5 ms·

Bringing the benefits of AI to everyone... even if its against your will... this will be used for evil. Mark my words. Totaliatrian governments of the future wi

by delbel 9y ago

Bringing the benefits of AI to everyone... even if its against your will... this will be used for evil. Mark my words. Totaliatrian governments of the future will leverage this technology, combined with controlling the populations' political discourse. Don't believe me? It's already happened on a massive scale both last election and recently before that: Facebook Manipulated 689,003 Users' Emotions For Science https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-689003-users-emotions-for-science/#5e96cfc0197c https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook...

naasking 9y ago
But if it's really AI for everyone, then it can be used by the people against their government as well.
- DannyB2 9y ago
  Victory Coffee is for everyone! And the chocolate ration has been increased to 20g this week! (apologies to George Orwell)
- mikeyouse 9y ago
  In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread. There's no comparing the incentives, resources, and potential for harm between the state and citizens.
  - naasking 9y ago
    I think you seriously underestimate the people, and seriously overestimate the government. The point being, the harm the government is doing right now is obscured from the people, but with AI trawling all public data, these issues can be revealed much sooner.
    - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
      I find this naive. One day every 2-4years the govt answers to the people. Every other days is story after story of the govt bending to the will of powerful/wealthy special interests. Giving each side force multipliers doesn't even the playing field, it makes the absolute gap even larger.
      - naasking 9y ago
        Firstly, you're incorrect that the government answers to the people only on elections. They lose plenty in the courts against ordinary citizens. Secondly, your point would be valid if the force multipliers applied equally. This likely isn't true. So which side gains more advantage? If the government could sufficiently obscure their actions such that the data weren't available to analyze, that would give it the advantage. However, the government is constrained by certain transparency requirements that don't apply to citizens, so by default, citizens know more about their representatives than their representatives know about their citizens.
        BoiledCabbage 9y ago
        > Firstly, you're incorrect that the government answers to the people only on elections. They lose plenty in the courts against ordinary citizens. The executive branch losing a court case isn't answering to the people. It's answering to the judicial branch. Being granted explicit permission as a citizen to do something you legally should be allowed to do isn't gaining anything at all. An innocent person being allowed to remain innocent again isn't giving anything to citizens. Those are basic rights.. > If the government could sufficiently obscure their actions such that the data weren't available to analyze, that would give it the advantage The govt already does this across the board. I'm not certain how you could argue otherwise. Taking a issue in the news recently, we still don't have national rates on use of force by the police across the country. As in literally no-one knows what the police is doing because centralized records aren't kept, and every area does it differently. Police departments have fought body cameras. Fought enabling citizens to even see how they are executing their jobs. It was a sliver of data available under Obama (although to his credit, his admin tried to improve it), and yet: https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/14/trump-admin-killing-open-data-portal/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/14/trump-admin-killing-open...
- RubyPinch 9y ago
  Well its "We have made new TPUs for Google Cloud and we probs won't sell them!" Google decides if you are part of the everyone included in their AI for everyone
- ar15saveslives 9y ago
  AI for everyone, data is not.
- bbcbasic 9y ago
  Cool. A civil war.
  - naasking 9y ago
    s/civil war/checks and balances/
enknamel 9y ago
Facebook, Google, Twitter and Reddit are probably the biggest threats to our democracy in the world. They are highly trafficked sites that huge populations get all of their information from. They are also staunchly only in favor of one political party and have been caught abusing their power to favor their political party of choice. Twitter suppresses hashtags, Facebook filters posts, Google only sends news notifications for news they approve of, Reddit openly suppresses subreddits with opposing views.
- colinyoung 9y ago
  > staunchly only in favor of one political party This is empirically not true, especially if you look at the policies of and donations by Google, Twitter, and Facebook. Google donates to both parties; Twitter obviously has a very laissez-faire to the Right's voices, including the POTUS, and its COO recently suggested that if Trump canceled briefings, he could take questions directly on Twitter. And the evidence and rumors continue to swirl about how multiple Republican Party candidates campaigns used Facebook's own incredibly specific ad targeting, which they did not revise until after the election. (cf. Cambridge Analytica, contracted by Cruz and then Trump to "manage" the election outcome.)
  - Clanan 9y ago
    Your examples do not mean much when it comes to actual influence and its use. Google relies on blatantly left-leaning "fact checkers", Schmidt was very active in HRC's campaign, Twitter actively censors Right-leaning hashtags and users [1], Facebook censor(s/ed) conservatives [2]. Do you really think actual censorship and suppression (when claiming otherwise and pretending to be objective) is less important than letting Trump takes questions? [1] http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/303295-how-facebook-twitter-are-systematically-silencing-conservative http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/303295-how-faceb... [2] http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006 http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-supp...
    - bduerst 9y ago
ArchReaper 9y ago
Generic fearmongering isn't adding anything to the discussion.
- ksk 9y ago
  Your opinion of someones comment doesn't ad anything to the discussion either. In any case the linked article is marketing blog, but it got voted up anyway, because Google. So I suppose the discussion is about Google branding and marketing, so their reputation and morality are fair game, IMHO of course.
accountyaccount 9y ago
People get murdered with hammers sometimes too. Not much to be done about it.

by delbel 9y ago

naasking 9y ago

But if it's really AI for everyone, then it can be used by the people against their government as well.

