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Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

nature.com

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Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#41

Post by rosegold »

high_derivative wrote: post #15

My highly cynical take as someone researching in ML is that all these interdisciplinary AI studies, AI policy, etc are mostly grifters trying to get in on the gold-rush. What has AI policy produced so far, really? Algorithm analysis and safety research is done on the algorithmic side, not on the policy side. Every time I have read an AI policy paper, it has been listings of desirable properties with absolutely no inp…

Perhaps this meets your requirements for valuable policy research https://distill.pub/2019/safety-needs-social-scientists/

Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#42

Post by sgt101 »

high_derivative wrote: post #15

My highly cynical take as someone researching in ML is that all these interdisciplinary AI studies, AI policy, etc are mostly grifters trying to get in on the gold-rush. What has AI policy produced so far, really? Algorithm analysis and safety research is done on the algorithmic side, not on the policy side. Every time I have read an AI policy paper, it has been listings of desirable properties with absolutely no inp…

Have you looked at the list of authors on the paper? If you are not familiar with these people and their work then I suggest that you do some reading and thinking.

I have an experience to share. I was there at the start of the web in the sense that I was building early web servers. I contributed nothing, but I was very excited and interested - as were tens of thousands of Computer Scientists.

I did not imagine any of the negative consequences of the web that have emerged. Very few people did. The community was blindsided, and I think that we have a reasonable excuse, just as a person t-boned on a junction has a reasonable excuse. We didn't see it coming, and it had never happened to us before.

With AI the fears and concerns raised in the media are mostly stupid, but there are genuine potential societal harms in terms of loss of freedom, dignity and opportunity that could easily arise if we don't set the system to favour human values over commercial and state ones.

We will not have the excuse of ignorance and surprise this time, and so I salute informed, reasonable and open people who are making the effort to engage with these issues.

Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#43

Post by return1 »

sgt101 wrote: post #42
high_derivative wrote: post #15

My highly cynical take as someone researching in ML is that all these interdisciplinary AI studies, AI policy, etc are mostly grifters trying to get in on the gold-rush. What has AI policy produced so far, really? Algorithm analysis and safety research is done on the algorithmic side, not on the policy side. Every time I have read an AI policy paper, it has been listings of desirable properties with absolutely no inp…

Have you looked at the list of authors on the paper? If you are not familiar with these people and their work then I suggest that you do some reading and thinking. I have an experience to share. I was there at the start of the web in the sense that I was building early web servers. I contributed nothing, but I was very excited and interested - as were tens of thousands of Computer Scientists. I did not imagine any of…

And did your early experience make you "foresee" the future negative developments? Reading back into those days, the biggest fear seems to be the loss of jobs and human isolation, nobody predicted privacy. Making highly speculative policy predictions and then basing decisions upon them runs the risk of attacking the wrong problems at the wrong time or retarding progress for the wrong reasons.

Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#45

Post by jononor »

randcraw wrote: post #9

It's not clear to me how this "field" of study is any different from existing academic analyses of automation or computing. AI doesn't change what computers do; it affects only how it's done. The problems inherent in automation are as old as windmills, falling water, and certainly electricity. Sure, a few modern fields are affected more than others, but improving voice recognition or visual object identification comp…

When electricity first came about, it also 'just changed how things were done', a better way to do what we did with diesel and lamp-oil. But the consequences to society over time were much bigger than just more light...

Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#46

Post by sgt101 »

return1 wrote: post #43
sgt101 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at the list of authors on the paper? If you are not familiar with these people and their work then I suggest that you do some reading and thinking. I have an experience to share. I was there at the start of the web in the sense that I was building early web servers. I contributed nothing, but I was very excited and interested - as were tens of thousands of Computer Scientists. I did not imagine any of…

And did your early experience make you "foresee" the future negative developments? Reading back into those days, the biggest fear seems to be the loss of jobs and human isolation, nobody predicted privacy. Making highly speculative policy predictions and then basing decisions upon them runs the risk of attacking the wrong problems at the wrong time or retarding progress for the wrong reasons.

