14 ms·

Do You Trust This Computer? [video]

164 points by armansu 8y ago

dredmorbius 8y ago
Very strongly recommended. The interviewed subjects are largely experts in AI, and many are concerned. The film is likely a bit long to trigger much by way of discussion here, though that's not always bad. Word is that free play / download is this weekend only. Grab a copy via yt-download if you can't watch immediately.
- gooseus 8y ago
  That's weird, because I just got to the part in Pinker's Enlightenment Now where he says the large majority of experts in both artificial and human intelligence are not concerned. Who is misrepresenting the expert consensus? Or are they both misrepresenting the fact that there is a consensus?
  - ollin 8y ago
    """Things AI researchers agree on: - that documentary was pretty unhelpful - Terminator images are usually inappropriate - AlphaGo Zero (if not other Alpha•s) was pretty cool""" (https://twitter.com/Miles_Brundage/status/983063456424308736 https://twitter.com/Miles_Brundage/status/983063456424308736) I don't have any survey results to point to, but my impression from following AI researchers from industry/academia is: * Modern methods are many leaps of understanding behind anything resembling AGI, so any concern about research groups developing a sentient computer program behind close doors with no warning is probably misplaced. * AI/ML causing large-scale unemployment will be a serious issue eventually, but it's difficult to make a strong case that's it's happening right now. * The ability to monitor and manipulate individuals using ML/AI is dangerous, doesn't depend on particularly advanced technology, and is already being used by corporations and governments right now. It's a lot easier to get the public worried about terminator-style robots than about (what appear to be) simple advances in advertising or law enforcement. * There's a strong incentive for those selling "AI technology" to oversell its ability to generalize/improve automatically. To quote Elon (of all people), "It's a mistake to think that technology automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work hard to make it better."–this applies to "deep neural networks" as much as anything else.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    I find Pinker an unreliably and highly biased narrator.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    Given that it's the experts themselves talking in Do You Trust This Computer, and Pinker describing experts in his own work, I'd give stronger credit to the former, more direct, evidence. That is: letting the experts express their views directly. There remains the possibility that there is a difference between "the set of top experts in the field included in this documentary" and "a survey or statement from the larger share of practitioners within the field". This ... runs into a few additional problems. Documentaries can (and with some frequency are) selective and nonrepresentational. That is, a documentary's goal is not to Reveal The Statistical Truth, but To Tell a Specific Story. Documentaries are driven by narrative, not random sampling and statistical analysis. That said, stats can lie and crafted stories can be quite useful. A large-scale sampling of opinion is also ... largely just that. A large-scale sampling of opinion. Even if that's expert opinion. It is not the same as arriving at a truth (unless the truth you're seeking to arrive at is "what is the typical or general opinion held on some matter by some population?"). The views and concerns of top practitioners within a field is often highly significant. It may still be inaccurate (or be inaccurately portrayed). But these are the people who've worked with a thing for a long time, who've seen what does and doesn't work, what is or isn't hyped. And you'll often find exceptionally strong critics of various fields or technologies. Leading atomic scientists in the U.S. and USSR both came to oppose nuclear weapons: Robert J. Oppenheimer and Andrei Sakharov. The Father of the Nuclear Navy, USN Admiral Hyman Rickover, came to oppose nuclear power. There are numerous technologists who are now questioning the goal of universal connectivity (myself included, though my qualifications are expressly not available for or any basis for credence). And in the field of AI, there are numerous significant, long-term, and leading researchers who are raising profound questions of advisability and risk. Or, you know, you could go with the Good Humour guy, Pinker.
SimeVidas 8y ago
We’re building a road so… BYE BYE ANTHILL!
bdefore 8y ago
I enjoy the... irony? of visiting the site with a set of ad block and privacy related extensions and seeing a set of 'Sorry' messages that I can't see the trailer because of my privacy settings. https://imgur.com/a/4IEsx https://imgur.com/a/4IEsx
- qntty 8y ago
  direct link: https://vimeo.com/263108265 https://vimeo.com/263108265
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cryodesign 8y ago
I was hoping for a bit more in-depth material - allowing the experts to explore their topics a bit more and potentially talking about potential solutions? Where is the call to action for the viewer? What now? It's good for non-technical folks to watch, but nothing really new since the 'Humans need not apply' 15 min documentary [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU (2014) Edit: added link to humans need not apply
TheWoodsy 8y ago
So I bailed after the first X minutes. Why cant we just unplug the power and/or the network cable and move on from this FUD?
- goshx 8y ago
  Finish watching and you might find out.
  - ribs 8y ago
    Could you tell us?
- ken 8y ago
  One of the clips says over 60% of stock market trades are made automatically by computer, so my first thought is that this would be a bit like telling someone with 2 prosthetic limbs that if something goes wrong with them, he can just remove them both and get on with his life.
- creep 8y ago
  Because without intelligent computers, the world we've built for ourselves would just... stop working. They have brought us medical advancements not possible 20 years ago. So we would pull the plug and kill many people. Not only that, but countries are competing against countries with their technology. So if America pulls the plug, everyone else is far more advanced and you have lost your military and political power. There is no "pulling the plug" unless the world is willing to pull the plug and willing to deal with what amounts to another dark age-- in which case, technology such as we see today is likely to develop again. This tech is almost inevitable. We are creator beings. We want to make something that matches our intelligence-- and we always have. We've made pantheons of Gods to match and overcome us, we've made these autonomous beings in the stories we tell and in the dolls we played with when we were kids. The problem is that we don't know what machine intelligence may do when we let it out in the world. If they can learn the tasks we want them to learn, can they then learn how to learn a task we didn't assign them to? What kind of task would that be? How would we control it? There may be no controlling it. But if we started focusing on this problem right now we may be able to figure it out. Instead, most everyone in AI is working to pump out as many "smart" things as possible, trying to develop better learning algorithms, get AI to become as human as possible, trying to make machines that behave like us but better, without paying attention to the future costs. Maybe for the first time in human history we can learn without making the mistake.
