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Jaron Lanier is a frustrating thinker. In general he's a pessimist and highly critical of AI and technology. I was at talk of his and asked him about open sourc

Jaron Lanier is a frustrating thinker. In general he's a pessimist and highly critical of AI and technology. I was at talk of his and asked him about open source AI models and suggestions for ethical frameworks to guide AI research. He gave a rambling answer about we need to pay all the human annotators ever involved in producing a model and that AI is fundamentally anti-human. His justification was as an odd anecdote about an elementary student asking what's the point of human life if robots will do everything in the future. Jaron doesn't provide a meaningful way to engage with his critique and it seems the logical conclusion of his view is that we abandon technology all together. I do agree with the underlying claim that modern AI research erases the human effort (everything from Mturkers to exploited labor) in producing the annotations that most AI system rely on. It's also fair the critique the proliferation of surveillance states and authoritarian governments that build upon and fund current AI research. There is isn't good ethical guidance and frameworks to help researchers navigate doing research and in understanding the implications of their works. I'd prefer critiques of AI help guide some sort ethical framework for understanding, developing, and deploying these technologies responsibly. I don't think we can just stick our heads in the sand and pretend the problem goes away or abandoning AI in liberal democracies somehow stops authoritarian regimes from building even worse things.

Kalium 6y ago
You make it sound like Jaron views AI as fundamentally unethical, for reasons that are at best not communicated clearly.
- dhairya 6y ago
  He does. Perhaps not in this article but its position he's had in previous talks and articles. Here's the talk I attended:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qpB9v-OrAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qpB9v-OrAU
gridlockd 6y ago
> Jaron Lanier is a frustrating thinker. I agree. Like Slavoj but without the Zizek. > He gave a rambling answer about we need to pay all the human involved in producing that model (even those that are consumed as opensource models) and that AI is fundamentally anti-human. I do think this raises a very valid point in terms of intellectual property. If I train an AI to paint in the style of an artist whose art I scraped, does that artist have any claim as to its licensing? If not, should they not?
- Bjartr 6y ago
  If you were to train a person to paint in the style of another artist, does the original artist have any claim to its licensing? Does Disney have a right to any cartoon that looks like a Mickey Mouse cartoon, but doesn't actually depict Mickey Mouse, regardless of its source?
  - austinjp 6y ago
    There is something fundamentally different about an AI, though. Perhaps the ability to produce output at scale. Perhaps that its creator/owner may not have the ability it trains the AI to perform. I'm not sure. But I feel that comparing AI to humans here is disingenuous or naive.
- dhairya 6y ago
  That zizek reference made me chuckle! Derivative works are allowed under copyright law. Though the interpretation is steadily being constrained especially on site like Youtube. His claim is more extreme. Essentially any individual involved in producing the data (annotators, aggregators, that grad student, etc) should be compensated for any downstream profit produced by any model that consumed that data. It's an interesting interpretation of Marxist critiques that workers are separated from the products they produce and alienated from the value produced by the fruits of their labor. A car factory workers don't get any more compensated for the sale, resale, and any other subsequent profit made the use of a vehicles they helped produce. While it sounds great in theory I have no idea how you'd even begin to implement that. Ironically the best means we have available to developing that solution is the technology that he critiques as anti-human.
- ummonk 6y ago
  Are you saying that DeepMind should have to pay royalties to the Go players whose games were used as training material for AlphaGo? Should the same apply to human players who study others' games as training material? (Obviously, it's a moot point for AlphaZero which was trained solely via self-play, and kind of puts a spanner in the works for Jaron Lanier's views particularly if unsupervised machine learning displaces supervised machine learning as the dominant tool)
ssivark 6y ago
> Jaron doesn't provide a meaningful way to engage with his critique and it seems the logical conclusion of his view is that we abandon technology all together. While it may appear that way, I wonder whether he might be speaking past many people involved in applying ML on human data. As a starting point for establishing clarity, do you recognize/understand that one of the core ideas of his theme is human agency? And what he means by “humanity” (our sense of purpose/meaning tied closely with competence & judgement) and why he fears it might be overwhelmed by AI? Since human nature is “reflexive”, being infantilized or treated with certain biases by algorithms will push humans to become like that. The technical way to phrase this is that statistical modeling assumes static distributions, but the actual distribution of human behavior responds/adapts to these assumed models (“distribution shifts”). Pause and think about that for a moment. Eg, the question he discusses in the talk you link to: if AI could (someday) do everything (some very broad range of things), then what is the point of human life? If your answers are going to emphasize convenience & improvements and opportunities for better consumption, then you are ignoring the fundamental premise of the question. He’s pointing out a perspective that is deeply at odds with the assumptions which drive today’s computing/ML related industry. Are you saying you’d prefer he stops asking inconvenient questions?
- dhairya 6y ago
  > As a starting point for establishing clarity, do you recognize/understand that one of the core ideas of his theme is human agency? ... Eg, the question he discusses in the talk you link to: if AI could (someday) do everything (some very broad range of things), then what is the point of human life? Yes, and I disagree with that framing of humanity. It is at best fundamentally nihilist and at worst reduces human value to its ability to do work and produce value (ironic given is Marxist interpretation of data annotators). AI is a threat in Jaron's framing because is displaces humans ability to do work and therefore devalues human life. Existence in of itself is meaningful and I believe we define meaning for ourselves. I find his framing of humanity deeply problematic. >If your answers are going to emphasize convenience & improvements and opportunities for better consumption, then you are ignoring the fundamental premise of the question... Are you saying you’d prefer he stops asking inconvenient questions? I don't see why having a pragmatic critique of his position misses his point. I have critical theory background and its been valuable for framing the world and being self-reflexive in my work as an AI researcher. The problem with his framing is that there is no space for engagement in the present. He seems resigned that world will overtaken by AI (he's literally said that both in the talk above and elsewhere). I live the present and believe (perhaps naively) I have some agency to impact the future. I rather see critical conversations converge towards helping us create a better future (specifically have discussions on how to do AI research ethically).
Animats 6y ago
The usual narrative goes like this: Without the constraints on data collection that liberal democracies impose and with the capacity to centrally direct greater resource allocation, the Chinese will outstrip the West. In surveillance, yes. But that's not where China's productivity comes from. China does have some centrally directed resource allocation, but it's at a very coarse level. See "Made in China 2025".[1] That's industrial policy. Japan became an industrial power in the 1970s and the 1980s through good industrial policy, run by the Ministry of Trade and Industry. It's a help when you're developing a country, if done well. Most of the "Asian tigers" did that. Done badly, it's a disaster. What seems to make China go now is a large number of medium-sized companies aggressively competing. Like the US up to the 1980s. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025
- tim333 6y ago
  Also in AI the real innovation seems mostly in the west - Google, Facebook, Open AI, Tesla, DeepMind etc. We're not going to get AGI by having lots of people label images.
sbierwagen 6y ago
I do like how his proposed solution does not even remotely solve what he thinks the problem is. Say you pay image labelers $100k a year. Unfortunately, as soon as they produce a finished model, that algorithm replaces them, permanently. If a model is profitable to create, it produces structural unemployment. If it's not profitable, then those jobs continue to exist. The only way his proposal functions is if it's a stealth ban on AI. There's no sustainable way for an image labeler to have anything like a middle class income for more than a few months. And his proposal has to apply... globally? How much does Tencent pay its image labelers? I can't image the PRC version of mturk is any kinder and gentler.