Yes, there are risks in foresight and avoidance. Drivers can swerve into oncoming traffic and so forth. However I posit that for every driver that swerves into danger there are scores or more who swerve out of harm's way.

The point of my post was that I did not foresee, nor did almost anyone, but we were idealistic and as a community we had not had the pervasive impact that Computer Science has now had on people's lives. We now have a far greater resource, experience and responsibility to innovate responsibly and with care. Delinquent and careless research that creates harm is unacceptable.

Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#47

Post by radarsat1 »

notbob wrote: post #38
currymj wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a common pattern I see in papers written by people on the technical side is: "The correct way of ensuring algorithmic fairness is X" where X is something they already happened to work on. In various papers X could be robust optimization, differential privacy, causal inference, adversarial training, etc. The papers are mostly good, actually, but it's sort of putting the cart before the horse. I think there might be le…

> The papers are mostly good, actually Not surprising. Computer scientists have a bit of experience with computation, after all. It would actually be more concerning if a bunch of new stuff was being invented whole cloth. > but it's sort of putting the cart before the horse. Not at all. ML algorithms are just fucking algorithms and computer scientists have been thinking about what it means for an algorithm to be corr…

Ah yes those money grubbing philosophers.

Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#48

Post by scottlocklin »

currymj wrote: post #12
okintheory wrote: post #11

I get worried when I see something like this. I'm inclined to believe a substantial number of researchers are currently being deliberately fuzzy about what "AI" can and cannot do. Why not call it algorithms and statistics? I think lay-people have a very skewed understanding of what has already been achieved through AI. They may also not understand the word algorithms but at least it doesn't make them think of Skynet.…

most actual researchers are entirely sick of the hype and are desperately trying to correct it, to no avail. i think laypeople just have a strong desire to get overexcited about AI and nothing is going to stop them.

Laypeople only have this desire because of endless marketing and propaganda by companies like IBM, Tesla and Google, uncorrected by people who should know better.

There is no "AI" and anyone who uses that term is mentally ill or selling snake oil.

Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#49

Post by bigred100 »

high_derivative wrote: post #15

My highly cynical take as someone researching in ML is that all these interdisciplinary AI studies, AI policy, etc are mostly grifters trying to get in on the gold-rush. What has AI policy produced so far, really? Algorithm analysis and safety research is done on the algorithmic side, not on the policy side. Every time I have read an AI policy paper, it has been listings of desirable properties with absolutely no inp…

Regardless of whether it’s done well, it needs to be done to direct government funding towards these things. That’s how science works these days.

Re: Researchers propose a new interdisciplinary subfield called “Machine Behaviour”

#50

Post by bigred100 »

high_derivative wrote: post #15

My highly cynical take as someone researching in ML is that all these interdisciplinary AI studies, AI policy, etc are mostly grifters trying to get in on the gold-rush. What has AI policy produced so far, really? Algorithm analysis and safety research is done on the algorithmic side, not on the policy side. Every time I have read an AI policy paper, it has been listings of desirable properties with absolutely no inp…

I don’t mean to sound entirely too rude, but I want to ask the following hypothetical question. You are working at a research lab at a research university. You need to hire someone who is going to help you do research on new techniques for interpretable machine learning. Do you hire

1. Someone with extensive knowledge of machine learning, and a much smaller (but existent) interest in the societal importance of interpretability

Or

2. A policy guy who knows tons about why these things should be interpretable, but has a very limited knowledge of machine learning?

Now, let’s say the position is policy relating to machine learning. Do you hire

1. The guy with extensive knowledge of policy who knows something of machine learning

Or

2. The guy with extensive knowledge of ML who knows a bit of policy?

It just seems like common sense, and it’s hard not to read a lot of comments as high ego engineers arguing that their tribe needs more sinecures and special treatment

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