transpute 8y ago
Regulation comes up later in the film. Ross Anderson, professor at Cambridge University recently wrote, https://m.cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/3/225467-making-security-sustainable/fulltext https://m.cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/3/225467-making-securi... "Once software becomes pervasive in devices that surround us, that are online, and that can kill us, the software industry will have to come of age. As security becomes ever more about safety rather than just privacy, we will have sharper policy debates about surveillance, competition, and consumer protection. The notion that software engineers are not responsible for things that go wrong will be put to rest for good, and we will have to work out how to develop and maintain code that will go on working dependably for decades in environments that change and evolve."
- terminado 8y ago
  The Ivory Tower has a way of phrasing concepts such that they are framed by finality and totality. The mentalility comes with having made it through the admissions process, and passing your final exams with a good grade point average, conferring some lofty degree of distinguishment into one's possession. So, to look at the words: The notion that software engineers are not responsible for things that go wrong will be put to rest for good. I'd have to say that this sort of high-minded platonic concept needs some revision. The notion that *some* software engineers *cannot* be found as responsible (in part or in whole) for *some* things that go wrong will be put to rest in *some* situations. There needs to be a degree of responsibility ascribed to some classes of systems development. Meanwhile, there is very obviously a line to be drawn between the programmer that programs their VCR clock to time a recording, the programmer that programmed the VCR as a consumer-grade product intended for purchase by unlicensed individuals, the TV network that broadcast the television show at the time the individual programmed their VCR to record 60 minutes of broadcast on a given channel, and the programmer who locked me out of the firmware on my smart phone.
  - goalieca 8y ago
    > software engineers I've had the idea for a while that most of us practice software development rather than software engineering. I have a degree in computer engineering but i consider myself software developer now rather than a software engineer. The reason, I don't practice engineering in the legal and professional sense. In engineering school we learn about engineering as a formal process and professional responsibility. Both of these things are largely absent in most shops now. I get that not all projects need to be professionally engineered with all the costs and timelines associated with it. I think this is why agile came along. Sometimes it's just good enough to hack something together and demo it until a manager says it's time to release. But there are many other projects which are extremely important to society and should follow more traditional engineering practices. There shall be external and internal engineers who must formally approve any product before release. There shall be specific and testable formal requirements. There shall be a formal design and documentation for engineers to review and people to develop from. etc. etc.
substandard 8y ago
Half an hour in I'm left thinking: "this is a great trailer, but where's the documentary?"
neals 8y ago
I watched the first 20 minutes or so. What I really miss here is some naration. A documentary that is tied together by quotes from interviews and flashy stockfootage is hard for me to follow.
- jsharf 8y ago
  This is exactly how I felt. The whole thing is like a stream of consciousness experience without any central story or narration. I couldn't take it. It's like one big infomercial or something
  - syntaxgoonoo 8y ago
    I agree. 10 min was all I could bare. It's just a big mix of sound bites.
    - jochung 8y ago
      I find it eery that a documentary that isn't telling people what to feel or think or do is criticized for being incomprehensible and boring. Maybe we're already far more doomed than people realize.
      - carlosdp 8y ago
        A narrator doesn't tell you "what to feel or think", they piece together what you're looking at and go deeper into concepts, whereas this quote after quote stream doesn't go very deep into anything. In fact, I'd say it is currently telling you what to feel and nothing more, because most of the quotes in the first 10 minutes are derivations of "technology is scary, you should be scared".
        creep 8y ago
        This doc definitely gave me the heebie jeebies. But I don't think the point is necessarily to go deeper into these problems. Most will watch this and finally gain the intuitive sense of how intertwined intelligent machines are in our lives. It isn't just smartphones and laptops, but everything from the military to health, and in between. It gives a good light overview of what professionals are thinking. Most people are not afraid of AI, but I think we should be, to the point that we start making changes to how we develop it.
greggman 8y ago
I don't really get the argument for regulation. This is not nuclear material (something relatively easy to control). This is computers, something most 8yr olds in the western world at least have access to. If you regulate it in the USA or the USA+Europe will it be regulated in Russia? China? Can you even regulate it in the west if you want to without confiscating all computers? I'm not saying we shouldn't try to make friendly AI (One of Musk's initiatives), rather I'm just saying I don't see how it's possible to remotely regulate this.
eugf_ 8y ago
Honestly, I personally don't believe that regulations would solve or diminish the potential issues related to AI. We will be constantly challenged by people/machines trying to dominate others, and for that reason, I don't see regulations being the solution, but education instead. I think that people should better understand the trade-offs that AI can bring to our lives and act based on that. Therefore, democratizing AI and educating people about it should be a good starting point for this problem. Also, I tend to agree with Mark Cuban[1] about the importance of philosophy degree in the near future. There will be so many issues to be assessed that such degree would bring much value to the society. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/20/mark-cuban-philosophy-degree-will-be-worth-more-than-computer-science.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/20/mark-cuban-philosophy-degree...
spaceman1331 8y ago
The speaker has a British accent. Americans hate the British and will not listen to representatives of British society. If you have something to say, then remove the British part.
ptr_void 8y ago
It looks good with editing, graphics stock footage and such but not really for HN demographic. Some of the AI commentaries are also very exaggerated in places.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cortexio 8y ago
It's just a sensationalized docu. Take it with a grain of salt. I enjoyed it though.
iandanforth 8y ago
Don't waste your time. It's fear mongering. This would be fine if it had any suggestions at all about how to avoid the horrors it imagines, but its argument boils down to completely unspecified 'regulation.'

