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Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

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Re: Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

#161
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not trivializing risks. I’m characterizing output. These systems aren’t theoretical anymore. They’re used by hundreds of millions of people daily in one form or another. What are these teams accomplishing? Give me a concrete example of a harm prevented. “Pen is mightier than the sword” is an aphorism.

oh, these teams are useless bureaucratic busybodies that only mask the real issue: ai is explosively powerful, and nobody has the slightest clue on how to steward that power and avoid the pain ai will unfortunately unleash.

Sounds more like a religion than a well-defined business objective.

Re: Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

#162

Because Meta is releasing their models to the public, I consider them the most ethical company doing AI at scale. Keeping AI models closed under the guise of “ethics”, is I think the most unethical stance as it makes people more dependent on the arbitrary decisions, goals, and priorities of big companies, instead being allowed to define “alignment” for themselves.

Meta’s products have damaged and continue to damage the mental health of hundreds of millions of people, including young children and teenagers. Whatever their motivation to release models, it’s a for-profit business tactic first. Any ethical spin is varnish that was decided after the fact to promote Meta to its employees and the general public.

Meta? What about Snap? What about Tinder? Youtube?

Do you have a bone to pick with Meta, the whole internet, or the fact that you wish people would teach their kids how to behave and how long to spend online?

Re: Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hey, if we want alcohol to be made responsibly, everyone should have their own still, made from freely redistributed blueprints. Anyone who wants to can, in fact, find blueprints for making their own still. For example, https://moonshinestillplans.com/ contains plans for a variety of different types of stills and guidance on which type to build based on how you want to use it. And in fact I think it's good that thi…

it's very easy to build a still that appears to work but actually leaves you with a high-methanol end product. Is it? I've always seen concern about methanol in moonshine but I presume it came from intentional contamination from evil bootleggers. It's difficult to get a wash containing enough methanol to meaningfully concentrate in the first place if you're making whiskey or rum. Maybe with fruit wine and hard cider…

there’s no reason bootleggers would attempt to deliberately kill customers, at most you can argue about potential carelessness but in contrast there was indeed one party deliberately introducing methanol into the booze supply.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972336/#:~:tex....

Re: Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

#165
The responsibility of AI should lie in the hands of users, but right now , no company is even close to giving AI users the power to shape their product in responsible ways. The legal system already covers for these externalities, and all attempts at covering their ass have resulted to stupider and less useful systems.

They are literally leaking more and more users to the open source models because of it. So, in retrospect, maybe it would be better if they didn't disband it.

Re: Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

#166
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh, these teams are useless bureaucratic busybodies that only mask the real issue: ai is explosively powerful, and nobody has the slightest clue on how to steward that power and avoid the pain ai will unfortunately unleash.

Sounds more like a religion than a well-defined business objective.

not entirely sure what you refer to, but here's a possibly flawed and possibly unrelated analogy: while our nervous systems depend on low intensity electric fields to function, subjecting them to artificial fields orders of magnitude more intense is well documented to cause intense pain, and as the intensity increases, eventually to death by electrocution. i submit that, sadly, we are going to observe the same phenomenon with intelligence as the parameter.

Re: Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the same as a legal team, another point you touch upon ? I don't think we solved the need for a specialized team dealing with legality, feels hard to expect companies to solve it for ethics.

We haven't formalized ethics to the point of it being a multiplayer puzzle game for adults.

Isn't that what religion in general, and becoming a Doctor of Theology in particular, is?

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

Re: Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

#169

Meta cannot be both referee and player on the field. Responsible schmenponsible. True oversight can only come from a an independent entity. These internal committees are Kabuki theater.

I genuinely believe they were protecting themselves from another PR nightmare like the early lack of privacy settings by creating these teams, the teams became to onerous saying no to everything and got axed. I don't think it was theater as much as them shooting themselves in the foot.

Re: Meta disbanded its Responsible AI team

#170

AI is a tool, and there's about as much point as having some team fretting about responsible usage as there is having similar notions in a Bazooka manufacturer. Whoever ultimately owns the AI (or the Bazooka) will always dictate how and where the particular tool is used. Many of these AI Ethics foundations (e.g., DAIR), just seem to advocate rent seeking behavior, scraping out a role for themselves off the backs of o…

Why are weapons factories regulated and their exports very limited then?
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