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It's probably not deliberate, but it is dangerous negligence, especially at Big Tech scales. If Alexa suggests this to 10,000 kids even a 1% chance could mean 1

by klipt 5y ago

It's probably not deliberate, but it is dangerous negligence, especially at Big Tech scales. If Alexa suggests this to 10,000 kids even a 1% chance could mean 100 deaths.

kragen 5y ago
I'm surprised this implication was so unclear in my original comment (which did, after all, say, "In some cases, it will be fatal") that you thought it needed saying, so I've edited the comment to make it more explicit. I'm sure it was deliberate on the part of whoever posted the original suggestion; perhaps they didn't expect kids to be reading it, or perhaps they just didn't care that some of them would die, or perhaps they didn't think the kids would really do it (like Soupy Sales: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenmail/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenmail/). Certainly Alexa is designed deliberately to give kids minimally filtered access to the internet memepool; probably that does a wide range of harms, and killing hundreds of kids isn't even the biggest one. It also does some good, although probably most of that good is undermined by the pervasive surveillance implicit in the platform.
Bud 5y ago
- kragen 5y ago
  In US law, I think it's "a failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances"? Perhaps you believe that this is not applicable, but you seem to be begging the question by implicitly accusing your interlocutor of believing that words do not have meanings, rather than making an argument for that position. I find that contemptible. Your comment is the kind of comment that makes me not want to comment on HN.
  - Bud 5y ago
    Instead, I merely think that my interlocutor has perhaps not fully considered what negligence means, in this particular very complex context, and what it might take to fully avoid being judged as being "negligent", and how truly difficult that is. I think I have given my interlocutor a fair shake. Perhaps you do not. I respect that.
    - kragen 5y ago
      You still haven't given an argument that this doesn't amount to negligence.
      - Bud 5y ago
        That's easy enough to do: Alexa or any such system is extraordinarily complex and there are all kinds of edge cases that can be imagined where such a system might give out some stupid facts. As long as there is no evidence of recklessness, and as long as cases like this get corrected promptly (and Amazon did that), I can't see negligence here. Looking to a more codified legal definition of negligence comes out even more strongly in my favor, because there was no injury and no victim, here.

by klipt 5y ago

It's probably not deliberate, but it is dangerous negligence, especially at Big Tech scales. If Alexa suggests this to 10,000 kids even a 1% chance could mean 100 deaths.

kragen 5y ago

I'm surprised this implication was so unclear in my original comment (which did, after all, say, "In some cases, it will be fatal") that you thought it needed saying, so I've edited the comment to make it more explicit. I'm sure it was deliberate on the part of whoever posted the original suggestion; perhaps they didn't expect kids to be reading it, or perhaps they just didn't care that some of them would die, or perhaps they didn't think the kids would really do it (like Soupy Sales: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenmail/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenmail/). Certainly Alexa is designed deliberately to give kids minimally filtered access to the internet memepool; probably that does a wide range of harms, and killing hundreds of kids isn't even the biggest one. It also does some good, although probably most of that good is undermined by the pervasive surveillance implicit in the platform.

Bud 5y ago

kragen 5y ago
In US law, I think it's "a failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances"? Perhaps you believe that this is not applicable, but you seem to be begging the question by implicitly accusing your interlocutor of believing that words do not have meanings, rather than making an argument for that position. I find that contemptible. Your comment is the kind of comment that makes me not want to comment on HN.
- Bud 5y ago
  Instead, I merely think that my interlocutor has perhaps not fully considered what negligence means, in this particular very complex context, and what it might take to fully avoid being judged as being "negligent", and how truly difficult that is. I think I have given my interlocutor a fair shake. Perhaps you do not. I respect that.
  - kragen 5y ago
    You still haven't given an argument that this doesn't amount to negligence.
    - Bud 5y ago
      That's easy enough to do: Alexa or any such system is extraordinarily complex and there are all kinds of edge cases that can be imagined where such a system might give out some stupid facts. As long as there is no evidence of recklessness, and as long as cases like this get corrected promptly (and Amazon did that), I can't see negligence here. Looking to a more codified legal definition of negligence comes out even more strongly in my favor, because there was no injury and no victim, here.