should be encouraged to monitor as well.
I'm really curious : could you try to make the case here? I'd be very interested in this perspective.
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"ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance" All we need to do is democratize AI. It can be well argued that it is happening.
So you're thinking the best way to defeat (for some notion of "defeat") a centralizing AI is a myriad of user-controlled AIs (even if they are hosted e.g. on AWS)? I had never thought of this, but it seems to make sense.
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It’s not nonsense, as you cannot carry on mass-killing events like the Holocaust or the Goulag without a modern-ish technology like the railway system. Or, to go directly to the source, let’s use Goebbels [1], as he was explaining that without modern technologies like the radio or the airplane the nazis’ ascent to power wouldn’t have been possible: > It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it i…
So? let's make any modern-ish technology illegal?
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Indeed, one could consider machine learning an authoritarian technology if given power over individuals. AI's fundamental problem is it winds-up being a "results oriented" approach where individuals characteristics are weighed by black-box systems and the individual is judged without any recourse or even any exact idea what the criteria is.
Well, we’re judged by human brains every day, which are even more opaque.
Let's take the second amendment in the states for an example. The right to bear arms is meant to stop oppressive government but you cannot purchase anti-aircraft or anti-tank or anti-anything-really weapons. So, the might of the government's force is disproportionately in favour of the very government that the amendment is proposed to prevent oppression from, yeah? (Not that I'm in favour of overthrowing the government of the states, whatsoever; this is just an observation.)
When the Snowden revelations came about, this was the equivalent of China's list of people to send for "re-education". Granted, in the states, there's been no re-education (that we're aware of), it's only a small step from taking that information gleamed from those "lists" and doing just that.
At what point do we draw the line between authoritarian and not? Shouldn't the very notion of putting people on a list count? After all, it was a list of people that suffered the consequences of the Night of the Long Knives, was it not?
I fail to see how an open society would be considered "open", if it includes secretive programs like that. Isn't the principle of secret programs against a government's citizenry the antithesis of an open society?
Maybe I'm missing something here but to say that there are any open societies left (while probably dystopian in nature and bereft of any hope of the future) is beguiling the very fact that there doesn't seem to be very many (if any at all) open societies left.
(I'm probably talking bullshit circular logic, so feel free to ignore this tirade of discontent.)
Perhaps this is my pessimistic view but wouldn't any government that monitors it's civilians for a potential of being "against" the government (thus, threatening that government's power) be authoritarian? Let's take the second amendment in the states for an example. The right to bear arms is meant to stop oppressive government but you cannot purchase anti-aircraft or anti-tank or anti-anything-really weapons. So, the…
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Indeed, one could consider machine learning an authoritarian technology if given power over individuals. AI's fundamental problem is it winds-up being a "results oriented" approach where individuals characteristics are weighed by black-box systems and the individual is judged without any recourse or even any exact idea what the criteria is.
Well, we’re judged by human brains every day, which are even more opaque.
In modern society, the decisive things determining life-direction are determined by human ostensibly using objective criteria. Educators have conditions for grades, bosses write progress reports, courts use etc. This situation is term bureaucratic society and the rule of law.
Authoritarianism is one kind of interaction that we all know - when an individual can issue orders without recourse. There's everything from abusive bosses to dictators here. It's a common part of human relations too, just a less desirable side.
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Total fantasy. As is the combination of words "AI" -what people really mean is "a data scientist coded up a classifier."
have you seen alphastar beat a professional starcraft 2 player? that is a system making decisions with imperfect information and a dynamic opponent. i guess you could call it a classifier but it is a complex one that can make some great decisions
The opponent is never able to change the rule set itself. Motivated attackers will target the AI itself, or its drones.
Effectively autonomous vehicles are not there yet - when the first real war with these things happens, the evolutionary hacking and counter hacking cycle is going to be ridiculous, if they ever get deployed.
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Dont worry about robots and self driving tanks. That I can assure you, will not happen. Any one still selling that is selling a pipe dream. The acid test for self driving cars is whether they can drive down a road in India or any other country where people don't have western stands of driving discipline. The worse the better. HOWEVER, And this is the idea I would pursue and sell to authoritarian governments everywher…
Self driving tanks don't seem particularly useful, but how about autonomous drones that swoop in to take out specific targets. Perhaps these targets are identified by running face recognition on a network of cameras that span a city. What if the targets are chosen by an algorithm that monitors social media and uses unknown criteria to determine each person's probability of being an enemy of the state?
I mean, the drones have to kill people in the first place, so if they end up doing that its a feature not a bug.
Drones are still relatively easier than tanks or cars which have to obey rules of traffic and interaction in day to day use.
Flying killer autonomous drones don't have to follow high way rules, or worry about many cases that civilian life throws up.
Perhaps this is my pessimistic view but wouldn't any government that monitors it's civilians for a potential of being "against" the government (thus, threatening that government's power) be authoritarian? Let's take the second amendment in the states for an example. The right to bear arms is meant to stop oppressive government but you cannot purchase anti-aircraft or anti-tank or anti-anything-really weapons. So, the…
I think maybe you’re comparing “open society” to utopia. There will always be bad actors that have to be accounted for and handled in some way. What is bad and how bad is always up for debate, but their existence will always be with us. In my opinion that requires lists. I do agree that most countries including the US have gone too far from what I’ve read.