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Computers are only a tool. Humans have to make the final decisions. Under those circumstances, what exactly is the problem? I notice that all the articles warn

Computers are only a tool. Humans have to make the final decisions. Under those circumstances, what exactly is the problem? I notice that all the articles warning about AI supervision never mention the error rate of humans. Humans misidentify people, too.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Humans cannot scale the same way AI can. AI can easily scan every face at a football game. Humans can't. AI could easily scale to watch everyone who walks through every intersection downtown. Humans can't. If AI makes a much smaller percentage of mistakes (which is itself a questionable thesis), it will still make orders of magnitude more mistakes because it will be making orders of magnitude more evaluations. Also, for better or for worse, people tend to trust that computers are 'logical' and correct. This is especially troubling because a human can explain their mistakes ("the person was wearing similar clothing, had a limp, etc."), while AI generally can't give you a reason that you can easily understand. > Computers are only a tool. Humans have to make the final decisions. Under those circumstances, what exactly is the problem? Humans are bad at evaluating computing systems. Have you heard the stories of people driving their cars into lakes because a GPS told them to? Now imagine the line was even fuzzier ("We think this could be our suspect, but we're not sure. The computer positively ID'd them though...")
- trhway 6y ago
  well, sci-fi and everybody else was warning humans about that since like mid-20th century, and yet the human race is as unprepared as one can be (similarly to the climate change situation), and still puts the major hope into the "putting the genie back into the bottle" strategy which is obviously not going to work... Kind or reminds of the lockdowns as a strategy to fight the covid :)
- okthenletssee 6y ago
  Even if the AI identifies many people, there still have to be humans checking them out. The limited number of humans may have more time to check each suspect out than they would have without the AI, because the AI takes over some of the work. Humans can be aware of the limitations of "AI". It's very rare that somebody drives into a lake because of GPS failures.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    You and I have different opinions about how humans will interact with complex computer systems. I believe humans will go, "well, the computer says you are so and so, and it's almost always right, so I'm going to need to take you in." I've called customer service call centers and been told, "well the computer says...". If you think that the police would operate any differently, I don't know what to say. Communities like police are poorly trained, minimally invested, and operate without oversight. They are typically overworked and just trying to close as many cases as they can. Heck, even well educated people fall victim to this. We just had a front page story about administrators failure to deploy covid vaccines to frontline medical staff because "the algorithm made a bad choice".
    - okthenletssee 6y ago
      The call center people use the computer to make excuses. And you overlook the possibility of human error without computer involvement. The classical "a black person mugged me" comes to mind. At the end of the day it is a tool. Law enforcement should be done by professionals anyway. There are a million ways to get it wrong. At least with computers, you can standardize and enforce some good practices.

Pfhreak 6y ago

Humans cannot scale the same way AI can. AI can easily scan every face at a football game. Humans can't. AI could easily scale to watch everyone who walks through every intersection downtown. Humans can't. If AI makes a much smaller percentage of mistakes (which is itself a questionable thesis), it will still make orders of magnitude more mistakes because it will be making orders of magnitude more evaluations. Also, for better or for worse, people tend to trust that computers are 'logical' and correct. This is especially troubling because a human can explain their mistakes ("the person was wearing similar clothing, had a limp, etc."), while AI generally can't give you a reason that you can easily understand. > Computers are only a tool. Humans have to make the final decisions. Under those circumstances, what exactly is the problem? Humans are bad at evaluating computing systems. Have you heard the stories of people driving their cars into lakes because a GPS told them to? Now imagine the line was even fuzzier ("We think this could be our suspect, but we're not sure. The computer positively ID'd them though...")

trhway 6y ago
well, sci-fi and everybody else was warning humans about that since like mid-20th century, and yet the human race is as unprepared as one can be (similarly to the climate change situation), and still puts the major hope into the "putting the genie back into the bottle" strategy which is obviously not going to work... Kind or reminds of the lockdowns as a strategy to fight the covid :)
okthenletssee 6y ago
Even if the AI identifies many people, there still have to be humans checking them out. The limited number of humans may have more time to check each suspect out than they would have without the AI, because the AI takes over some of the work. Humans can be aware of the limitations of "AI". It's very rare that somebody drives into a lake because of GPS failures.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  You and I have different opinions about how humans will interact with complex computer systems. I believe humans will go, "well, the computer says you are so and so, and it's almost always right, so I'm going to need to take you in." I've called customer service call centers and been told, "well the computer says...". If you think that the police would operate any differently, I don't know what to say. Communities like police are poorly trained, minimally invested, and operate without oversight. They are typically overworked and just trying to close as many cases as they can. Heck, even well educated people fall victim to this. We just had a front page story about administrators failure to deploy covid vaccines to frontline medical staff because "the algorithm made a bad choice".
  - okthenletssee 6y ago
    The call center people use the computer to make excuses. And you overlook the possibility of human error without computer involvement. The classical "a black person mugged me" comes to mind. At the end of the day it is a tool. Law enforcement should be done by professionals anyway. There are a million ways to get it wrong. At least with computers, you can standardize and enforce some good practices.