164 points by armansu 8y ago

Very strongly recommended. The interviewed subjects are largely experts in AI, and many are concerned. The film is likely a bit long to trigger much by way of discussion here, though that's not always bad. Word is that free play / download is this weekend only. Grab a copy via yt-download if you can't watch immediately.

gooseus 8y ago
That's weird, because I just got to the part in Pinker's Enlightenment Now where he says the large majority of experts in both artificial and human intelligence are not concerned. Who is misrepresenting the expert consensus? Or are they both misrepresenting the fact that there is a consensus?
- ollin 8y ago
  """Things AI researchers agree on: - that documentary was pretty unhelpful - Terminator images are usually inappropriate - AlphaGo Zero (if not other Alpha•s) was pretty cool""" (https://twitter.com/Miles_Brundage/status/983063456424308736 https://twitter.com/Miles_Brundage/status/983063456424308736) I don't have any survey results to point to, but my impression from following AI researchers from industry/academia is: * Modern methods are many leaps of understanding behind anything resembling AGI, so any concern about research groups developing a sentient computer program behind close doors with no warning is probably misplaced. * AI/ML causing large-scale unemployment will be a serious issue eventually, but it's difficult to make a strong case that's it's happening right now. * The ability to monitor and manipulate individuals using ML/AI is dangerous, doesn't depend on particularly advanced technology, and is already being used by corporations and governments right now. It's a lot easier to get the public worried about terminator-style robots than about (what appear to be) simple advances in advertising or law enforcement. * There's a strong incentive for those selling "AI technology" to oversell its ability to generalize/improve automatically. To quote Elon (of all people), "It's a mistake to think that technology automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work hard to make it better."–this applies to "deep neural networks" as much as anything else.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  I find Pinker an unreliably and highly biased narrator.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Given that it's the experts themselves talking in Do You Trust This Computer, and Pinker describing experts in his own work, I'd give stronger credit to the former, more direct, evidence. That is: letting the experts express their views directly. There remains the possibility that there is a difference between "the set of top experts in the field included in this documentary" and "a survey or statement from the larger share of practitioners within the field". This ... runs into a few additional problems. Documentaries can (and with some frequency are) selective and nonrepresentational. That is, a documentary's goal is not to Reveal The Statistical Truth, but To Tell a Specific Story. Documentaries are driven by narrative, not random sampling and statistical analysis. That said, stats can lie and crafted stories can be quite useful. A large-scale sampling of opinion is also ... largely just that. A large-scale sampling of opinion. Even if that's expert opinion. It is not the same as arriving at a truth (unless the truth you're seeking to arrive at is "what is the typical or general opinion held on some matter by some population?"). The views and concerns of top practitioners within a field is often highly significant. It may still be inaccurate (or be inaccurately portrayed). But these are the people who've worked with a thing for a long time, who've seen what does and doesn't work, what is or isn't hyped. And you'll often find exceptionally strong critics of various fields or technologies. Leading atomic scientists in the U.S. and USSR both came to oppose nuclear weapons: Robert J. Oppenheimer and Andrei Sakharov. The Father of the Nuclear Navy, USN Admiral Hyman Rickover, came to oppose nuclear power. There are numerous technologists who are now questioning the goal of universal connectivity (myself included, though my qualifications are expressly not available for or any basis for credence). And in the field of AI, there are numerous significant, long-term, and leading researchers who are raising profound questions of advisability and risk. Or, you know, you could go with the Good Humour guy, Pinker.

