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People are already contributing code and resources to the actual catastrophic, existential AI risk du jour, the one that is likely to cause massive political di

People are already contributing code and resources to the actual catastrophic, existential AI risk du jour, the one that is likely to cause massive political disruption and potentially attendant destruction of value and/or human life: the algorithmic news feed.

A12-B 6y ago
It's probably already done that. My bet on what the next AI disaster will be is a doctored video and audio, erasing people's trust in evidence and ruining the court system, more or less. You could even argue witnesses are no longer good evidence since everyone is being manipulated by AI news feeds ;)
- efitz 6y ago
  I’m not worried about that at wrt courts; they already know how to handle hearsay and log files and other digital evidence subject to tampering. I’m worried about social media and news wrt deep fakes. With today’s media climate I can see this being exploited to trash someone’s reputation or spin a narrative way faster than anyone would be able to reliably prove the fakery. Imagine someone faking a video of you using racial slurs. By the time it can be demonstrated to be false, the damage is already done. And with cancel culture today companies might have already shut down your social media profile or business and you’re screwed. Or someone on Twitter doxes you and you get murdered by a mob. This isn’t hyperbole; there are horror stories about false posts on Facebook causing mobs to seek revenge against innocent people. So the real trick is, how can we turn down the rhetoric so that we don’t get instantly worked up by every fake video that crosses our feed?
  - A12-B 6y ago
    I don't think this is as much of a problem as the majority of hackernews seems to think. Of course, that is controversial to say here, but I was told I shouldn't be conventional minded. At the end of the day the world is shaped more by material conditions than ideas. That doesn't excuse the cases you're worried about, but I think the majority of violently polarising media will only end up being so because there was already some resource dispute in the first place. It would make more sense, then, to tackle those issues, rather than fruitlessly trying to engineer the human brain to be less susceptible to rhetoric.
    - nine_k 6y ago
      > more by material conditions than ideas I suppose you have heard about religions and faiths. I'd hazard to say that about 1000 years of European history was shaped primarily by them. Major wars fought, new countries founded, major discoveries and inventions made or unmade and prohibited, people's daily lives shaped and defined. A similar thing has been occurring to Arabic world and neighboring peoples for about 1500 years, and is actively continuing now. Looking at the current situation in the US is also illustrative. I would say that ideas greatly prevail over material conditions once immediate survival is secured.
      - slavik81 6y ago
        In many cases, the religious conflict is just a pretext for an underlying power struggle. The reformation of the Church of England by Henry VIII, for example, was blatantly a political decision, not a matter of religious conviction.
      - A12-B 6y ago
        You underestimate how those ideas are born. More often than not, there is an underlying material pretext. Christianity actually has a lot to say about resources for that very reason. Also, wars are fought over resources and then justified with religion by the select few that start them, primarily.
        nine_k 6y ago
        I don't think that control of Jerusalem would make a lot of business sense for medieval European states. Still they sent several crusades, each pretty expensive, and mostly failing. Were it not for the special religious status of Jerusalem, they won't care. There were more important trade route chokepoints, and more convenient sea ports nearby, if trade control were the actual agenda.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  Very little reported news relies on video, and even less on video that comes from outside a chain of known entities (I e. CNN broadcasting something they filmed themselves). People getting their news from random videos posted on Facebook are already lost to democracy for all practical purposes, so little would really change.
nradov 6y ago
Do the various social media news feeds actually use a significant amount of AI? I had understood they mostly used simpler, less computationally expensive statistical algorithms.
- pedrosorio 6y ago
  As usual, it depends on what falls under your definition of AI. What kind of simpler statistical algorithms do you believe are used in news feeds (which do not belong in the "AI" category)?
  - nomoreusernames 6y ago
    hey professor, us dumdums wanna know if statistical algorithms could become sentient and spread through memes by hijacking innocent humans looking for a sale on amazon? my main fear is that it mutates to alibaba and they get hold of the factory thats printing the crap we are buying. because then they can steal 0.0000001% of the resources like in that movie with that guy when they did that thing... remember? anyway, and print out an army of kamikaze meme cats from behind the moon (you know its hollow right? i read it on youtube). so yeah how far is dna from statistical algorithms? do i need to start training my dog how to fetch statistical algorithmic androids bout now? thanks
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    I don't really consider any machine learning AI, but nobody agrees with me.
    - whichquestion 6y ago
      Some ML algorithms certainly can fall within the category of a narrow AI, as they perform exceptionally well on tasks in a narrow band of functionality.
    - mr_toad 6y ago
      > I don't really consider any machine learning AI What matters is that the authors of the article mean machine learning when they say AI. So they’re talking about unethical machine learning. Which is basically unethical maths, whatever that means.
ralusek 6y ago
Echo chambers and problematic news feeds are completely capable of existing without AI. People are the problem. All you need is a simple algorithm that looks for content that has overlap with content you like, no AI necessary, and that is sufficient for your average person to echo chamber and self radicalize.

