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US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

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Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#151

Post by groffee »

noir_lord wrote: post #108
club_tropical wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example doesn't match the principles you highlighted. Obviate->remove is replacing a perfect-fit with a generic alternative. "Obviate" was neither a word salad nor complex, it was straight up (marginally) better. This was a tradeoff to appeal to people whose vocabulary is narrow, not improve comprehension.

People reading what I write are frequently users of English as a second language. Expecting most of the English people to know obviate is pushing it, for someone using English as a second language it’s just adding complexity. It’s about aiming where you expect the average reader to be. Because you know the word don’t fall into the trap of assuming everyone else does.

Treating everyone like an idiot is just doing you and them a disservice. The word exists for a reason, use it.

Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#152

Post by matheusmoreira »

RobRivera wrote: post #88
dehrmann wrote: post #8

Plans? I assumed lots of people were already working on this. There's already a lot of training data out there, and I suspect most users can be identified by use of a handful of uncommon trigrams and sentence stats. I know you can recognize things I've written at work because they have real em dashes—people rarely type with those.

I'm a big counter intelligence man, so I love deliberately inserting randomness into potential identification metrics. In the words of martha stewart, it's a good thing

I wonder if there is a way to do that automatically.

Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#153

Post by Shorel »

groffee wrote: post #150
SoftTalker wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do." I would have sworn that was from Elements of Style but apparently it's a Mark Twain quote.

Arguably it's that kind of thinking that's destroyed society. Dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator.

I agree with the sentiment, but in some cases it is not dumbing down but making it clearer.

For me, the gold standard of this is Carl Sagan writings. Beautiful ideas, explained in the clearest language possible.

Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#155

Post by black_puppydog »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #46
lwneal wrote: post #17

The best protection against this type of de-anonymization is to take measures now, while you still have time, to prevent it. It is possible to change the style of one's writing by using a language model which alters the original text in order to create a new piece with a different style. For example, to translate your text into the grandiose and flowing diction of a bygone era, you might consider the project below. […

Tools like this probably fool traditional stylometry, but what about de-anonymization tools that find similar ideas , not writing style? Perhaps most people have boring common ideas they got from others, but the sort of people the US Government is most interested in are likely quirkier than most.

Then they'd literally just go after people because they think they might harbor certain ideas?

"sir you are under arrest for maybe thinking about banning dairy production, which is at conflict with national security. We found an anonymous text online that has the same idea."

Why even bother to come up with a pretext then?

Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#156

Post by Shorel »

noir_lord wrote: post #108
club_tropical wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example doesn't match the principles you highlighted. Obviate->remove is replacing a perfect-fit with a generic alternative. "Obviate" was neither a word salad nor complex, it was straight up (marginally) better. This was a tradeoff to appeal to people whose vocabulary is narrow, not improve comprehension.

People reading what I write are frequently users of English as a second language. Expecting most of the English people to know obviate is pushing it, for someone using English as a second language it’s just adding complexity. It’s about aiming where you expect the average reader to be. Because you know the word don’t fall into the trap of assuming everyone else does.

Many times it's the other way around.

Obviate has several cognates in romance languages, so it is straightforward.

Now, the phrasal verbs that are so obvious to a native speaker, these are the real head-scratchers.

Or street slang. It may sound like dumbing it down to you, but it actually adds complexity for a non-native.

Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#157

Post by black_puppydog »

As someone who expects this to have happened years ago (maybe not under the moniker of AI but who cares) I'm more shocked by the fact that they'd publically announce this. The chilling effects of this will be all too real.

If this works it's pretty much the equivalent of a mandatory state ID on every online interaction. If it doesn't work very well, then it's going to be that, plus the risk of randomly being flagged.

As a society I don't think we have anything to gain from it; it's certainly tech that's put of Pandora's box, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use all our cultural/legal means to prohibit/control it.

Anyone in their basement could build this today, but it only becomes a problem if that person has control over police and intelligence forces. Which means the potential for good regulation is bigger than with other tech.

Edited to add point about regulation

Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#158

Post by vintermann »

black_puppydog wrote: post #157

As someone who expects this to have happened years ago (maybe not under the moniker of AI but who cares) I'm more shocked by the fact that they'd publically announce this. The chilling effects of this will be all too real. If this works it's pretty much the equivalent of a mandatory state ID on every online interaction. If it doesn't work very well, then it's going to be that, plus the risk of randomly being flagged.…

> The chilling effects of this will be all too real.

Maybe that's the point.

It could also be announced because they plan to use it publicly soon, to "prove" that some person they want to get for political reasons is the same as some evil terrorist/pedophile/serial killer.

Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#159

Post by marton78 »

ISO-morphism wrote: post #132
noir_lord wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can probably spot me at work because I use really simple words. I write obviate then I re-read and replace it with “removes the need to do $foo. Some writers at work forget that the goal of the written word is to communicate to the reader not impress them with word salad. I regard it the same as clever code (note: not the same as complex code) - written for the author not the reader.

"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter"

If I had had more time, you mean.

Re: US Government plans to develop AI that can unmask anonymous writers

#160

Post by matheusmoreira »

vmoore wrote: post #48
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone unintentionally did something similar with HN comments to find users who sound most similar to you/eachother and people were finding their throwaway and alt accounts.

Yes I recall that: 'Find Your Hacker News Doppelgänger': https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27568709

That's interesting. I wonder if they will periodically update the data set to reflect new posts.
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