Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#71

Post by sbuttgereit » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #52

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms" -Aristotle

Aristotle also believed that some men were supposed to be slaves and that women held no intellectual value. So he can be wrong about things too.

So are you suggesting that if someone was mistaken in one line of reasoning or idea, that they are necessarily wrong on all?

If not... what's your point caller? All I can see in your statement is someone trying to avoid challenging an idea they don't like on its merits.

Actually, I'm surprised at how many participants in public discourse today, especially amongst the so called "educated" classes, actually are willing to make such arguments with a straight face and even give them credence. All it is is ad hominem... a logical fallacy. Shameful state of affairs. (...and maybe it was never different and I'm just noticing more now...)

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#72

Post by matz1 » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #70

matz1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy work just fine. It might not what you want but what if the current youtube recommendation system is what I want ? In democracy people like me should still get equal power to decide. There are no right or wrong outcome in democracy.

No system of decision-making can survive a high level of misinformation. In the case of democracy that means you might be happy and placated, but you won’t have any control no matter how often you vote.

>that means you might be happy and placated

Maybe some people do fine with that, even though to some other people perspective they call it illusion.

I don't really care if my happiness is perceived as "illusion" by some other people as long as I my self consider it happy.

as long as these people still allowed to vote, its fine to me. They may vote for "stupid" decision but democracy should still allow for that.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#73

Post by ben_w » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #72

ben_w wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No system of decision-making can survive a high level of misinformation. In the case of democracy that means you might be happy and placated, but you won’t have any control no matter how often you vote.

>that means you might be happy and placated Maybe some people do fine with that, even though to some other people perspective they call it illusion. I don't really care if my happiness is perceived as "illusion" by some other people as long as I my self consider it happy. as long as these people still allowed to vote, its fine to me. They may vote for "stupid" decision but democracy should still allow for that.

That’s not what I mean. When you have enough disinformation, democracy has no more effect than a video game — vote for the party that you think will lower taxes, they get in, taxes go up because that’s what they actually promised and you didn’t know.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#74

Post by microcolonel » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

silveroriole wrote: post #49

microcolonel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jordan Peterson... That got old last year. No, it did not. By some takes, society is in its most dire crisis ever and he's telling people they can do something other than panic. That's popular, get over it.

What is he telling people they can do? Other than stand up straight and ignore the crisis until they’ve cleaned their rooms? (I’ve already read the book.)

What on Earth do you think broken people, coiled up in self-pity are going to do to alleviate a crisis?

Who do you think the book is for? Successful, productive people who know why they wake up in the morning?

If you had nothing to learn nothing from his mass-market self-help book, good for you! Congratulations on being well-adjusted.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#75

Post by matz1 » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #73

matz1 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that means you might be happy and placated Maybe some people do fine with that, even though to some other people perspective they call it illusion. I don't really care if my happiness is perceived as "illusion" by some other people as long as I my self consider it happy. as long as these people still allowed to vote, its fine to me. They may vote for "stupid" decision but democracy should still allow for that.

That’s not what I mean. When you have enough disinformation, democracy has no more effect than a video game — vote for the party that you think will lower taxes, they get in, taxes go up because that’s what they actually promised and you didn’t know .

In democracy, each party is free to influence/convince their voters. If you vote for lying politician then thats your failure and the failure of other politician to better convince their constituent.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#76

Post by ksaj » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

AzzieElbab wrote: post #29

pjc50 wrote: post #11

There's a lot to be said for this line of argument. The stupidity of the Youtube recommendation engine has wrecked Brazilian politics, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-br... (The deliberate construction of an AI that pays people to produce lies to damage other people's health and welfare sounds like a farfetched science fiction plot. Accidentally building one, and then trying to…

There is a lot to be said about stupidity of yt algorithm that is basically designed to give you more of the same. However, nyt's nostalgia about the times when they could simply deplatform whoever they do not see fit, is in the league of its own

However it works, it seems everybody's YouTube search patterns always go directly to Top 10 lists of whatever things you supposedly didn't know.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#77

Post by rapunkill » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

jddj wrote: post #46

I used Google Translate yesterday to translate a french phrase to english and got something like: "It's better to be alone than to be in bad comapny ". I looked around for a Duolingo-style "report bad translation", "rate" or "give feedback" action but couldn't find one anywhere on that screen. Artificial stupidity seems like a natural step on the way to artificial intelligence, but we would likely benefit from buildi…

If you're in a browser the "send feedback" is at the bottom right in italic.

If you're using the application it's hamburger button, "help & feedback" then "Feedback" will be located at the top right.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#78

Post by ben_w » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #75

ben_w wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what I mean. When you have enough disinformation, democracy has no more effect than a video game — vote for the party that you think will lower taxes, they get in, taxes go up because that’s what they actually promised and you didn’t know .

In democracy, each party is free to influence/convince their voters. If you vote for lying politician then thats your failure and the failure of other politician to better convince their constituent.

“Your failure”? Do you believe you can spot disinformation with any reliability? When that misinformation constitutes the majority of all that you think you know about the issues you base your votes on?

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#79

Post by skummetmaelk » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

sbuttgereit wrote: post #71

UncleMeat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aristotle also believed that some men were supposed to be slaves and that women held no intellectual value. So he can be wrong about things too.

So are you suggesting that if someone was mistaken in one line of reasoning or idea, that they are necessarily wrong on all? If not... what's your point caller? All I can see in your statement is someone trying to avoid challenging an idea they don't like on its merits. Actually, I'm surprised at how many participants in public discourse today, especially amongst the so called "educated" classes, actually are willing…

It is of course true that arguments should be evaluated on their own merits. However, we rarely have time to do that, and so we trust authoritative thinkers based on their record of producing good reasoning. The commenter who quoted aristotle invoked his authority to lend credibility to the quoted statement. You would have discarded this statement unless it was shown as a quote of airstotle. The next commenter reduced the authority of Aristotle by calling his record of good reasoning into question.

When appeal to authority is invoked, it is perfectly reasonable to question the validity of said authority.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#80

Post by matz1 » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #78

matz1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In democracy, each party is free to influence/convince their voters. If you vote for lying politician then thats your failure and the failure of other politician to better convince their constituent.

“Your failure”? Do you believe you can spot disinformation with any reliability? When that misinformation constitutes the majority of all that you think you know about the issues you base your votes on?

Yes, it maybe be very very hard to sport disinformation but that's still my failure and the failure of other politician that fail to convince me.

Not the failure of democracy.