Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 154 posts

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#31

Post by ThomPete »

KineticLensman wrote: post #23
quotemstr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more like banning the production of chlorine gas because someone might put it in an artillery shell --- never mind all the other useful things you can do with chlorine gas. If you want to regulate externalities, regulate externalities: don't ban technology itself.

> don't ban technology itself The EU isn't planning to ban underlying AI technologies, but instead to control its use in applications such as credit worthiness assessment

ai need training data. Its not just a technology play.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#32

Post by ativzzz »

KineticLensman wrote: post #21
quotemstr wrote: post #11

Luddites. If you look at the course of history, every attempt to slow the adoption of new technology has been a disaster for human welfare. This policy move is just like trying to ban the telephone or the printing press.

> every attempt to slow the adoption of new technology has been a disaster for human welfare Counter-example: nuclear non-proliferation treaties.

Maybe if we gave every country nuclear weapons we could stop having proxy wars through poorer/developing countries.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#33

Post by lambda_obrien »

quotemstr wrote: post #19
RankingMember wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. I appreciate the hacker mindset, but when things approach society-altering scale, "just because you can doesn't mean you should" should be the mantra, not "move fast and break things".

And who decides when that "should" condition is met? Over the past few years, I've seen far too many activists react to algorithms that notice true but politically inconvenient things by trying to shut down the algorithms, to pull wool over our eyes, to continue the illusion that things are other than what they are. Why should we keep doing that? I have zero faith in the ability of activists or states to decide when…

> true but politically inconvenient

Wanna give some examples or are you just dog-whistling?

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#34

Post by clownpenis_fart »

ThomPete wrote: post #30

the only outcome of this is that Europe will fall even further behind the US and China. How sad.

Since there have been and will be exactly zero useful ai application anytime soon other than bias laundering (aka "systematic discrimination is ok when a computer does it"), I think it's ok.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#35

Post by dbtc »

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #7
keiferski wrote: post #2

Bonus points if they name the overseeing organization the Turing Police. And if Switzerland goes its own way and allows citizenship for AIs. In all seriousness, I’m not sure if these legal restrictions will actually be effective. They are too broad, vague, and will likely just result in technological stagnation.

My perspective is that our technological advancement has well outpaced our ability to adapt to the changes or bring our legal and social tools effectively to bear on them. A decade or two of stagnation would be frustrating for those in the field but probably overall a good thing. Plus I don't think this would affect research at all so not even.

I agree but I’m not so sure society has that much control. Maybe technology itself (or/and the economy) is in the driver’s seat now. Pun intended!

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#36

Post by noshaker »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #22

Does anybody have a link to the actual draft this article is based on? In my limited experience the proposals by the EU commission are often readable and interesting. I might not agree with them, but I do appreciate that the thought process is made public years before ideas become laws. (As the article states, that is also very much the expectation here.)

Here is the draft https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZaBPsfor_aHKNeeyXxk9uJfTru7...

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#37

Post by tiborsaas »

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #7
keiferski wrote: post #2

Bonus points if they name the overseeing organization the Turing Police. And if Switzerland goes its own way and allows citizenship for AIs. In all seriousness, I’m not sure if these legal restrictions will actually be effective. They are too broad, vague, and will likely just result in technological stagnation.

My perspective is that our technological advancement has well outpaced our ability to adapt to the changes or bring our legal and social tools effectively to bear on them. A decade or two of stagnation would be frustrating for those in the field but probably overall a good thing. Plus I don't think this would affect research at all so not even.

In an arms race it's not the best strategy to take a step back and look at angles. In AI there's an arms race going on and one likely outcome of this might be increased brain drain and even less likelihood of great companies rising in the EU.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#38

Post by Engineering-MD »

clownpenis_fart wrote: post #34
ThomPete wrote: post #30

the only outcome of this is that Europe will fall even further behind the US and China. How sad.

Since there have been and will be exactly zero useful ai application anytime soon other than bias laundering (aka "systematic discrimination is ok when a computer does it"), I think it's ok.

While I don’t necessarily disagree, can you elaborate a bit more? AI is likely to make some significant impacts especially in computer vision applications among others.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#39

Post by WitCanStain »

quotemstr wrote: post #14
mc32 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, what good is technology for the sake of technology if it’s detrimental to people’s well-being? Technology to conquer ills, yes. Technology which alienates people, no. It’s kind of like the goths vs the romans or the inuit vs europeans. Is the value of progress more than the value of self-worth?

How do you know that these technologies are detrimental to people's well-being? Some activists claim that things like facial recognition, ad targeting, and personalized risk scoring are detrimental, but are these activists correct? I don't think so! All these technologies give us new capabilities and allow us to more precisely understand and shape the world. Every single time humanity has gained new abilities --- fro…

> All these technologies give us new capabilities and allow us to more precisely understand and shape the world.

Allow who to shape the world, exactly? Because it's not me, and it's probably not you. Technology gives power to those who control it, and control over face-recognition tech, personalized risk-scoring and ad tech is in the best cases behind several layers of bureaucratic abstraction. Our world is being shaped by megacorporations and governments, not those whose lives these technologies have the potential of having the most negative impact on.

Post reply on HN