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I don't know, inference from data is literally how all decisions are fundamentally made. Why wouldn't it be possible to create models that learn this particular

I don't know, inference from data is literally how all decisions are fundamentally made. Why wouldn't it be possible to create models that learn this particular pattern?

mjburgess 5y ago
Here's where the words "data", "pattern", etc. become unhelpful. Learning, as in what we do, is not learning associations in datasets. It is learning "associations" between: our body state and the world as we act. It's a sort of: (action, world, body, sensation, prior conceptualisation, ...) association. (Even then, our bodies grow and this is really not a formal process.) This is, at least, what is necessary to understand what words mean. Words are just tools that we use to coordinate with each other in a shared (physical) world. You really have to be here, with us, to understand them. Words mean what we do with them. Meaning has a "useful side-effect". It turns out when we are using words their sequencing reveals, on average, some commonalities in their use. Eg., when asking "Can you pass me the salt?" I may go on to ask, "and now the pepper". And thus there is a statistical association between the terms "salt" and "pepper". But a machine processing only those associations is completely unaware there is anything "salt" to pass, or even that there are objects in the world, or people, or anything. Really, the machine has no connection between its interior and the world, the very connection we have when we use words. When a machine generates the text "pass me the salt" it doesnt mean it. It cannot. There is no salt it's talking about. It doesnt even know what salt is. A machine used to make decisions concerning people, unaware of what a person even is, produces new unethical forms of action. Not merely just "being racist because the data is".
- pjc50 5y ago
  > A machine used to make decisions concerning people, unaware of what a person even is, produces new unethical forms of action. Not merely just "being racist because the data is". Powerful and concise, thank you.
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  We also tend to have decades of experience interacting with other humans and understanding what would be reasonable to want / moral / what would “make sense”. This is a big part of why I’m bearish on things like fully autonomous self-driving cars until general AI is achieved. Driving is fundamentally a social activity that you participate in with other humans, at least until we built out nation-wide autonomous-only lanes that only allow (through a gate or barrier) autonomous vehicles with self-driving engaged in a way that normal vehicles can’t “sneak in”…I’m not holding my breath. Maybe I’ll see it in my lifetime (30s), maybe not.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    "Bearish" understates my mood. I think we're drifting into charlatanism, fraud and pseudoscience.
    - michaelpb 5y ago
      Perhaps religious cult territory too. "The Algorithm" [1] is already being used to tell fortunes -- which if it just stays as a few people having fun with horoscopes I don't really care, it seems harmless. But I could also totally picture some cryptocoin charlatan getting revelations about The Spiritual Algorithm or something and starts selling AI for getting into heaven. --- [1] By "The Algorithm" I just mean the public colloquially reference to trending formulas used on TikTok etc, which I'm sure probably uses machine learning somewhere
      - mjburgess 5y ago
        I agree. I have the same reactions to these guys as I did to religious zealots when I was a teenager; and later to "transhumanism". Alarm, disbelief, hostility. There is a new secular religion underneath this. "Uploading consciousness", "Aren't we all just data systems?", "We've built a neural network with as many (meaningless) neurones as the brain!" It's the same disgust and denial at being biological animals that all religions foster. Thankfully here, I think, the religion has predictions. It predicts a self-driving car, a "fourth industrial revolution", and so on. When these fail to materialise, some sanity will return. (Of course they have already failed, the question is when in the next 5-10yrs people will realise.)
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I think you can create models that learn this particular pattern, but the models being told that oppression is a bad thing will determine that being black is a bad thing and from there that black people are bad.

I don't know, inference from data is literally how all decisions are fundamentally made. Why wouldn't it be possible to create models that learn this particular pattern?

mjburgess 5y ago

Here's where the words "data", "pattern", etc. become unhelpful. Learning, as in what we do, is not learning associations in datasets. It is learning "associations" between: our body state and the world as we act. It's a sort of: (action, world, body, sensation, prior conceptualisation, ...) association. (Even then, our bodies grow and this is really not a formal process.) This is, at least, what is necessary to understand what words mean. Words are just tools that we use to coordinate with each other in a shared (physical) world. You really have to be here, with us, to understand them. Words mean what we do with them. Meaning has a "useful side-effect". It turns out when we are using words their sequencing reveals, on average, some commonalities in their use. Eg., when asking "Can you pass me the salt?" I may go on to ask, "and now the pepper". And thus there is a statistical association between the terms "salt" and "pepper". But a machine processing only those associations is completely unaware there is anything "salt" to pass, or even that there are objects in the world, or people, or anything. Really, the machine has no connection between its interior and the world, the very connection we have when we use words. When a machine generates the text "pass me the salt" it doesnt mean it. It cannot. There is no salt it's talking about. It doesnt even know what salt is. A machine used to make decisions concerning people, unaware of what a person even is, produces new unethical forms of action. Not merely just "being racist because the data is".

pjc50 5y ago
> A machine used to make decisions concerning people, unaware of what a person even is, produces new unethical forms of action. Not merely just "being racist because the data is". Powerful and concise, thank you.
seanp2k2 5y ago
We also tend to have decades of experience interacting with other humans and understanding what would be reasonable to want / moral / what would “make sense”. This is a big part of why I’m bearish on things like fully autonomous self-driving cars until general AI is achieved. Driving is fundamentally a social activity that you participate in with other humans, at least until we built out nation-wide autonomous-only lanes that only allow (through a gate or barrier) autonomous vehicles with self-driving engaged in a way that normal vehicles can’t “sneak in”…I’m not holding my breath. Maybe I’ll see it in my lifetime (30s), maybe not.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  "Bearish" understates my mood. I think we're drifting into charlatanism, fraud and pseudoscience.
  - michaelpb 5y ago
    Perhaps religious cult territory too. "The Algorithm" [1] is already being used to tell fortunes -- which if it just stays as a few people having fun with horoscopes I don't really care, it seems harmless. But I could also totally picture some cryptocoin charlatan getting revelations about The Spiritual Algorithm or something and starts selling AI for getting into heaven. --- [1] By "The Algorithm" I just mean the public colloquially reference to trending formulas used on TikTok etc, which I'm sure probably uses machine learning somewhere
    - mjburgess 5y ago
      I agree. I have the same reactions to these guys as I did to religious zealots when I was a teenager; and later to "transhumanism". Alarm, disbelief, hostility. There is a new secular religion underneath this. "Uploading consciousness", "Aren't we all just data systems?", "We've built a neural network with as many (meaningless) neurones as the brain!" It's the same disgust and denial at being biological animals that all religions foster. Thankfully here, I think, the religion has predictions. It predicts a self-driving car, a "fourth industrial revolution", and so on. When these fail to materialise, some sanity will return. (Of course they have already failed, the question is when in the next 5-10yrs people will realise.)

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

I think you can create models that learn this particular pattern, but the models being told that oppression is a bad thing will determine that being black is a bad thing and from there that black people are bad.