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

Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

thinkautomation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 95 posts

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#11

Post by pjc50 »

There's a lot to be said for this line of argument. The stupidity of the Youtube recommendation engine has wrecked Brazilian politics, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-br...

(The deliberate construction of an AI that pays people to produce lies to damage other people's health and welfare sounds like a farfetched science fiction plot. Accidentally building one, and then trying to deny responsibility for it, is a far more plausible thing for humans to do to ourselves. Just as Schneier talked about the "Exxon Valdez of privacy", what we have now is the tetraethyl lead of video entertainment.)

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#12

Post by arethuza »

dr_j_ wrote: post #5

Artificial intelligence is certainly no match for natural stupidity..

And real weapons grade stupidity, at least in my experience, tends to be wielded by people who are actually very intelligent in general, but having a bad day or an attack of hubris....

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#13

Post by beobab »

Inu wrote: post #7

One shouldn't underestimate the intelligence of stupidity. It can have its own utility, strength and creativity within certain parameters.

Possibly irrelevant to this discussion (you decide): the level of stupidity in any human undertaking is almost always a) higher than you'd think, and b) pretty constant across all cross-sections of humanity.

Source Carlo M. Cipolla, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley: https://advanced.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/The-Basi...

Despite widespread attempts by humans to eradicate it, it exists everywhere; ignoring race/class/education/gender/orientation/profession or any other sub-division you can think of. You'll find roughly the same amount of stupidity in a gaggle of university professors as you will in a humdrum of railway attendants (I made up those collective terms, in case it wasn't obvious).

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#16

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

pjc50 wrote: post #11

There's a lot to be said for this line of argument. The stupidity of the Youtube recommendation engine has wrecked Brazilian politics, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-br... (The deliberate construction of an AI that pays people to produce lies to damage other people's health and welfare sounds like a farfetched science fiction plot. Accidentally building one, and then trying to…

YouTube recommendations feel like a direct impediment to democracy. When your recommendations consist of the same crap all the time, it may seem as though that stuff carries more weight than it really does.

I wonder to what degree YouTube is responsible for the current political climate.

The same with Twitter really. When you only follow and see posts from people you choose, how are you supposed to give important issues a fair shake and debate viewpoints that different from yours.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#17

Post by 481092 »

pjc50 wrote: post #11

There's a lot to be said for this line of argument. The stupidity of the Youtube recommendation engine has wrecked Brazilian politics, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-br... (The deliberate construction of an AI that pays people to produce lies to damage other people's health and welfare sounds like a farfetched science fiction plot. Accidentally building one, and then trying to…

They should make youtube great again. It used to be that I could watch 911 videos on the anniversary and there'd be real heart-felt personal videos from actual people involved and now most of that's been censored by dramatic conspiratorial junk.

It'd also be great if it didn't recommend for every video I watch, Jordan Peterson on his social justice sprees complaining about the newest thing that he's offended by this week. That got old last year.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#20

Post by jamesmus »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #16
pjc50 wrote: post #11

There's a lot to be said for this line of argument. The stupidity of the Youtube recommendation engine has wrecked Brazilian politics, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-br... (The deliberate construction of an AI that pays people to produce lies to damage other people's health and welfare sounds like a farfetched science fiction plot. Accidentally building one, and then trying to…

YouTube recommendations feel like a direct impediment to democracy. When your recommendations consist of the same crap all the time, it may seem as though that stuff carries more weight than it really does. I wonder to what degree YouTube is responsible for the current political climate. The same with Twitter really. When you only follow and see posts from people you choose, how are you supposed to give important iss…

I think that's a really good point. When I see 'customize your feed' on sites that report the news, what I actually read is 'don't show me stuff that might challenge my preconceptions'. That's exactly what I don't want.
Post reply on HN