SimeVidas 8y ago

We’re building a road so… BYE BYE ANTHILL!

bdefore 8y ago

I enjoy the... irony? of visiting the site with a set of ad block and privacy related extensions and seeing a set of 'Sorry' messages that I can't see the trailer because of my privacy settings. https://imgur.com/a/4IEsx https://imgur.com/a/4IEsx

qntty 8y ago
direct link: https://vimeo.com/263108265 https://vimeo.com/263108265

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cryodesign 8y ago

I was hoping for a bit more in-depth material - allowing the experts to explore their topics a bit more and potentially talking about potential solutions? Where is the call to action for the viewer? What now? It's good for non-technical folks to watch, but nothing really new since the 'Humans need not apply' 15 min documentary [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU (2014) Edit: added link to humans need not apply

TheWoodsy 8y ago

So I bailed after the first X minutes. Why cant we just unplug the power and/or the network cable and move on from this FUD?

goshx 8y ago
Finish watching and you might find out.
- ribs 8y ago
  Could you tell us?
ken 8y ago
One of the clips says over 60% of stock market trades are made automatically by computer, so my first thought is that this would be a bit like telling someone with 2 prosthetic limbs that if something goes wrong with them, he can just remove them both and get on with his life.
creep 8y ago
Because without intelligent computers, the world we've built for ourselves would just... stop working. They have brought us medical advancements not possible 20 years ago. So we would pull the plug and kill many people. Not only that, but countries are competing against countries with their technology. So if America pulls the plug, everyone else is far more advanced and you have lost your military and political power. There is no "pulling the plug" unless the world is willing to pull the plug and willing to deal with what amounts to another dark age-- in which case, technology such as we see today is likely to develop again. This tech is almost inevitable. We are creator beings. We want to make something that matches our intelligence-- and we always have. We've made pantheons of Gods to match and overcome us, we've made these autonomous beings in the stories we tell and in the dolls we played with when we were kids. The problem is that we don't know what machine intelligence may do when we let it out in the world. If they can learn the tasks we want them to learn, can they then learn how to learn a task we didn't assign them to? What kind of task would that be? How would we control it? There may be no controlling it. But if we started focusing on this problem right now we may be able to figure it out. Instead, most everyone in AI is working to pump out as many "smart" things as possible, trying to develop better learning algorithms, get AI to become as human as possible, trying to make machines that behave like us but better, without paying attention to the future costs. Maybe for the first time in human history we can learn without making the mistake.

transpute 8y ago

Regulation comes up later in the film. Ross Anderson, professor at Cambridge University recently wrote, https://m.cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/3/225467-making-security-sustainable/fulltext https://m.cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/3/225467-making-securi... "Once software becomes pervasive in devices that surround us, that are online, and that can kill us, the software industry will have to come of age. As security becomes ever more about safety rather than just privacy, we will have sharper policy debates about surveillance, competition, and consumer protection. The notion that software engineers are not responsible for things that go wrong will be put to rest for good, and we will have to work out how to develop and maintain code that will go on working dependably for decades in environments that change and evolve."

