5 ms·

I wonder if the laws will be written in a way that we can get around them by just dropping the “AI” marketing fluff and saying that we’re building some ML/stats

by ru552 3y ago

I wonder if the laws will be written in a way that we can get around them by just dropping the “AI” marketing fluff and saying that we’re building some ML/stats system.

lsmeducation 3y ago
I'm just using a hash map to count the number of word occurrences We're gonna need a RICO statute to go after these algos in the long run.
acdha 3y ago
No - lawyers tend to describe things like this in terms of capabilities or behavior, and the government has people who understand the technology quite well. If you look at some of the definitions the White House used, I’d expect proposed legislation to be similarly written in terms of what something does rather than how it’s implemented. https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/definitions/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/definition... > An “automated system” is any system, software, or process that uses computation as whole or part of a system to determine outcomes, make or aid decisions, inform policy implementation, collect data or observations, or otherwise interact with individuals and/or communities. Automated systems include, but are not limited to, systems derived from machine learning, statistics, or other data processing or artificial intelligence techniques, and exclude passive computing infrastructure.
- bannedbybros 3y ago
  [dead]
- whelp_24 3y ago
  What is passive computing infrastructure? Doesn't this definitely include things like 'send email if subscribed'? Seems overly broad.
  - acdha 3y ago
    That’s defined in the document
- solardev 3y ago
  Sounds like Excel
- ifyoubuildit 3y ago
  Not a lawyer, but that sounds like its describing a person. Does computation have some special legal definition so that it doesn't count if a human does it? If I add two numbers in my head, am I not "using computation"? And if not, what if I break out a calculator?
  - acdha 3y ago
    Are you legally a system, software, or process or a person? Someone will no doubt pedantically try to argue both but judges tend to be spectacularly unimpressed.
    - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
      I would have assumed both, but I'm probably committing the sin of reading legalese as if it were plain English, which I know is not how it works. Judges not being impressed with pedantics seems odd though. It would seem like pedantry should be a requirement. Is the law rigorous or not? In everyday conversation, "oh come on, you know what I meant" makes sense. In a legal context it seems inappropriate.
- solardev 3y ago
  I gotta say, the more I read that quote, the less I can agree with your conclusion. That whole paragraph reads like a bunch of CYA speak written by someone who is afraid of killer robots and can't differentiate between an abacus and Skynet. Who are these well informed tech people in the White House? The feds can't even handle basic matters like net neutrality or municipal broadband or foreign propaganda on social media. Why do you think they suddenly have AI people? Why would AI researchers want to work in that environment? This whole thing just reads like they were spooked by early AI companies' lobbyists and needed to make a statement. It's thoughtless, imprecise, rushed, and toothless.
  - acdha 3y ago
    > The feds can't even handle basic matters like net neutrality or municipal broadband or foreign propaganda on social media. Those aren’t capability issues but questions of political leadership: federal agencies can only work within the powers and budgets Congress grants them. We lost network neutrality because 3 Republicans picked the side of the large ISPs, not because government technologists didn’t understand the issue. Municipal broadband is a state issue until Congress acts, and that hasn’t happened due to a blizzard of lobbying money preventing it. The FCC has plenty of people who know the problems and in the current and second-most-recent administration were trying to do something about it, but their knowledge doesn’t trump the political clout of huge businesses. Foreign propaganda is similar: we have robust freedom of speech rights in the United States, not to mention one of the major political parties having embraced that propaganda - government employees who did spend years fighting it were threatened and even lost jobs because their actions were perceived as disloyalty to the Republican Party. > Why do you think they suddenly have AI people? Why would AI researchers want to work in that environment? Because I know some of the people working in that space?
    - solardev 3y ago
      Well, exactly. Nobody expects the White House to do technical development for AI, but they've unable to exercise "political leadership" on anything digital for decades. I don't see that changing. They're so captured, so weak, so behind the times, so conflicted that they're not really able to do their jobs anymore. Yes, there are are a bunch of reasons for it, but the end result is the same: they are not effective digital regulators, and have never been, and likely won't be for the foreseeable future. > Because I know some of the people working in that space? Maybe it looks better to the insiders. From the outside the whole thing seems like a sad joke, just another obvious cash grab regulatory capture.
throw_pm23 3y ago
No - they will be written so that OpenAI, Google, and Facebook can get around it, but you and I cannot.
- collsni 3y ago
  This is what I interpret as well, They're trying to control the market

by ru552 3y ago

I wonder if the laws will be written in a way that we can get around them by just dropping the “AI” marketing fluff and saying that we’re building some ML/stats system.