Kalium 6y ago

You make it sound like Jaron views AI as fundamentally unethical, for reasons that are at best not communicated clearly.

dhairya 6y ago
He does. Perhaps not in this article but its position he's had in previous talks and articles. Here's the talk I attended:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qpB9v-OrAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qpB9v-OrAU

gridlockd 6y ago

> Jaron Lanier is a frustrating thinker. I agree. Like Slavoj but without the Zizek. > He gave a rambling answer about we need to pay all the human involved in producing that model (even those that are consumed as opensource models) and that AI is fundamentally anti-human. I do think this raises a very valid point in terms of intellectual property. If I train an AI to paint in the style of an artist whose art I scraped, does that artist have any claim as to its licensing? If not, should they not?

Bjartr 6y ago
If you were to train a person to paint in the style of another artist, does the original artist have any claim to its licensing? Does Disney have a right to any cartoon that looks like a Mickey Mouse cartoon, but doesn't actually depict Mickey Mouse, regardless of its source?
- austinjp 6y ago
  There is something fundamentally different about an AI, though. Perhaps the ability to produce output at scale. Perhaps that its creator/owner may not have the ability it trains the AI to perform. I'm not sure. But I feel that comparing AI to humans here is disingenuous or naive.
dhairya 6y ago
That zizek reference made me chuckle! Derivative works are allowed under copyright law. Though the interpretation is steadily being constrained especially on site like Youtube. His claim is more extreme. Essentially any individual involved in producing the data (annotators, aggregators, that grad student, etc) should be compensated for any downstream profit produced by any model that consumed that data. It's an interesting interpretation of Marxist critiques that workers are separated from the products they produce and alienated from the value produced by the fruits of their labor. A car factory workers don't get any more compensated for the sale, resale, and any other subsequent profit made the use of a vehicles they helped produce. While it sounds great in theory I have no idea how you'd even begin to implement that. Ironically the best means we have available to developing that solution is the technology that he critiques as anti-human.
ummonk 6y ago
Are you saying that DeepMind should have to pay royalties to the Go players whose games were used as training material for AlphaGo? Should the same apply to human players who study others' games as training material? (Obviously, it's a moot point for AlphaZero which was trained solely via self-play, and kind of puts a spanner in the works for Jaron Lanier's views particularly if unsupervised machine learning displaces supervised machine learning as the dominant tool)

