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Excellent point. I think it’s critical to recognize that as AI tech is getting more advanced, we need to improve the mechanisms that enforce transparency and tr
by isodev 4y ago
Excellent point. I think it’s critical to recognize that as AI tech is getting more advanced, we need to improve the mechanisms that enforce transparency and trustability. It starts with training data. Just because something is technically reachable online, doesn’t make it OK for it to be used for AI training. A person or organization should be able to opt into having their data used, of course, but it’s not a “use first, ask to remove later”.
Then who is watching the watchers? Models being used to generate content or make decisions that have a real-world impact on actual humans need to be open to audit and validation that they don’t repeat the bias and social limitations of the people who create those models. This is not a new concept (think algorithms for insurance coverage calculations etc).
So yes, a toy chatbot to play around with - sure. A fancy AI model, sucking personal data without consent and being deployed all around us by closed organizations with dubious funding - big no. Is AI ready to offer scientific or academic value - no, and even if it was a yes, it will need to stand to human scrutiny for a long time before being acceptable “as is”. Kids in schools need to be thought how to recognise and work with AI generated content. Just like dealing with fake news, it requires critical thinking and the ability to analyse information.
- seydor 4y ago> Then who is watching the watchers? My concern is who is watching the ethicists who are making decisions and regulations "for our own good". All the discussion about AI that i can read about is clearly a power play about who will get to set the rules (and rent-seek) first
- isodev 4y agoFolks who specialize in issues arising from algorithmic bias, ethics, and techniques for gathering data and scraping, data lineage etc. are uniquely qualified to support the ethical perspective. This is not competition. Politicians/corporates/religious leaders/influencers and such want it to be a competition, so they can reinforce their base of power and influence. That's why we must develop tools to guard against such influences.
- seydor 4y agoI think that "specialized folks deciding our ethics" sounds authoritarian. I much prefer it to be public, competitive and democratic
- isodev 4y agoThis seems naive and inviting exactly the kind of bias we need to avoid. For example, you say “democratic” which means different things to different groups of people. Transparency and trustability are precisely the tools that once installed can allow the public to peer into the workings of an AI system, it's models and training data. To achieve that, we need the cooperation of a wide variety of specialists in domains like ethics, computer science, law etc. Also, the right choices must be made while creating that AI system (e.g. in regard to data collection, diversity of the sample data etc).
- seydor 4y ago> Transparency and trustability are precisely the tools I don't get the point of transparency if "we the people" dont have a say on the politics of AI that affects our life. AI is too important to be left to a cabal of "specialists"
- notacoward 4y ago> AI is too important to be left to a cabal of "specialists" You do realize you're arguing against yourself, right? "Cabal of specialists" could also apply to the people who work on AI. For profit. Information asymmetry is well known to be the main cause of market failure. How is that cabal alone better than that plus people with other specialties such as ethics, plus everyone able to watch them all and decide for themselves whether that aligns with their own (or society's) interests?
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- 4y ago