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Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

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Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#131

Post by trutannus »

joe_the_user wrote: post #112
trutannus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A business can't lock you in a prison cell. I'd argue that the checks and balances at this point are little more than a mirage. Ruling by fiat is becoming more common, accountability less so. Government use of AI is far more menacing to me than a business using it.

Ruling by fiat is becoming more common, accountability less so. Well, PG&E cut down a whole bunch of trees in my town just recently, against the objections of the locals and the city council. And Judge Alsop, who supervises their bankruptcy chided them for this slap-dash, crude effort to show they were doing thing (didn't stop them, darn it). So you see a bunch of actions that look like the state or industry acting b…

> look like the state or industry acting by fiat

The propensity of leaders to rule by executive order, or cabinet bill is what I'm getting at. Those sorts of actions are most certainly ruling by fiat.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#132

Post by 8fGTBjZxBcHq »

tiborsaas wrote: post #37
8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean I don't think the damn NSA or whatever the EU has for that is going to stop doing whatever they're already planning to do with AI.

And I absolutely could not care less about "great companies rising" either now or hypothetically in the future.

Some applications of AI tech are very clearly MORALLY WRONG and cause harm. Currently that harm is limited because the reach of these tools is limited and that is the only thing holding them back from doing worse.

If companies need that dynamic to rise and be great then they can just not as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#133

Post by jariel »

someguy321 wrote: post #111
tomp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've seen ways AI can allow discrimination through the back door. Do you have any concrete examples of these, in particular where the use of statistics or AI enables more discrimination than using human decisions?

One I can think of off the top of my head (statistics, not AI, although AI would also allow it) is that the actuarial calculations for home/car insurance quotes rely on risk data by zip code, education level, income, and any and all other socioeconomic variables not including protected class, but which often correlate/group by protected class, and which are also reliable indicators of risk. Depending on who you talk…

Yes - and you've just proven the folly of this entire exercise -> those algorithms have nothing to do with AI!

If the government believes that credit risk systems cannot use 'race' as a factor, then they ought to reaffirm that.

They shouldn't be restricting broad use of a technology.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#134

Post by watwut »

livueta wrote: post #64
ncallaway wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no such thing as a net-negative technology Explain to me the benefits of a gatling gun, other than being a more effective tool for killing humans. Is all of humanity really better off for all those that have been killed by this invention? That's a lot of deaths that start out as a massive negative balance against. Tell me the overall improvement to society that the gatling gun brought us that was "worth" t…

Lethality of weaponry has a significant impact on how battles are fought, where increasing lethality generally means fewer participants and, counterintuitively, fewer deaths: https://acoup.blog/2021/02/26/fireside-friday-february-26-20... is a decent discussion. There's obviously some lag (the bloodiness of WWI) but overall yes, in a weird way, the Gatling gun and other weapons like it are part of why you're a lot le…

WWII was even bloodier then WWI.

The obvious difference between current draftee and Napoleon one is that Napoleon set up to conquer other coutries. The peace time draftee is going to have lower mortality.

Napoleon was literally the aggressor.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#135

Post by watwut »

908B64B197 wrote: post #61
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.

Am-I the only one that finds is odd how the British government brags about Alan Turing after what they did to him? The man saved women, men, children, of all races and orientations from an horrible end. I wish the British government had extended the favor to Turing himself.

That is literally what happens with historical figures everywhere. Americans now celebrate Martin Luther King for example.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#136

Post by visarga »

ncallaway wrote: post #41
quotemstr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> to algorithms that notice true but politically inconvenient I don't know that I agree that there exists an algorithm that can determine what is factually true, so I'm not sure I agree that an algorithm can "notice a true thing". Do you have an example of when an algorithm noticed something that was objectively true but was shut down? Can you explain how the algorithm took notice of the fact that was objectively tru…

For example gender stereotyping for jobs or personal traits, that is politically incorrect but nevertheless reflects the corpus of training data. (He is smart. She is beautiful. He is a doctor. She is a homemaker.)

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#137

Post by iR5ugfXGAE »

neilparikh wrote: post #118
joe_the_user wrote: post #94

The listed examples seem reasonably good. * systems which establish priority in the dispatching of emergency services * systems determining access to or assigning people to educational institutes * recruitment algorithms * those that evaluate credit worthiness * those for making individual risk assessments * crime-predicting algorithms While I'd also like to see autonomous military devices banned, banned AI that make…

I think the tradeoff is that at least the AI discrimination is systemized, and there's one place you can manipulate to reduce that discrimination, while with pre-AI human discrimination, it's not at one place, so it's harder to eliminate. As an example, it's the difference between being rejected by a central agent for a loan, versus going to your local branch, and being rejected by a random employee at the local bran…

*It's obviously much easier to change the random employee than it is to change the central agent.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#138

Post by visarga »

aftbit wrote: post #71
quotemstr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not 100% sure what the parent is talking about, but my first thought is the predictive policing algorithms used in some jurisdictions to set bail and make parole decisions. My hazy understanding of the controversy is that these algorithms have "correctly" deduced that people of color are more likely to reoffend, thus they set bail higher or refuse release on parole disproportionately. At one fairly low level this alg…

> completely blind to the larger societal context and the structural racism that contributes to the racial makeup of convicted criminals

What happens if you and others have conflicting views on the "larger societal context"? Who wins, obviously you because you are right?

AI has become political football now and everyone with an issue finds an AI angle. In all this game few are actually interested in AI itself.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#139

Post by ArkanExplorer »

joe_the_user wrote: post #94

The listed examples seem reasonably good. * systems which establish priority in the dispatching of emergency services * systems determining access to or assigning people to educational institutes * recruitment algorithms * those that evaluate credit worthiness * those for making individual risk assessments * crime-predicting algorithms While I'd also like to see autonomous military devices banned, banned AI that make…

Presumably politicians fear an independent AI that would make technically correct but politically incorrect decisions in all of those categories.

Re: Europe seeks to limit use of AI in society

#140

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

tomp wrote: post #113
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be "more"?

Parent mentioned that AI is used to sneak in discrimination through the back door , implying that discrimination wouldn’t be there (or there would be less) without AI.

The OP mentioned "AI that makes opaque life-changing decisions". In that context, "through the back door" was more likely meant in the sense of "without anyone noticing".

It doesn't really matter if there is "less" discrimination without AI. While AI is not there, there is no discrimination from AI. If there is some after introducing AI, then it's a problem with AI.

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