A12-B 6y ago

It's probably already done that. My bet on what the next AI disaster will be is a doctored video and audio, erasing people's trust in evidence and ruining the court system, more or less. You could even argue witnesses are no longer good evidence since everyone is being manipulated by AI news feeds ;)

efitz 6y ago
I’m not worried about that at wrt courts; they already know how to handle hearsay and log files and other digital evidence subject to tampering. I’m worried about social media and news wrt deep fakes. With today’s media climate I can see this being exploited to trash someone’s reputation or spin a narrative way faster than anyone would be able to reliably prove the fakery. Imagine someone faking a video of you using racial slurs. By the time it can be demonstrated to be false, the damage is already done. And with cancel culture today companies might have already shut down your social media profile or business and you’re screwed. Or someone on Twitter doxes you and you get murdered by a mob. This isn’t hyperbole; there are horror stories about false posts on Facebook causing mobs to seek revenge against innocent people. So the real trick is, how can we turn down the rhetoric so that we don’t get instantly worked up by every fake video that crosses our feed?
- A12-B 6y ago
  I don't think this is as much of a problem as the majority of hackernews seems to think. Of course, that is controversial to say here, but I was told I shouldn't be conventional minded. At the end of the day the world is shaped more by material conditions than ideas. That doesn't excuse the cases you're worried about, but I think the majority of violently polarising media will only end up being so because there was already some resource dispute in the first place. It would make more sense, then, to tackle those issues, rather than fruitlessly trying to engineer the human brain to be less susceptible to rhetoric.
  - nine_k 6y ago
    > more by material conditions than ideas I suppose you have heard about religions and faiths. I'd hazard to say that about 1000 years of European history was shaped primarily by them. Major wars fought, new countries founded, major discoveries and inventions made or unmade and prohibited, people's daily lives shaped and defined. A similar thing has been occurring to Arabic world and neighboring peoples for about 1500 years, and is actively continuing now. Looking at the current situation in the US is also illustrative. I would say that ideas greatly prevail over material conditions once immediate survival is secured.
    - slavik81 6y ago
      In many cases, the religious conflict is just a pretext for an underlying power struggle. The reformation of the Church of England by Henry VIII, for example, was blatantly a political decision, not a matter of religious conviction.
    - A12-B 6y ago
      You underestimate how those ideas are born. More often than not, there is an underlying material pretext. Christianity actually has a lot to say about resources for that very reason. Also, wars are fought over resources and then justified with religion by the select few that start them, primarily.
      - nine_k 6y ago
        I don't think that control of Jerusalem would make a lot of business sense for medieval European states. Still they sent several crusades, each pretty expensive, and mostly failing. Were it not for the special religious status of Jerusalem, they won't care. There were more important trade route chokepoints, and more convenient sea ports nearby, if trade control were the actual agenda.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
Very little reported news relies on video, and even less on video that comes from outside a chain of known entities (I e. CNN broadcasting something they filmed themselves). People getting their news from random videos posted on Facebook are already lost to democracy for all practical purposes, so little would really change.

nradov 6y ago

Do the various social media news feeds actually use a significant amount of AI? I had understood they mostly used simpler, less computationally expensive statistical algorithms.

pedrosorio 6y ago
As usual, it depends on what falls under your definition of AI. What kind of simpler statistical algorithms do you believe are used in news feeds (which do not belong in the "AI" category)?
- nomoreusernames 6y ago
  hey professor, us dumdums wanna know if statistical algorithms could become sentient and spread through memes by hijacking innocent humans looking for a sale on amazon? my main fear is that it mutates to alibaba and they get hold of the factory thats printing the crap we are buying. because then they can steal 0.0000001% of the resources like in that movie with that guy when they did that thing... remember? anyway, and print out an army of kamikaze meme cats from behind the moon (you know its hollow right? i read it on youtube). so yeah how far is dna from statistical algorithms? do i need to start training my dog how to fetch statistical algorithmic androids bout now? thanks
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  I don't really consider any machine learning AI, but nobody agrees with me.
  - whichquestion 6y ago
    Some ML algorithms certainly can fall within the category of a narrow AI, as they perform exceptionally well on tasks in a narrow band of functionality.
  - mr_toad 6y ago
    > I don't really consider any machine learning AI What matters is that the authors of the article mean machine learning when they say AI. So they’re talking about unethical machine learning. Which is basically unethical maths, whatever that means.

ralusek 6y ago

Echo chambers and problematic news feeds are completely capable of existing without AI. People are the problem. All you need is a simple algorithm that looks for content that has overlap with content you like, no AI necessary, and that is sufficient for your average person to echo chamber and self radicalize.