ssivark 6y ago

> Jaron doesn't provide a meaningful way to engage with his critique and it seems the logical conclusion of his view is that we abandon technology all together. While it may appear that way, I wonder whether he might be speaking past many people involved in applying ML on human data. As a starting point for establishing clarity, do you recognize/understand that one of the core ideas of his theme is human agency? And what he means by “humanity” (our sense of purpose/meaning tied closely with competence & judgement) and why he fears it might be overwhelmed by AI? Since human nature is “reflexive”, being infantilized or treated with certain biases by algorithms will push humans to become like that. The technical way to phrase this is that statistical modeling assumes static distributions, but the actual distribution of human behavior responds/adapts to these assumed models (“distribution shifts”). Pause and think about that for a moment. Eg, the question he discusses in the talk you link to: if AI could (someday) do everything (some very broad range of things), then what is the point of human life? If your answers are going to emphasize convenience & improvements and opportunities for better consumption, then you are ignoring the fundamental premise of the question. He’s pointing out a perspective that is deeply at odds with the assumptions which drive today’s computing/ML related industry. Are you saying you’d prefer he stops asking inconvenient questions?

dhairya 6y ago
> As a starting point for establishing clarity, do you recognize/understand that one of the core ideas of his theme is human agency? ... Eg, the question he discusses in the talk you link to: if AI could (someday) do everything (some very broad range of things), then what is the point of human life? Yes, and I disagree with that framing of humanity. It is at best fundamentally nihilist and at worst reduces human value to its ability to do work and produce value (ironic given is Marxist interpretation of data annotators). AI is a threat in Jaron's framing because is displaces humans ability to do work and therefore devalues human life. Existence in of itself is meaningful and I believe we define meaning for ourselves. I find his framing of humanity deeply problematic. >If your answers are going to emphasize convenience & improvements and opportunities for better consumption, then you are ignoring the fundamental premise of the question... Are you saying you’d prefer he stops asking inconvenient questions? I don't see why having a pragmatic critique of his position misses his point. I have critical theory background and its been valuable for framing the world and being self-reflexive in my work as an AI researcher. The problem with his framing is that there is no space for engagement in the present. He seems resigned that world will overtaken by AI (he's literally said that both in the talk above and elsewhere). I live the present and believe (perhaps naively) I have some agency to impact the future. I rather see critical conversations converge towards helping us create a better future (specifically have discussions on how to do AI research ethically).

Animats 6y ago

The usual narrative goes like this: Without the constraints on data collection that liberal democracies impose and with the capacity to centrally direct greater resource allocation, the Chinese will outstrip the West. In surveillance, yes. But that's not where China's productivity comes from. China does have some centrally directed resource allocation, but it's at a very coarse level. See "Made in China 2025".[1] That's industrial policy. Japan became an industrial power in the 1970s and the 1980s through good industrial policy, run by the Ministry of Trade and Industry. It's a help when you're developing a country, if done well. Most of the "Asian tigers" did that. Done badly, it's a disaster. What seems to make China go now is a large number of medium-sized companies aggressively competing. Like the US up to the 1980s. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025

tim333 6y ago
Also in AI the real innovation seems mostly in the west - Google, Facebook, Open AI, Tesla, DeepMind etc. We're not going to get AGI by having lots of people label images.

sbierwagen 6y ago

I do like how his proposed solution does not even remotely solve what he thinks the problem is. Say you pay image labelers $100k a year. Unfortunately, as soon as they produce a finished model, that algorithm replaces them, permanently. If a model is profitable to create, it produces structural unemployment. If it's not profitable, then those jobs continue to exist. The only way his proposal functions is if it's a stealth ban on AI. There's no sustainable way for an image labeler to have anything like a middle class income for more than a few months. And his proposal has to apply... globally? How much does Tencent pay its image labelers? I can't image the PRC version of mturk is any kinder and gentler.