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Yeah, like food safety regulations, other places still won't abide. It's not like "other places still will allow abuse of their citizens" is a great argument fo

• endisneigh 3y ago
  I don't know why people compare software regulation to the regulation of physical things that do obvious harm like food regulations.
  • hef19898 3y ago
    Considering how much software actually export controlled under, e.g. ITAR (coming from the US by the way), your point is?
  • braveyellowtoad 3y ago
    Could you please clarify: is your position that software is not capable of doing harm?
    • endisneigh 3y ago
      Yes, most software is harmless. There are some scenarios where it could do harm, but ultimately said harm was the product of human usage of the software, not software inherently. There are a few examples such as medical device software and things like train software where honest mistakes can result in human harm. However even with those the issue was that humans made the mistakes. Software development as a discipline certainly needs more rigor like the other engineering disciplines. However the AI act is premature since AI ultimately is an implementation detail for a variety of use-cases, that should be regulated independently, not AI. Regulating AI in general is like regulating electrons. If the EU has an issue with AI potentially resulting in more misinformation, then regulate the types of sites, that is social media, that would be the vector for such spread. I'm open to counterexamples outside those class of examples.
      • Taywee 3y ago
        Replace "software" with "guns" in your post and it's the same effect.
        • endisneigh 3y ago
          Sure. There are people who think guns are harmless and do not need to be regulated. There are those who do. At the end of the day guns do not shoot people on their own, though.
          • Taywee 3y ago
            Yes, but gun regulations don't operate under the assumption that guns shoot people on their own. They operate under the understanding that people who do damage can do much more damage with guns than without. Pretending that any of the regulation of guns or AI is done with the understanding that they are anything other than powerful tools that can be used by humans to do profound damage is a strawman argument. We all understand that guns don't shoot people on their own. Don't oppose regulation by characterizing the opposing viewpoint as something it isn't.
            • endisneigh 3y ago
              I'm well aware of the distinction. I'm simply saying that it is a fact that guns do not shoot people on their own. Some countries regulate differently, obviously. You also seem to think governments, which are made by the said humans that can do "profound damage", are infallible. At the end of the day you either democratize the access, or you don't. Those who want to break the law will break it either way. All you are going to do is punish those who follow the law by not giving them access. For what it's worth - I couldn't care less about guns and wouldn't mind their banning. However I trust my government. If you do not, I would not want guns to be banned. But that's the thing - a government I don't trust would not want citizens to have guns to begin with, and thus the dilemma.
              • Taywee 3y ago
  • renjimen 3y ago
    But software can do obvious harm. This is surely one the most important lessons of the internet era
    • AbrahamParangi 3y ago
      Yeah it really can’t though. If there’s mercury in the tuna that’s obviously and unequivocally bad. If there’s funny memes supporting the other political party that’s supposed to be equivalent?
      • Taywee 3y ago
        This comment is so disingenuous it's ridiculous. It's like opposing gun regulation with some contrived scenario about water pistols and Nerf guns.
        • AbrahamParangi 3y ago
          It is enough to recognize that at minimum, people disagree about which software things cause harm whereas people overwhelming recognize that lead in food is bad. Given that reasonable people disagree, it's not even close to comparable.
          • renjimen 3y ago
            Well yeah. Lead in food is very specific. Software is very broad. Nobody said all software was bad.
            • AbrahamParangi 3y ago
              What is an example of a specific, non-controversial harm that software causes?
              • Taywee 3y ago
                The way social media acts as an echo chamber and may intensify extreme viewpoints and isolation from fellow citizens isn't extremely controversial. It has also been leveraged as a tool for good, helping prevent many people from being effectively suppressed, but it's hard to deny the harm that comes from engagement-driven advertisement algorithms systemically stoking people's anger and sense of personal victimization. The trends of polarization and politically extreme positions in America in particular over the past 30 years are profound and striking.
• spacebanana7 3y ago
  In the food industry there (generally) isn't a big isn't a big prize or defensive moat for being the first to develop a new product at scale. Especially at the national level. Many capital intensive internationally traded industries are different. Once overseas competitors have been through a few innovation cycles and sunk tens of billions of dollars into product development it's basically impossible to catch up. Even with government support. TSMC is the canonical example, but similar principals apply with Amazon and other big tech companies with high infra spending. More subtly, industries with high marketing costs are very hard to penetrate at scale when an incumbent has reached a certain depth. See enterprise software with MSFT or high fashion with LVMH. As well as losing the opportunity for economical development in a new industry, dependence on overseas imports for critical industries creates geopolitical headaches. European governments recognised this risk in aerospace a few decades ago, and the Airbus project saved Europe and the world from a Boeing dominated international passenger jet market.