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Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

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Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#131

Post by sillysaurusx »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #96
elihu wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree to the extent that labeling something as "transphobic" is a stretch when the researchers probably didn't even think about transgender people at all. Maybe "transinconsiderate" would be a more accurate label? Or Alex could have just said "this research reinforces cultural stereotypes and prejudices in ways that could cause problems for people like me sometime down the line". On the other hand, I think it's leg…

A mistake that a lot of people make when talking about bigotry is assuming it begins and ends with loud angry people yelling slurs. Building a system that genders people based on their voice isn't "inconsiderate" it's just a transphobic thing to do. Systematic biases don't require malice from any individual working within them to perpetuate; but that doesn't make them any less real and doesn't mean that we shouldn't…

It's surprising you're getting hammered for this sentiment, since as far as I can tell, no sentence is mistaken.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#132

Post by dr_dshiv »

The problem with an "AI mindset" is that it tends to focus on the "magical algorithm" parts. A "Cybernetics mindset", by contrast, looks at the broader system of feedback loops. For instance, an AI mindset will look at the ethics of the Youtube recommendation algorithm for optimizing user engagement. A cybernetics mindset will additionally look at the ethics of autoplay.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#133

Post by sillysaurusx »

wwww4all wrote: post #125

AI requires analysis of natural patterns to learn and understand reality. This is unacceptable to far left, since many natural patterns display inconvenient truths. Therefore, AI research is unacceptable and they are trying to cancel AI research and censor and deplatform AI researchers.

I haven't seen evidence of this. There are a few worrying signs that AI is becoming too politicized, but no one is campaigning to ban X researcher for their work. (Yet.)

The most contentious aspect of AI seems to be whether you're trying to generate porn with it, somewhat amusingly. Almost 100% of people who are, are terrified of being found.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#134

Post by aabhay »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #132

The problem with an "AI mindset" is that it tends to focus on the "magical algorithm" parts. A "Cybernetics mindset", by contrast, looks at the broader system of feedback loops. For instance, an AI mindset will look at the ethics of the Youtube recommendation algorithm for optimizing user engagement. A cybernetics mindset will additionally look at the ethics of autoplay.

How does autoplay work without AI?

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#135

Post by whichquestion »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #129
pedrosorio wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual, it depends on what falls under your definition of AI. What kind of simpler statistical algorithms do you believe are used in news feeds (which do not belong in the "AI" category)?

I don't really consider any machine learning AI, but nobody agrees with me.

Some ML algorithms certainly can fall within the category of a narrow AI, as they perform exceptionally well on tasks in a narrow band of functionality.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#136

Post by killjoywashere »

aabhay wrote: post #134
dr_dshiv wrote: post #132

The problem with an "AI mindset" is that it tends to focus on the "magical algorithm" parts. A "Cybernetics mindset", by contrast, looks at the broader system of feedback loops. For instance, an AI mindset will look at the ethics of the Youtube recommendation algorithm for optimizing user engagement. A cybernetics mindset will additionally look at the ethics of autoplay.

How does autoplay work without AI?

I think the question was more about what do you optimize autoplay on if you are worried about ethics.

Convexity trumps understanding.

Method: Randomize exposure to autoplay, associate with other user data.

Now you just have to decide what labels you want to optimize for. Do you value clicks? Complexity of linguistic output? Calories burned? Rate of visitation to white supremicist websites?

All the other data (including autoplay) are festures.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#137

Post by wwww4all »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #133
wwww4all wrote: post #125

AI requires analysis of natural patterns to learn and understand reality. This is unacceptable to far left, since many natural patterns display inconvenient truths. Therefore, AI research is unacceptable and they are trying to cancel AI research and censor and deplatform AI researchers.

I haven't seen evidence of this. There are a few worrying signs that AI is becoming too politicized, but no one is campaigning to ban X researcher for their work. (Yet.) The most contentious aspect of AI seems to be whether you're trying to generate porn with it, somewhat amusingly. Almost 100% of people who are, are terrified of being found.

Article about recent cancellation attempt on Pedro Domingos.

https://quillette.com/2021/01/27/beating-back-cancel-culture...

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#138

Post by bryanrasmussen »

djoldman wrote: post #65
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. How does one distinguish between software that can be used for surveillance and software that cannot? What is the killer app for the technology under discussion? If the killer app is improving camera filters to make more vibrant pictures but it can also be used for surveillance then you do not worry about it being used for surveillance. If however the killer app is surveillance then you worry about it. As a genera…

From the paper's abstract: >In this paper, we study the task of reconstructing a facial image of a person from a short audio recording of that person speaking. I can imagine a potentially interesting application of this that has nothing to do with privacy violation or surveillance (that I can see): What if we could take an audio recording of an ancestor or someone else of interest, for whom we have no pictures, and o…

Generally the killer app for a technology (as I understand the use of the term) is something that is going to earn the creator of the technology lots of money, that basically everyone - either consumers or the members of some specific industry is all going to want that technology and will be willing to pay enough money that the owner of the technology becomes rich.

I can see every police department and government agency paying plenty of money for being able to identify the speaker of a particular sentence in a meeting.

I can see the company with this technology providing services for academic research of the interesting kind you mention for the tax write-offs and also a sort of moral cover, but there is really only one thing I see as their main revenue stream.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#139

Post by ralusek »

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #77

People are already contributing code and resources to the actual catastrophic, existential AI risk du jour, the one that is likely to cause massive political disruption and potentially attendant destruction of value and/or human life: the algorithmic news feed.

Echo chambers and problematic news feeds are completely capable of existing without AI. People are the problem. All you need is a simple algorithm that looks for content that has overlap with content you like, no AI necessary, and that is sufficient for your average person to echo chamber and self radicalize.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#140

Post by 0x008 »

glsdfgkjsklfj wrote: post #41

A.I. is going to be a new wave to legal dark ages. since the 90s everything that involved a computer was not prosecuted because lawefforcement/regulation didn't have the skills, not for lack of laws. But new laws were created spelling out computers. A.I. is the same, it is not nothing different from enforcing existing laws and regulations, but because the agencies lack the skills, we will see a new wave of stupid law…

The problem is that politicians are not trained in every possible domain and don't have the time to really get into the intricacies of, say, Artificial Intelligence. So they have to decide what is allowed by using a simple heuristic - the flow of money and votes of people. As long as people do not complain, money wins. The problem is of course, always, (see climate crisis) that when the people start crying out, the damage is done.
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