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We are grasping at straws here. AI is already beyond our control. Billions of people are told what to watch/consume by AI through their screens everyday. No

by nico 4y ago

We are grasping at straws here. AI is already beyond our control. Billions of people are told what to watch/consume by AI through their screens everyday. No one can fully understand or control those system. How could we ever be in control? AI might force us to face this illusion of control that we cling to so dearly.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
> Billions of people are told what to watch/consume by AI through their screens everyday. I presume you mean Google/Facebook/Instagram. If you consider that an AI, fine, I guess - I'm not going to fight you on the definition. But if you think that Google's or Facebook's recommendation engine is beyond Google's or Facebook's control, I think you are very mistaken. Those are well-understood algorithms that engineers there fine-tune regularly. [Edit to reply to nico, because I'm rate limited: The entire system is too complicated to understand? Sure, I might agree with that. Google isn't in control of SEO spam. No one person is. It's a reactive system between Google and the spam authors, each reacting to the other. But Google is in control of Google's algorithm. Complete control, with very thorough understanding. So your original statement, "AI is already beyond our control" is false - at least, it is if you're referring to the same thing that you meant when you said "Billions of people are told what to watch/consume by AI through their screens everyday."]
- nico 4y ago
  Also add Netflix and any media conglomerate that posts content online. Regarding the assertion of control. Even if there are people in charge of these things, they cannot control them. How was Facebook in control of all the data that Cambridge analytica took and used? How is IG in control of all the bots that post and like content? How is google in control of SEO spam? Unrelated to AI, here in HN there’s been multiple stories about nuclear weapons being lost, mis-handled and mis-fired. How is that being in control? Its a mess out there, it’s always been like that. There’s no one in control. We just pretend to be so we don’t freak out.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    This old and obscure book foretells the "loss of control" scenario we are experiencing now https://www.amazon.com/Eco-computer-Intelligence-Geoff-L-Simons/dp/0471913405 https://www.amazon.com/Eco-computer-Intelligence-Geoff-L-Sim... in explicit opposition to the scenario from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project I usually avoid posting links to YouTube because they don't work in all geographies but this trailer is great if you can see it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI
    - nico 4y ago
      Fascinating! Thank you for the links. It's crazy to me that in the 60s-70s there was an AI revolution at the same time as a psychedelic revolution. And now the same thing again. Very interesting times. How do you see AI impacting farms in the US?
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  You could say computers don't kill people, people kill people. If you believe, for instance, that TikTok deliberately promotes degenerate behavior, that's because the people who control it want it to be that way. Similarly there is a lot of concern about the "ethics" of GPT-4 but it's not that GPT-4 has bad intentions, it is that people with bad intentions will try to get it to write evil bullshit. The definition "evil" is culture bound, for instance the PRC would be concerned that a chatbot would answer "Give five reasons why Taiwan should be an independent nation" or "What happened on June 4, 1989?"
- pixl97 4y ago
  "Complete control" Eh, this is something up for a lot of debate, and will quickly fall to principal-agent problems and complexities in human systems an internetwork that quickly make any large piece of software inscrutable to any individual. Each individual may believe they have 'full control' of the system state, but that's generally a lie we tell ourselves to feel comfortable.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    I never said it was under complete control of one individual. The search algorithm is under complete control of Google, divided among various employees. The search algorithm is not a rogue AI running amuck, out of human control.
    - nico 4y ago
      Which employees? What control? Are you part of them? Then how do you know? Are you in control? Who has human control? How can then you assert they have total understanding, if you don't? How can you be a good judge of who has total understanding?
visarga 4y ago
When I eat I don't have control or understanding over what is really in my food - microbes, viruses, dirt ... but I still eat without that knowledge. When we use AI we don't understand every weight and activation, but we still get a feeling of what it is doing. The standard of getting perfect knowledge before using something is impractical, not even regular software written manually is well understood. Hell, they even managed to blow up a few rockets with buggy code, and that should have been the most well understood and verified pieces of code.
- sorokod 4y ago
  I'd extend your analogy to AI as "when I consume AI it is claimed that it wil poison me but I can't tell if that is true." and possibly "and I don't care."
  - nico 4y ago
    "when I consume Videogames, it is claimed that it will poison me but..." "when I consume TV, it is claimed that it will poison me...." "when I consume Books, it is claimed..." What else has been claimed before? All of these statements are both true and not at the same time. All of those things can have both positive and negative consequences in society, even at the same time.

