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Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

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Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#121

Post by buescher »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #60
GeorgeCurtis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also influences hiring decisions, rental applications, loans, credit scoring, social media feeds, government services and even what news or information we see when we search online. I think, more frighteningly, the potential for it to make decisions on insurance claims and medical care.

There is an underlying assumption there that is certainly incorrect. So many stupid comments about AI boil down to "humans are incredibly good at X, we can't risk having AI do it". Humans are bad at all manner of things. There are all kinds of bad human decisions being made in insurance, health care, construction, investing, everywhere. It's one big joke to suggest we are good at all this stuff.

"Human's aren't perfect at X, so it doesn't matter if an unaccountable person who's plausibly wrong about everything does it or an AI". What's the difference, anyway?

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#122

Post by bluefirebrand »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #60
GeorgeCurtis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also influences hiring decisions, rental applications, loans, credit scoring, social media feeds, government services and even what news or information we see when we search online. I think, more frighteningly, the potential for it to make decisions on insurance claims and medical care.

There is an underlying assumption there that is certainly incorrect. So many stupid comments about AI boil down to "humans are incredibly good at X, we can't risk having AI do it". Humans are bad at all manner of things. There are all kinds of bad human decisions being made in insurance, health care, construction, investing, everywhere. It's one big joke to suggest we are good at all this stuff.

"A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer should never make a management decision"

Quote from an IBM training manual from 1979

Seems just as true and even more relevant today than it was back then

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#123

Post by homebrewer »

guappa wrote: post #97
JimDabell wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge amount of spam never makes it into spam folders; it’s discarded silently.

If you use microsoft outlook most of the spam never makes it into the spam folder because it goes to the inbox. Do you have a source for your somewhat unbelievable claim?

First paragraph, with references:

> by 2014, it comprised around 90% of all global email traffic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#124

Post by sokoloff »

bandrami wrote: post #99
guappa wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use microsoft outlook most of the spam never makes it into the spam folder because it goes to the inbox. Do you have a source for your somewhat unbelievable claim?

Mail server op here: mail exchangers (mine included) absolutely silently drop insane amounts of email submissions without any indication to the sender or the envelope recipient. At most there's a log the operator can look at somewhere that notes the rejection and whatever rules it was based on.

I run a family email server. I’ve worked with a few mail sysadmins trying to diagnose why some of our mail doesn’t get through. Even with a devoted and cooperative admin on the other side, I can absolutely believe that general logging levels are low and lots of mail is silently discarded as we’ve seen that in targeted tests when we both wanted to see the mail and associated log trail.

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#125

Post by sokoloff »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #70
chii wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fear is that by delegating to an ai, there's no recourse if the outcome for the person is undesirable (correctly or not). What is needed from the AI is a trace/line-of-reasoning to which a decision is derived. Like a court judgement, which has explanations attached. This should be available (or be made as part of the decision documentation).

That's also a silly idea. Companies get sued all the time. There is recourse. If you run a bank that runs an AI model to make decisions on home loans and the effect is no black people get a loan, you are going to find yourself in court the exact same way as if you hire loan officers who are a bunch of racists. There is no difference. It is available to the entity running inference. Every single token and all the prob…

I would bet on AI well before humans when it comes to “which of these applications should be granted a home loan?” and then tracking which loans get paid as agreed.

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#126

Post by sokoloff »

roenxi wrote: post #100
kazinator wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad decisions in insurance are, roughly speaking, on the side of over-approving. AI will perform tirelessly and consistently at maximizing rejections. It will leave no stone unturned in search for justifications why a claim ought to be denied.

That isn't what the incentives point too; in a free market the insurers are aligned to accuracy. An insurer who has a reputation of being unreasonable about payouts won't have any customers - what is the point of taking out a policy if you expect the insurer to be unreasonable about paying? It'd take an odd customer to sign up for that. If they over-approve they will be unprofitable because their premiums aren't high…

Medical insurance companies have profits capped by the federal Medical Loss Ratio calculation, requiring them to spend a minimum percent of premiums on care and related activities. That means the more care they approve, the more premiums they can collect if they’re near the cap currently.

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#127

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #102
beloch wrote: post #82

>* "AI decision making also needs to be more transparent. Whether it’s automated hiring, healthcare or financial services, AI should be understandable, accountable and open to scrutiny." You can't simply look at a LLM's code and determine if, for example, it has racial biases. This is very similar to a human. You can't look inside someone's brain to see if they're racist. You can only respond to what they do. If a hu…

Not sure why you used the example of a human when those actually have legal responsibility and, as you suggest, are unique ? Rather, why would LLMs be treated any differently from other machines ? Mass recall of flawed machines (if dangerous enough) is common after all.

Why even look at the LLM? A human deployed it and defers to its advice for decision-making; the problem is in the decision-making process, which is in full control of the human. It should be obvious how to regulate that: be critical of what the human behind the LLM does.

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#128

Post by lotu »

Bjartr wrote: post #31

> Imagine applying for a job, only to find out that an algorithm powered by artificial intelligence (AI) rejected your resume before a human even saw it The article says this like it's a new problem. Automated resume screening is a long established practice at this point. That it'll be some LLM doing the screening instead of a keyword matcher doesn't change much. Although, it could be argued that an LLM would better…

> An algorithm can screw up too of course, but it's a lot harder to show intent, which can affect the damages awarded I think.

I personally think an algorithm would be easier to show intent, or a least willful negligence, it would also magnify the harm. A employee might only make mistakes on occasion, but an algorithm will make it every single time. The benefit of an algorithm is it does not need to be reminded do or not to do something, and it's actions are easier to interrogate than a humans.

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#129

Post by thunky »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #122
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an underlying assumption there that is certainly incorrect. So many stupid comments about AI boil down to "humans are incredibly good at X, we can't risk having AI do it". Humans are bad at all manner of things. There are all kinds of bad human decisions being made in insurance, health care, construction, investing, everywhere. It's one big joke to suggest we are good at all this stuff.

"A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer should never make a management decision" Quote from an IBM training manual from 1979 Seems just as true and even more relevant today than it was back then

That's why you hold the humans that run the computer accountable.

Re: Avoiding AI is hard – but our freedom to opt out must be protected

#130

Post by roenxi »

Coffeewine wrote: post #110
roenxi wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't what the incentives point too; in a free market the insurers are aligned to accuracy. An insurer who has a reputation of being unreasonable about payouts won't have any customers - what is the point of taking out a policy if you expect the insurer to be unreasonable about paying? It'd take an odd customer to sign up for that. If they over-approve they will be unprofitable because their premiums aren't high…

But I expect my insurer to be unreasonable about paying today . It’s just that A) I didn’t choose this insurer, my employer did and on balance the total package isn’t such that I want a new employer and B) I expect pretty much all my available insurance companies to be unreasonable.

I did say "free market"; that is sort of the standard disclaimer to show I'm not talking about madness that is the US healthcare system. Or if you have your employer choosing insurance for you and it isn't health-related then that is kinda weird and I'm not surprised it is going badly.
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