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Humanness in the Age of AI

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Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#51

Post by hkt »

notahacker wrote: post #47
hkt wrote: post #27

..why do we suppose an iris scan can't be faked by an AI?

I suspect it's not an especially difficult thing to achieve if you have a big database of iris scans....

Imagine the scene: deep faked irises making bot armies that crypto nerds refuse to acknowledge aren't people.

In fairness, identity is hard, and the idea put forward is ambitious, but the scheme is unlikely to achieve what it purports to. Identity is a social, not biological construct.

In the prison system, for instance, prisoners are often present under assumed names. In some circumstances it is hard for courts to prove who someone is, even if it is nailed on what they did. Some markers (tattoos, scars, etc) help but approaches to identity often miss the innately situational nature of the thing.

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#52

Post by capableweb »

latexr wrote: post #41

Sam Altman is behind both OpenAI and Worldcoin, the latter being a well known scam to gather biometric data. So Sam Altman first creates the situation that we can no longer distinguish humans from bots, then asks everyone to trust him with even more biometric data to get around the problem he created. Either way he wins at everyone else’s expense. I urge you to not take this at face value, Sam has already shown with…

I don't know the exact implementation of Worldcoin, so correct me if I'm wrong here.

But theoretically, you could implement the protocol in a privacy-preserving manner where the only thing that needs to be saved, is the hash of the biometric data, not the biometric data itself.

So lets say that your face + fingerprint + iris each outputs a value. Concat those and hash them, and you have a unique value that can be reproduced elsewhere, without having to store anything else but the actual hash of the input.

Again, I'm not sure if this is what they are doing, but if that's how it works, they wouldn't actually need to gather any biometric data, after creating the hash it can be thrown away.

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#53

Post by capableweb »

wwweston wrote: post #8
calculated wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about when you try to have a social network without bots?

Which social network doesn't have people as the product?

Any social network not run by a for-profit organization. Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) being one, Mastodon being another.

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#54

Post by lezojeda »

latexr wrote: post #41

Sam Altman is behind both OpenAI and Worldcoin, the latter being a well known scam to gather biometric data. So Sam Altman first creates the situation that we can no longer distinguish humans from bots, then asks everyone to trust him with even more biometric data to get around the problem he created. Either way he wins at everyone else’s expense. I urge you to not take this at face value, Sam has already shown with…

[dead]

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#55

Post by capableweb »

hrqay wrote: post #33

OpenAi started out as "open", this venture also uses rhetoric that sounds innocent if one is not used to newspeak. More likely, they want to become the central identity provider for the whole planet and collect as much biometric data as possible. UBI plans may also start out as UBI, but will degrade soon: "Hey, we know that it is supposed to be unconditional, but we are running into financial difficulties. Would you…

OpenAI - A for-profit, closed company acting behind closed doors

WorldCoin - A for-profit, limited liability US-based company (soon only available in the US)

Seems on brand :)

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#56

Post by 50 »

aorth wrote: post #20

Ah, Worldcoin has set up booths at many shopping malls here in Kenya. The first time I saw them a few months ago I was reminded of the "OneCoin" pyramid scam that was big in East Africa a few years ago. https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/20/crypto_ponzi_scheme_c... Worldcoin gives off really similar vibes. The footer of their website reads: > Worldcoin tokens are not intended to be available to people or companies w…

It makes me think of that astonishing line by Susan Sontag: "The [_____] race is the cancer of human history; it is the [_____] race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself."

But also Emil Cioran: "What makes bad [technologists] worse is that they [are steeped only in tech-centric thought] (just as bad philosophers read only philosophers), whereas they would benefit much more from a book of botany or geology. We are enriched [and gain a sensible sense of ethics] only by frequenting disciplines remote from our own. This is true, of course, only for realms where the ego is rampant."

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#57

Post by jt2190 »

latexr wrote: post #41

Sam Altman is behind both OpenAI and Worldcoin, the latter being a well known scam to gather biometric data. So Sam Altman first creates the situation that we can no longer distinguish humans from bots, then asks everyone to trust him with even more biometric data to get around the problem he created. Either way he wins at everyone else’s expense. I urge you to not take this at face value, Sam has already shown with…

> So Sam Altman first creates the situation that we can no longer distinguish humans from bots…

Any time human communication is mediated by technology there’s the chance that the communication is not really what it seems to be. Are we watching live events on TV or a recording of live events or a reenactment of actual events or complete fiction?

In some sense, on the internet everything is already a bot, it’s just that right now the majority of the bots are directed by humans in real time. I fully expect the majority of bots will be semi or fully autonomous in the coming years. (Maybe we’ll stop staring at screens all day.)

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#58

Post by jstanley »

latexr wrote: post #41

Sam Altman is behind both OpenAI and Worldcoin, the latter being a well known scam to gather biometric data. So Sam Altman first creates the situation that we can no longer distinguish humans from bots, then asks everyone to trust him with even more biometric data to get around the problem he created. Either way he wins at everyone else’s expense. I urge you to not take this at face value, Sam has already shown with…

> we can no longer distinguish humans from bots

I was tricked by a machine yesterday. I had to call up the bank because their online banking website had booted me out.

After only a couple of rings, and no hold music, I was straight through to a person! This is unprecedented. The call was something like:

"Hi, you're through to foobank. How can I help you today?"

"Hi, your online banking has locked me out and said I need to call this number to get my account re-enabled."

"No problem. What message do you get when you try to login?"

"Oh, I haven't actually tried to login again, I can try if you want. It just kicked me out and said my account was locked and I need to call to get it re-enabled".

"No problem. If you click the 'reset my password' button under the login form, you'll be able to reset your password."

"I'm not sure that's going to work, but I'll give it a try. It definitely said my account was locked and I need to call to get it re-enabled."

"No problem. If you click the 'reset my password' button under the login form, you'll be able to reset your password."

"...are you a machine?"

"I'm Ava (edit: maybe Ada[0]?), a virtual assistant. Would you like me to put you through to a member of staff?"

"Yes please".

And only then did I get to spend 10 minutes listening to hold music and ads, before a member of staff actually unlocked my account.

I felt stupid and deceived.

[0] https://www.ada.cx/

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#59

Post by germinalphrase »

50 wrote: post #56
aorth wrote: post #20

Ah, Worldcoin has set up booths at many shopping malls here in Kenya. The first time I saw them a few months ago I was reminded of the "OneCoin" pyramid scam that was big in East Africa a few years ago. https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/20/crypto_ponzi_scheme_c... Worldcoin gives off really similar vibes. The footer of their website reads: > Worldcoin tokens are not intended to be available to people or companies w…

It makes me think of that astonishing line by Susan Sontag: "The [_____] race is the cancer of human history; it is the [_____] race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself." But also Emil Cioran: "What makes bad [technologists] worse is that the…

Why censor Sontag’s statement? However people feel about her statement, she chose those words.

Re: Humanness in the Age of AI

#60

Post by jimkleiber »

germinalphrase wrote: post #59
50 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me think of that astonishing line by Susan Sontag: "The [_____] race is the cancer of human history; it is the [_____] race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself." But also Emil Cioran: "What makes bad [technologists] worse is that the…

Why censor Sontag’s statement? However people feel about her statement, she chose those words.

I don't think they were censoring but more so generalizing the statement to more types of races.
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