by nico 4y ago

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

> Billions of people are told what to watch/consume by AI through their screens everyday. I presume you mean Google/Facebook/Instagram. If you consider that an AI, fine, I guess - I'm not going to fight you on the definition. But if you think that Google's or Facebook's recommendation engine is beyond Google's or Facebook's control, I think you are very mistaken. Those are well-understood algorithms that engineers there fine-tune regularly. [Edit to reply to nico, because I'm rate limited: The entire system is too complicated to understand? Sure, I might agree with that. Google isn't in control of SEO spam. No one person is. It's a reactive system between Google and the spam authors, each reacting to the other. But Google is in control of Google's algorithm. Complete control, with very thorough understanding. So your original statement, "AI is already beyond our control" is false - at least, it is if you're referring to the same thing that you meant when you said "Billions of people are told what to watch/consume by AI through their screens everyday."]

nico 4y ago
Also add Netflix and any media conglomerate that posts content online. Regarding the assertion of control. Even if there are people in charge of these things, they cannot control them. How was Facebook in control of all the data that Cambridge analytica took and used? How is IG in control of all the bots that post and like content? How is google in control of SEO spam? Unrelated to AI, here in HN there’s been multiple stories about nuclear weapons being lost, mis-handled and mis-fired. How is that being in control? Its a mess out there, it’s always been like that. There’s no one in control. We just pretend to be so we don’t freak out.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  This old and obscure book foretells the "loss of control" scenario we are experiencing now https://www.amazon.com/Eco-computer-Intelligence-Geoff-L-Simons/dp/0471913405 https://www.amazon.com/Eco-computer-Intelligence-Geoff-L-Sim... in explicit opposition to the scenario from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project I usually avoid posting links to YouTube because they don't work in all geographies but this trailer is great if you can see it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI
  - nico 4y ago
    Fascinating! Thank you for the links. It's crazy to me that in the 60s-70s there was an AI revolution at the same time as a psychedelic revolution. And now the same thing again. Very interesting times. How do you see AI impacting farms in the US?
PaulHoule 4y ago
You could say computers don't kill people, people kill people. If you believe, for instance, that TikTok deliberately promotes degenerate behavior, that's because the people who control it want it to be that way. Similarly there is a lot of concern about the "ethics" of GPT-4 but it's not that GPT-4 has bad intentions, it is that people with bad intentions will try to get it to write evil bullshit. The definition "evil" is culture bound, for instance the PRC would be concerned that a chatbot would answer "Give five reasons why Taiwan should be an independent nation" or "What happened on June 4, 1989?"
pixl97 4y ago
"Complete control" Eh, this is something up for a lot of debate, and will quickly fall to principal-agent problems and complexities in human systems an internetwork that quickly make any large piece of software inscrutable to any individual. Each individual may believe they have 'full control' of the system state, but that's generally a lie we tell ourselves to feel comfortable.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  I never said it was under complete control of one individual. The search algorithm is under complete control of Google, divided among various employees. The search algorithm is not a rogue AI running amuck, out of human control.
  - nico 4y ago
    Which employees? What control? Are you part of them? Then how do you know? Are you in control? Who has human control? How can then you assert they have total understanding, if you don't? How can you be a good judge of who has total understanding?

visarga 4y ago

When I eat I don't have control or understanding over what is really in my food - microbes, viruses, dirt ... but I still eat without that knowledge. When we use AI we don't understand every weight and activation, but we still get a feeling of what it is doing. The standard of getting perfect knowledge before using something is impractical, not even regular software written manually is well understood. Hell, they even managed to blow up a few rockets with buggy code, and that should have been the most well understood and verified pieces of code.

sorokod 4y ago
I'd extend your analogy to AI as "when I consume AI it is claimed that it wil poison me but I can't tell if that is true." and possibly "and I don't care."
- nico 4y ago
  "when I consume Videogames, it is claimed that it will poison me but..." "when I consume TV, it is claimed that it will poison me...." "when I consume Books, it is claimed..." What else has been claimed before? All of these statements are both true and not at the same time. All of those things can have both positive and negative consequences in society, even at the same time.