lsmeducation 3y ago

I'm just using a hash map to count the number of word occurrences We're gonna need a RICO statute to go after these algos in the long run.

acdha 3y ago

No - lawyers tend to describe things like this in terms of capabilities or behavior, and the government has people who understand the technology quite well. If you look at some of the definitions the White House used, I’d expect proposed legislation to be similarly written in terms of what something does rather than how it’s implemented. https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/definitions/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/definition... > An “automated system” is any system, software, or process that uses computation as whole or part of a system to determine outcomes, make or aid decisions, inform policy implementation, collect data or observations, or otherwise interact with individuals and/or communities. Automated systems include, but are not limited to, systems derived from machine learning, statistics, or other data processing or artificial intelligence techniques, and exclude passive computing infrastructure.

bannedbybros 3y ago
[dead]
whelp_24 3y ago
What is passive computing infrastructure? Doesn't this definitely include things like 'send email if subscribed'? Seems overly broad.
- acdha 3y ago
  That’s defined in the document
solardev 3y ago
Sounds like Excel
ifyoubuildit 3y ago
Not a lawyer, but that sounds like its describing a person. Does computation have some special legal definition so that it doesn't count if a human does it? If I add two numbers in my head, am I not "using computation"? And if not, what if I break out a calculator?
- acdha 3y ago
  Are you legally a system, software, or process or a person? Someone will no doubt pedantically try to argue both but judges tend to be spectacularly unimpressed.
  - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
    I would have assumed both, but I'm probably committing the sin of reading legalese as if it were plain English, which I know is not how it works. Judges not being impressed with pedantics seems odd though. It would seem like pedantry should be a requirement. Is the law rigorous or not? In everyday conversation, "oh come on, you know what I meant" makes sense. In a legal context it seems inappropriate.
solardev 3y ago
I gotta say, the more I read that quote, the less I can agree with your conclusion. That whole paragraph reads like a bunch of CYA speak written by someone who is afraid of killer robots and can't differentiate between an abacus and Skynet. Who are these well informed tech people in the White House? The feds can't even handle basic matters like net neutrality or municipal broadband or foreign propaganda on social media. Why do you think they suddenly have AI people? Why would AI researchers want to work in that environment? This whole thing just reads like they were spooked by early AI companies' lobbyists and needed to make a statement. It's thoughtless, imprecise, rushed, and toothless.
- acdha 3y ago
  > The feds can't even handle basic matters like net neutrality or municipal broadband or foreign propaganda on social media. Those aren’t capability issues but questions of political leadership: federal agencies can only work within the powers and budgets Congress grants them. We lost network neutrality because 3 Republicans picked the side of the large ISPs, not because government technologists didn’t understand the issue. Municipal broadband is a state issue until Congress acts, and that hasn’t happened due to a blizzard of lobbying money preventing it. The FCC has plenty of people who know the problems and in the current and second-most-recent administration were trying to do something about it, but their knowledge doesn’t trump the political clout of huge businesses. Foreign propaganda is similar: we have robust freedom of speech rights in the United States, not to mention one of the major political parties having embraced that propaganda - government employees who did spend years fighting it were threatened and even lost jobs because their actions were perceived as disloyalty to the Republican Party. > Why do you think they suddenly have AI people? Why would AI researchers want to work in that environment? Because I know some of the people working in that space?
  - solardev 3y ago
    Well, exactly. Nobody expects the White House to do technical development for AI, but they've unable to exercise "political leadership" on anything digital for decades. I don't see that changing. They're so captured, so weak, so behind the times, so conflicted that they're not really able to do their jobs anymore. Yes, there are are a bunch of reasons for it, but the end result is the same: they are not effective digital regulators, and have never been, and likely won't be for the foreseeable future. > Because I know some of the people working in that space? Maybe it looks better to the insiders. From the outside the whole thing seems like a sad joke, just another obvious cash grab regulatory capture.

throw_pm23 3y ago

No - they will be written so that OpenAI, Google, and Facebook can get around it, but you and I cannot.

collsni 3y ago
This is what I interpret as well, They're trying to control the market