terminado 8y ago
The Ivory Tower has a way of phrasing concepts such that they are framed by finality and totality. The mentalility comes with having made it through the admissions process, and passing your final exams with a good grade point average, conferring some lofty degree of distinguishment into one's possession. So, to look at the words: The notion that software engineers are not responsible for things that go wrong will be put to rest for good. I'd have to say that this sort of high-minded platonic concept needs some revision. The notion that *some* software engineers *cannot* be found as responsible (in part or in whole) for *some* things that go wrong will be put to rest in *some* situations. There needs to be a degree of responsibility ascribed to some classes of systems development. Meanwhile, there is very obviously a line to be drawn between the programmer that programs their VCR clock to time a recording, the programmer that programmed the VCR as a consumer-grade product intended for purchase by unlicensed individuals, the TV network that broadcast the television show at the time the individual programmed their VCR to record 60 minutes of broadcast on a given channel, and the programmer who locked me out of the firmware on my smart phone.
- goalieca 8y ago
  > software engineers I've had the idea for a while that most of us practice software development rather than software engineering. I have a degree in computer engineering but i consider myself software developer now rather than a software engineer. The reason, I don't practice engineering in the legal and professional sense. In engineering school we learn about engineering as a formal process and professional responsibility. Both of these things are largely absent in most shops now. I get that not all projects need to be professionally engineered with all the costs and timelines associated with it. I think this is why agile came along. Sometimes it's just good enough to hack something together and demo it until a manager says it's time to release. But there are many other projects which are extremely important to society and should follow more traditional engineering practices. There shall be external and internal engineers who must formally approve any product before release. There shall be specific and testable formal requirements. There shall be a formal design and documentation for engineers to review and people to develop from. etc. etc.

substandard 8y ago

Half an hour in I'm left thinking: "this is a great trailer, but where's the documentary?"

neals 8y ago

I watched the first 20 minutes or so. What I really miss here is some naration. A documentary that is tied together by quotes from interviews and flashy stockfootage is hard for me to follow.

jsharf 8y ago
This is exactly how I felt. The whole thing is like a stream of consciousness experience without any central story or narration. I couldn't take it. It's like one big infomercial or something
- syntaxgoonoo 8y ago
  I agree. 10 min was all I could bare. It's just a big mix of sound bites.
  - jochung 8y ago
    I find it eery that a documentary that isn't telling people what to feel or think or do is criticized for being incomprehensible and boring. Maybe we're already far more doomed than people realize.
    - carlosdp 8y ago
      A narrator doesn't tell you "what to feel or think", they piece together what you're looking at and go deeper into concepts, whereas this quote after quote stream doesn't go very deep into anything. In fact, I'd say it is currently telling you what to feel and nothing more, because most of the quotes in the first 10 minutes are derivations of "technology is scary, you should be scared".
      - creep 8y ago
        This doc definitely gave me the heebie jeebies. But I don't think the point is necessarily to go deeper into these problems. Most will watch this and finally gain the intuitive sense of how intertwined intelligent machines are in our lives. It isn't just smartphones and laptops, but everything from the military to health, and in between. It gives a good light overview of what professionals are thinking. Most people are not afraid of AI, but I think we should be, to the point that we start making changes to how we develop it.

greggman 8y ago

I don't really get the argument for regulation. This is not nuclear material (something relatively easy to control). This is computers, something most 8yr olds in the western world at least have access to. If you regulate it in the USA or the USA+Europe will it be regulated in Russia? China? Can you even regulate it in the west if you want to without confiscating all computers? I'm not saying we shouldn't try to make friendly AI (One of Musk's initiatives), rather I'm just saying I don't see how it's possible to remotely regulate this.

eugf_ 8y ago

Honestly, I personally don't believe that regulations would solve or diminish the potential issues related to AI. We will be constantly challenged by people/machines trying to dominate others, and for that reason, I don't see regulations being the solution, but education instead. I think that people should better understand the trade-offs that AI can bring to our lives and act based on that. Therefore, democratizing AI and educating people about it should be a good starting point for this problem. Also, I tend to agree with Mark Cuban[1] about the importance of philosophy degree in the near future. There will be so many issues to be assessed that such degree would bring much value to the society. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/20/mark-cuban-philosophy-degree-will-be-worth-more-than-computer-science.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/20/mark-cuban-philosophy-degree...

spaceman1331 8y ago

The speaker has a British accent. Americans hate the British and will not listen to representatives of British society. If you have something to say, then remove the British part.

ptr_void 8y ago

It looks good with editing, graphics stock footage and such but not really for HN demographic. Some of the AI commentaries are also very exaggerated in places.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cortexio 8y ago

It's just a sensationalized docu. Take it with a grain of salt. I enjoyed it though.

iandanforth 8y ago

Don't waste your time. It's fear mongering. This would be fine if it had any suggestions at all about how to avoid the horrors it imagines, but its argument boils down to completely unspecified 'regulation.'