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Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

newyorker.com

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Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#121

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

PeterisP wrote: post #51
at_a_remove wrote: post #7

As always when these topics are brought up with that sense of urgency, I will raise my hand and ask "Whose ethics? Unethical according to who ?"

A particular aspect of this ethical discussion is that the attitudes towards social institutions vary throughout the world, but the science is global - so any ethics criteria (or lack of them) for a conference essentially mean a "forced export" of these attitudes from one place to the rest of the world. For example, right now I personally am considering a particular ML research project in cooperation with our local p…

> “ But I'm happy (or privileged?) to live in a place where I do trust my law enforcement to be on the side of our community,”

May I ask where that is? Because it could not be any location in the US.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#122

Post by ativzzz »

quicklime wrote: post #118
teddyh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Google ethicist? Who critizes something because it could be used for surveillance? The irony is thick .

I'm not sure what you're criticising here. Would you prefer that ethicists at Google don't criticise surveillance? Or do you prefer that Google not hire ethicists?

An ethicist criticizing surveillance yet taking a paycheck from arguably one of the largest (non-Chinese) surveillance machines in the world screams conflict of interest.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#123

Post by ativzzz »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #121
PeterisP wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A particular aspect of this ethical discussion is that the attitudes towards social institutions vary throughout the world, but the science is global - so any ethics criteria (or lack of them) for a conference essentially mean a "forced export" of these attitudes from one place to the rest of the world. For example, right now I personally am considering a particular ML research project in cooperation with our local p…

> “ But I'm happy (or privileged?) to live in a place where I do trust my law enforcement to be on the side of our community,” May I ask where that is? Because it could not be any location in the US.

I would say that the majority of communities in the US side with law enforcement, it's minorities that struggle more with police. The police will uphold the needs of the majority (or the government, which is elected by the majority)

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#125

Post by wwww4all »

AI requires analysis of natural patterns to learn and understand reality. This is unacceptable to far left, since many natural patterns display inconvenient truths.

Therefore, AI research is unacceptable and they are trying to cancel AI research and censor and deplatform AI researchers.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#126

Post by byecomputer »

morpheos137 wrote: post #124

Who should stop journalists who write science fiction as fact? Machines do not have "ethics." AI, in the sense of a conscious, morally culpable agent does not exist.

I'm under the impression that you didn't read the article, as that's not its argument whatsoever. It's about how ethics play too little a part in the design and implementation of AI systems. The blame is placed squarely on the people who write the software, not on the programs themselves.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#127

Post by byecomputer »

Others wrote: post #119
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's to be entirely expected that people who reject the concept of "normal" find themselves at odds with statistical models.

Who are the “they” here? I’m assuming you’re not calling trans people abnormal, right?

It's a joke about normal distributions

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#128

Post by byecomputer »

smitty1e wrote: post #114
djoldman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Therefore, I ask: how does one tell the difference between software that can and cannot surveil?

It's all so much information. "Surveil" is ambiguous.

Wikipedia: "Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing."

Which I think most would agree is the standard definition of surveillance, and I also think the concept of being surveilled comes naturally to most, which is why parties that surveil people make clear efforts to obfuscate the fact that they do so.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#129

Post by jay_kyburz »

pedrosorio wrote: post #105
nradov wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the various social media news feeds actually use a significant amount of AI? I had understood they mostly used simpler, less computationally expensive statistical algorithms.

As usual, it depends on what falls under your definition of AI. What kind of simpler statistical algorithms do you believe are used in news feeds (which do not belong in the "AI" category)?

I don't really consider any machine learning AI, but nobody agrees with me.

Re: Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?

#130

Post by Jiocus »

elihu wrote: post #68
chairmanwow1 wrote: post #4

I find Alex’s comments pretty openly inflammatory and sensationalist. It’s a pretty far throw from a system that predicts a face from a voice to transphobia.

I agree to the extent that labeling something as "transphobic" is a stretch when the researchers probably didn't even think about transgender people at all. Maybe "transinconsiderate" would be a more accurate label? Or Alex could have just said "this research reinforces cultural stereotypes and prejudices in ways that could cause problems for people like me sometime down the line". On the other hand, I think it's leg…

> when the researchers probably didn't even think about transgender people at all

This here is the problem, and public discourse has a solution to the word you're seeking: transinclusive.

"-inclusive" succinctly provides a hint on how to be considerate, while being optimistic.

Hate & phobia issues aside.

Edit: Most research begins describing exactly why the research was undertaken.

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