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Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

theregister.com

141–150 of 212 posts

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which makes the comparison of modern anti-AI proponents (like myself) and Luddites even more apt and accurate.

Because life would be so much better if people still had to spin wool and weave cloth by hand, and grow their own food by digging in the earth with no tools. Use whatever means necessary to stop powerful people from exploiting you and stealing the fruits of your labor. If that struggle involves monkeywrenching their machines, so be it. But like any tool, the machines themselves can be used for good or evil. Breaking…

The 700m people suffering from starvation or malnutrition while we produce excess food would probably rather be digging in the earth with no tools if it meant they got fed.

The Luddites wouldn't have been destroying machines if they had insurance that they would also benefit from the machines, rather than see their livelihoods being destroyed while the boss made more money than ever.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#142
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In regards to both the Luddites and the farmers, you seem to forget the most important factor. Food. In the case of the Luddites, it was a literal case of their children being threatened with starvation. "Livelihood" at the time was not fungible. The people affected could not just go apply at another industry. And there were no social services to help them eat during the transition period. As for the farmers, any gov…

The luddites food requirements didn’t provide them with popular support. Similarly US agricultural output could be cut in half without serious negative consequences. Far more corn ends up as ethanol than our food and we export vast quantities of highly subsidized food to zero benefit. Hell ethanol production costs as much in fossil fuels as we get ethanol from it, it’s literally pure wasted effort. Rational policy wo…

Be careful with the assumptions you're making. A risk management strategy, for example, will often appear to be of zero benefit except in the case where shit hits the fan. We can stop feeding cattle, producing ethanol, and whatever else overnight in the event that something happens.

> Rational policy would create a large scale food shortage and then let market forces take over.

Well I'm just going to state that I'm _really_ happy that you're not the one in charge and leave it at that.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#143
post #125
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only places where a 4-way stop has room to make a roundabout are places where there is not enough traffic for it to matter either way. You have clearly never heard of a mini-roundabout. They just work. https://thumbsnap.com/sc/u7J6PdTJ.jpg https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a75806ae5274...

The more I look at that... Isn't that basically just a four-way yield, and the markings are mostly superfluous? You're basically doing the same motions in a regular intersection. I guess that's the point, and the markings are just to give drivers the intuition of treating it like a regular roundabout (yield to your left [or right in the picture]).

It's not necessary to stop if there's no car to the right (as this is left side driving), if there is but it is turning left, or if an oncoming car is turning left or going straight.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have this? In Sweden we have sensors to detect cars, pedestrians and bicycles to shift the lights as appropriate. During rush-hour those features are turned off/discarded in favor of "grid optimized" timings. In Netherlands they prioritize pedestrians and cyclists when it's raining. We also have LED lights in our traffic lights which I've come to understand is a saftey hazard in USA because snow falls somet…

We do have them, but it's so expensive that we only use them on the biggest and busiest intersections. We also switched to LED several decades ago.

Even the small bicycle and pedestrian crossing next to my office in Copenhagen has vehicle (bicycle) sensors.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#145
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The luddites food requirements didn’t provide them with popular support. Similarly US agricultural output could be cut in half without serious negative consequences. Far more corn ends up as ethanol than our food and we export vast quantities of highly subsidized food to zero benefit. Hell ethanol production costs as much in fossil fuels as we get ethanol from it, it’s literally pure wasted effort. Rational policy wo…

Be careful with the assumptions you're making. A risk management strategy, for example, will often appear to be of zero benefit except in the case where shit hits the fan. We can stop feeding cattle, producing ethanol, and whatever else overnight in the event that something happens. > Rational policy would create a large scale food shortage and then let market forces take over. Well I'm just going to state that I'm _…

You may be happy with the current status but it’s actually both risky and expensive.

Risk management means managing risks, there’s plenty of things having more farmland doesn’t actually protect you from. On the other hand having a decade of food protects you from basically everything as you get time to adjust as things change.

Just as an example, meteor strike blocks sunlight and farmland is useless for a few years. Under the current system most of us starve to death. Odds are around 1 in 1 million that it happens in a given lifetime, but countries outlive people start thinking longer term and it becomes more likely.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your first point, "the rule" is location-dependent. And to your second point, that was obviously (to me, at least) implied.

I’ve never seen a four way stop in a region that had traffic on the right can always go regardless of stop time. But I’ve only seen four way stops in a few countries.

[deleted]

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#147

> In a new class of attack on AI systems, troublemakers can carry out these environmental indirect prompt injection attacks to hijack decision-making processes. I have a coworker who brags about intentionally cutting off Waymos and robocars when he sees them on the road. He is "anti-clanker" and views it as civil disobedience to rise up against "machines taking over." Some mornings he comes in all hyped up talking ab…

I mean imagine you are walking in the streets and you see a 9 foot tall humanoid robot walking there. Wouldn't you feel the urge to take it down? Or do you think this is acceptable? Where would you draw the line?

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol the idea that any enforcement to that degree exists in the US is a fiction.

The fact that you used the term "enforcement" here makes me presume you are thinking of criminal consequences. But the grandparent comment talks about civil liability. Certainly if there were injuries at this intersection and they knew who had altered the signage, attorneys would argue liability on the part of the vandal. They'd get settlements if not win cases this way. In addition, if there were serious injuries he…

Oh yeah, if one does it it’s probably not a good idea to leave an indelible note saying “this was done by Rene Wiltord living at 1038 John Doe Way, San Francisco, 94112”. If you do that, there’s a 1% chance you might get in trouble.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#149
post #119
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4-way stops are terrible in general. They train people to think "I stopped, now I can go", which is dangerous when someone confuses a normal stop for a 4-way stop. It also wastes a good bit of energy.

Four way stops are good, in my experience, at intersections with roughly equal (low) traffic load on both (two-lane) roads and relatively high pedestrian traffic. Like in a dense residential urban neighborhood between major commercial thoroughfares, side streets. Traffic is mostly people going to residences with people out and about walking. If it’s only a two way stop drivers will often not yield to pedestrians on t…

> If it’s only a two way stop drivers will often not yield to pedestrians on the free flowing road.

I’m up in Ontario, Canada. You’re not supposed to yield to pedestrians on the free flowing road. The pedestrian at the stop sign stops and waits for a break in traffic.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#150
I would assume/hope that for serious self driving the ML neural net stuff is lower down, doing the messy computer vision work and so on. But the top level is a conventional program written by humans, like an expert system.

Tesla are probably using ML for everything, but also everything they do is a joke so, not really relevant imo.

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