DannyB2 9y ago
Victory Coffee is for everyone! And the chocolate ration has been increased to 20g this week! (apologies to George Orwell)
mikeyouse 9y ago
In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread. There's no comparing the incentives, resources, and potential for harm between the state and citizens.
- naasking 9y ago
  I think you seriously underestimate the people, and seriously overestimate the government. The point being, the harm the government is doing right now is obscured from the people, but with AI trawling all public data, these issues can be revealed much sooner.
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
    I find this naive. One day every 2-4years the govt answers to the people. Every other days is story after story of the govt bending to the will of powerful/wealthy special interests. Giving each side force multipliers doesn't even the playing field, it makes the absolute gap even larger.
    - naasking 9y ago
      Firstly, you're incorrect that the government answers to the people only on elections. They lose plenty in the courts against ordinary citizens. Secondly, your point would be valid if the force multipliers applied equally. This likely isn't true. So which side gains more advantage? If the government could sufficiently obscure their actions such that the data weren't available to analyze, that would give it the advantage. However, the government is constrained by certain transparency requirements that don't apply to citizens, so by default, citizens know more about their representatives than their representatives know about their citizens.
      - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
        > Firstly, you're incorrect that the government answers to the people only on elections. They lose plenty in the courts against ordinary citizens. The executive branch losing a court case isn't answering to the people. It's answering to the judicial branch. Being granted explicit permission as a citizen to do something you legally should be allowed to do isn't gaining anything at all. An innocent person being allowed to remain innocent again isn't giving anything to citizens. Those are basic rights.. > If the government could sufficiently obscure their actions such that the data weren't available to analyze, that would give it the advantage The govt already does this across the board. I'm not certain how you could argue otherwise. Taking a issue in the news recently, we still don't have national rates on use of force by the police across the country. As in literally no-one knows what the police is doing because centralized records aren't kept, and every area does it differently. Police departments have fought body cameras. Fought enabling citizens to even see how they are executing their jobs. It was a sliver of data available under Obama (although to his credit, his admin tried to improve it), and yet: https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/14/trump-admin-killing-open-data-portal/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/14/trump-admin-killing-open...
RubyPinch 9y ago
Well its "We have made new TPUs for Google Cloud and we probs won't sell them!" Google decides if you are part of the everyone included in their AI for everyone
ar15saveslives 9y ago
AI for everyone, data is not.
bbcbasic 9y ago
Cool. A civil war.
- naasking 9y ago
  s/civil war/checks and balances/

enknamel 9y ago

Facebook, Google, Twitter and Reddit are probably the biggest threats to our democracy in the world. They are highly trafficked sites that huge populations get all of their information from. They are also staunchly only in favor of one political party and have been caught abusing their power to favor their political party of choice. Twitter suppresses hashtags, Facebook filters posts, Google only sends news notifications for news they approve of, Reddit openly suppresses subreddits with opposing views.

colinyoung 9y ago
> staunchly only in favor of one political party This is empirically not true, especially if you look at the policies of and donations by Google, Twitter, and Facebook. Google donates to both parties; Twitter obviously has a very laissez-faire to the Right's voices, including the POTUS, and its COO recently suggested that if Trump canceled briefings, he could take questions directly on Twitter. And the evidence and rumors continue to swirl about how multiple Republican Party candidates campaigns used Facebook's own incredibly specific ad targeting, which they did not revise until after the election. (cf. Cambridge Analytica, contracted by Cruz and then Trump to "manage" the election outcome.)
- Clanan 9y ago
  Your examples do not mean much when it comes to actual influence and its use. Google relies on blatantly left-leaning "fact checkers", Schmidt was very active in HRC's campaign, Twitter actively censors Right-leaning hashtags and users [1], Facebook censor(s/ed) conservatives [2]. Do you really think actual censorship and suppression (when claiming otherwise and pretending to be objective) is less important than letting Trump takes questions? [1] http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/303295-how-facebook-twitter-are-systematically-silencing-conservative http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/303295-how-faceb... [2] http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006 http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-supp...
  - bduerst 9y ago

ArchReaper 9y ago

Generic fearmongering isn't adding anything to the discussion.

ksk 9y ago
Your opinion of someones comment doesn't ad anything to the discussion either. In any case the linked article is marketing blog, but it got voted up anyway, because Google. So I suppose the discussion is about Google branding and marketing, so their reputation and morality are fair game, IMHO of course.

accountyaccount 9y ago

People get murdered with hammers sometimes too. Not much to be done about it.