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> Show me how this works, now. Let's say we had this. We had some ML/AI team go up to Congress/DoJ and show them some tensors, some "back propagating LSTM" hor

> Show me how this works, now. Let's say we had this. We had some ML/AI team go up to Congress/DoJ and show them some tensors, some "back propagating LSTM" horseshit. How does that help the people that don't understand how the ad model works? Hell, I bet there is _no one_ using AI or tensors or any of that shit that can tell you _why_ their model output Foo instead of Bar.

ethbr0 5y ago
Just because the 84-year-old Sen. Hatch (who retired in 2019) asked a dumb question doesn't mean there aren't smart people in government. (Edit: Although I might have been misreading your ad model sentence as the above) If explainability is a problem (e.g. "We don't know why our algorithm recommends higher-interest rate loan products to African Americans"), then that's a rabbit hole that needs to have funding put towards digging up as well.
- beardedetim 5y ago
  > doesn't mean there aren't smart people in government. agreed and I was flippant to make a point. I did not mean to say there aren't smart people in government. But I would venture to say that people who understand ML/AI are _not_ working in the government. Or put more correctly, the _odds_ of a person working in government being up to date on how LSTM works today is such a low number, that I would be fair to say it is extremely unlikely that anyone on any board would be smarter than Sen Hatch _in this domain_. > then that's a rabbit hole that needs to have funding put towards digging up as well. Agreed and is the larger point I was trying to make: we currently, no matter how smart you are, have _any_ way of knowing what your "algorithm" is doing. Or if you do, it's a rule-based system and isn't AI/ML. We should though! And I think pursuing that will give us much higher rate of return than our black-box strategy everyone seems to be using.
  - chrischen 5y ago
    The government can retain its own experts for opinions, just like how in court they can get expert testimony rather than relying on the judge or jury to know and decide all.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Many government agencies use AI/ML heavily. It's possible that the US Dept of Defense spends more on AI than any other institution in the world.
laurex 5y ago
Instead of "the government" how about an independent NGO that was comprised of people who included industry or ex-industry ML/AI folks as well as academic or government people? There's a fairly robust emerging group of "ethics in tech" people who have worked on the industry algorithms and could be resources if their were policy requirements for audits.

ethbr0 5y ago

Just because the 84-year-old Sen. Hatch (who retired in 2019) asked a dumb question doesn't mean there aren't smart people in government. (Edit: Although I might have been misreading your ad model sentence as the above) If explainability is a problem (e.g. "We don't know why our algorithm recommends higher-interest rate loan products to African Americans"), then that's a rabbit hole that needs to have funding put towards digging up as well.

beardedetim 5y ago
> doesn't mean there aren't smart people in government. agreed and I was flippant to make a point. I did not mean to say there aren't smart people in government. But I would venture to say that people who understand ML/AI are _not_ working in the government. Or put more correctly, the _odds_ of a person working in government being up to date on how LSTM works today is such a low number, that I would be fair to say it is extremely unlikely that anyone on any board would be smarter than Sen Hatch _in this domain_. > then that's a rabbit hole that needs to have funding put towards digging up as well. Agreed and is the larger point I was trying to make: we currently, no matter how smart you are, have _any_ way of knowing what your "algorithm" is doing. Or if you do, it's a rule-based system and isn't AI/ML. We should though! And I think pursuing that will give us much higher rate of return than our black-box strategy everyone seems to be using.
- chrischen 5y ago
  The government can retain its own experts for opinions, just like how in court they can get expert testimony rather than relying on the judge or jury to know and decide all.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Many government agencies use AI/ML heavily. It's possible that the US Dept of Defense spends more on AI than any other institution in the world.

laurex 5y ago

Instead of "the government" how about an independent NGO that was comprised of people who included industry or ex-industry ML/AI folks as well as academic or government people? There's a fairly robust emerging group of "ethics in tech" people who have worked on the industry algorithms and could be resources if their were policy requirements for audits.