AI... A new dawn, or the demise of humanity ?

[crazycells]

@phenomlab let’s remember the legend

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/technology/microsoft-created-a-twitter-bot-to-learn-from-users-it-quickly-became-a-racist-jerk.html

[phenomlab]

@crazycells Hmm - that link doesn’t seem to work…?

[crazycells]

@phenomlab hmm, since the url contains the word j e r k , it is not clickable…

[crazycells]

@phenomlab the last 4 letters before the html should be j e r k but it is converted to * by the forum filter…

here is the shortened url: https://bit.ly/3TD7zyC

[crazycells]

well, it is not surprising… I do believe that human are inherently racist , due to the extension of xenophobia coded in our DNA… But we have “public education” to overcome this and teach young generations tolerance and indulgence; and teach them how a 21st century society should function…

This racism can be observed directly or indirectly in all products throughout the history, and if AI is trained with these written materials, of course it will learn to be racist or at least be biased.

And I am not talking about racism against blacks only… We have much more than this… I just watched Cabrini two days ago and loved the movie (definitely recommend). I was surprised to see the intolerance and racism against Italians by Irish and English in early 1900s in New York.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14351082/

[phenomlab]

@crazycells yes, sadly, we live in a world where racism is present in all walks of life, not excluding the Internet where it is arguably the worst purely because of the ability to remain anonymous and hide behind a keyboard.

If this is what large scale language models are using for enrichment, then it’s no wonder we’ve landed up here.

[phenomlab]

@crazycells Seems this link requires you to sign up for NY times. Adding the below to replace it

https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

[crazycells]

@phenomlab oh right, thanks… i forgot ny times is like that…

[phenomlab]

@crazycells said in AI... A new dawn, or the demise of humanity ?:

i forgot ny times is like that…

Yeah, seems the days of the freebie are long gone

[crazycells]

@phenomlab yeah, unfortunately… even, most of the time, worse that signing up… now every company is trying to be downloaded as an app to your phone if you want to get some discounts or promotions etc.

one very good thing apple did was preventing all these apps harvest our data and sell/use them… one of the most prominent example being facebook… https://www.vox.com/recode/22929715/facebook-apple-ads-meta-privacy

[phenomlab]

@crazycells The one thing that REALLY pushes my buttons is the ad-blocker warning page that repeatedly asks you to disable it to read the content. Nope - not happening. It’s for that same reason as to why you’ll never need a popup blocker on Sudonix.

[crazycells]

@phenomlab yes, the same for me, I just close the tab and do not read anything when I see those on the page… I think people are becoming more privacy-conscious… and websites have to understand that they are not indispensable…

I also feel those warnings are very disregardful, so we do not use those either

[phenomlab]

@crazycells Exactly. I have an adblocker for a reason, and asking me to turn it off is almost like asking a police officer to remove their bullet proof vest. These products exist for a reason and I’m not willing to negate my own security to read an article I can get for free elsewhere without having to lower any defences.

[phenomlab]

https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-neuralink-shows-first-brain-chip-patient-playing-chess-13098957

There’s a reference in this article to “Cyborgs are the future”…

Marvel at Noland. He is a cyborg, part human, part machine. And he is the future.

Take from that what you will…

[crazycells]

[phenomlab]

@crazycells Now isn’t that a frightening concept!

[crazycells]

@phenomlab well, I am happy for him (the 29 years old patient). Currently, I do not see this being used any other form, it has been and will be very beneficial for people who are paralyzed after birth and only lost control of their muscles afterbirth although their brain can generate the required signal… This company has just left the cords aside and did everything wirelessly…

If they have any other use case, they have to show us first… I know they aim high, but the success rate in these things are very low, so I hope they improve its applications, and others can benefit…

I also wish Elon was not involved in this, because he became synonymous with “fraud” and not many people will trust him…

[phenomlab]

@crazycells said in AI... A new dawn, or the demise of humanity ?:

This company has just left the cords aside and did everything wirelessly

My concern here is the security. Can you imagine the recipient of this device being “hacked”? (in whatever shape or form that would look like - I expect some form of proximity attack would be necessary - rather like NFC)

[crazycells]

@phenomlab you are right, that is a possibility…

is there any way to make these devices one-way transmission only? or that is also not a good solution?

[phenomlab]

@crazycells they’d have to be transmit and receive to work properly I think, so bidirectional.

There would need to be a secret passphrase between the two devices at the very least to secure the communication channel.