7 ms·

Intro to "Ideologies of AI and the consolidation of power": Naming power

38 points by cratermoon 3y ago

jmole 3y ago
[flagged]
- walterbell 3y ago
  s/AI/technology/ It's not a paper, it's introducing multiple papers. While it does not mention "capitalism", it mentions "the power, wealth, and ideology of a small cohort of industrialists". > This introductory essay for the special issue of First Monday, “Ideologies of AI and the consolidation of power,” considers how power operates in AI and machine learning research and publication. Drawing on themes from the seven contributions to this special issue, we argue that what can and cannot be said inside of mainstream computer science publications appears to be constrained by the power, wealth, and ideology of a small cohort of industrialists. The result is that shaping discourse about the AI industry is itself a form of power that cannot be named inside of computer science. We argue that naming and grappling with this power, and the troubled history of core commitments behind the pursuit of general artificial intelligence, is necessary for the integrity of the field and the well-being of the people whose lives are impacted by AI.
- barfbagginus 3y ago
  They do criticize the role of corporation and money in the development of AI power, but in a liberal statist way Rather than a revolutionary queer automated communist way, which is indeed disappointing. However I think the discussion is interesting when they also talk about forces like anti-humanist utopianism and the eugenic approach of some AI accelerationist. Keep in mind this is just an intro to the other papers in the issue, which you can find here: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/749 https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/749 The article on eugenics seems promising. It theorizes eugenics as a driver of the AGI frenzy, where eugenics spurns the production of AI/AGI that centralizes power and harms marginal communities. The article on excluding robot rights is aggravating because it excludes humans who either directly identify as robots or integrate deeply with assistive technologies, and their valid ethical and legal claims to rights and protections specific to their needs as robotic-humans. I do believe there are marginal people and communities that will require productions - the biggest example right now is that we need access to free and open source LLMs. AI dependent people currently depend on centralized AI models that compromise our privacy in return for providing necessary assistance with, for instance, emotional processing and communications needs.
  - mycologos 3y ago
    > They do criticize the role of corporation and money in the development of AI power, but in a liberal statist way Rather than a revolutionary queer automated communist way, which is indeed disappointing. It's disappointing that their criticism doesn't conform to four disparate and specific adjectives seemingly plucked from thin air? What?
    - barfbagginus 3y ago
      It's disappointing that their criticism does not call for the abolition of corporations and states, like my concept of automated communism does. Liberal statists assume that corporations and states could in theory be reformed to not centralize AI power in a way that hurts people. I think that corporations and states needs to be disbanded, because they'll centralize and abuse AI power no matter what.
  - golergka 3y ago
    > is aggravating because it excludes humans who either directly identify as robots I honestly can't tell if this comment is a parody at this point.
    - makeitshine 3y ago
      Satire has, in many cases, become indistinguishable from reality. In this case I'd wager its satire.
      - zeruch 3y ago
        Possibly. In most cases, the satire has become so arid, and reality such a cataclysmically stupid bit of incoherent lunacy, that "satire" is now just a corpse of bones that all the most bleak and nihilistic forms of humor sit upon like a throne...or clown-ass shitposters. It's impossible to tell anymore, and that makes me weirdly happy and angry at the same time.
        3y ago
- stanleykm 3y ago
  Capital is the power that must not be named in the abstract, surely.
- tbrownaw 3y ago
  Even if it you were correct that it didn't mention the high computing expenses (ie, capital requirements) involved and the resulting inability for anyone but large companies to do much, why would that matter? What exactly makes it impossible to properly discuss gatekeeping by academic cliques without also discussing the permissibility of economic free enterprise?
- kevingadd 3y ago
  The abstract literally says 'constrained by the power, wealth, and ideology of a small cohort of industrialists' so I'm not sure you tried very hard
kazinator 3y ago
So there are three things that are hard in CS? 1. Cache invalidation. 2. Naming things. 3. Naming verboten things, from the inside.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Animats 3y ago
After the first two paragraphs, I thought "How long before they're talking about Derrida or Focault". Page 3.
4bpp 3y ago
From what I can tell, this is essentially a complaint about a reviewer gently pushing back when Timnit Gebru (& less-famous coauthor) tried to instantiate Godwin's Law in an academic paper, padded to article length with applause lights for those who are concerned about AI, academia and/or capitalism and references to postmodernist literature. To experience the actual ideologies of AI and consolidation of power, one may try to submit an AI paper that dismisses the Gebru and Torres conception of safety as a goal, or, if feeling especially cheeky, push back against Foucauldian discourse being appropriate for deciding questions of scientific ethics and purpose, for example in one of those "how can we improve review and grow our community" sessions every other CS conference seems to have these days. I doubt the pushback will be confined to a few side remarks from a single stray reviewer (no doubt since reprimanded and/or blacklisted). This camp has won comprehensively, and yet here they are talking up a tiny pocket of sheepish anonymous resistance as if all the powers that be were aligned against them.
- barfbagginus 3y ago
  I'd estimate that maybe a trillion dollars of capital will be sunk into AI in the next 5 years. If this camp had won comprehensively, they'd dictate the nature of that spending. Instead, AGI-seeking capitalists/nationalists will be making those decisions. I would say the "we're the resistance" vibe is consistent with the fact that those people will control perhaps less than 1% of the capital expenditures. Sure they've got the capitalists paying lip service to the ideas of safety. But who are they making AI safe for? Corporations and states, if anyone at all. So it seems the win you describe is a false win - they arguably win the right to play petty woke games with other people who are ultimately excluded from true power. I would say their anxiety and sense that they lack power is actually rather keen and based in fact. There are billions of cash flow they can't control, going into projects that oppose their goals. Let them lament their loss and try to regroup. We should all be aligned against corporate and state vanguardism in the development of AI, since it will surely harm those of us on the margins of society.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    dont bring nationalists into this -- most of these multi-nationals have no gods, masters, states, or religions outside of getting that money
mellosouls 3y ago
I don't always understand these sorts of treatises, especially when they deal with cultural and sociological aspects of our world at an abstract or philosophical level, but I'm glad they exist. When they are genuinely intellectually motivated but not constrained by ideology they can be at least provocative enough to help us reflect on our own assumptions and biases, even if we ultimately reject the thesis.
ps10 3y ago
Tale as old as time. At the end of the day, Walmart or AT&T or Disney or JPMorgan or Pfizer or Raytheon or Google are all engineered to make choices that increase their market power not reduce it. Anyone or group within these orgs even hinting at decisions that imply loss of market power, will be marginalized and pushed out. You can argue talking about it is necessary, and as long as they need your skill and expertise, the corporate robots are programmed to nod their heads and act as if they care. They will bribe you with goodies you can't get anywhere else, overload your surroundings with rituals of conspicuous luxury and conspicuous leisure, fund your conferences and side projects where you can feel important, build a golden cage around you, all the while extracting whatever they can. Even circus lions are allowed to roar, but they are still circus lions. Moral of the story is don't work for a corporation if you value integrity and your mental health. Large systems, like a Hurricane, require a whole lot of activity to be kept alive but don't mistake activity for control of the path of the hurricane. Nothing is controlling the path. As these complex dynamic systems get larger and larger they will collapse by themselves as contradictions accumulate.
- ipnon 3y ago
  It’s a shame someone as insightful as you has to make a throwaway just to post criticism of megacorps in general.
  - krapp 3y ago
    They didn't have to. People criticize "megacorps" under their own accounts and often even real names all the time. It isn't even that controversial to do.

38 points by cratermoon 3y ago

jmole 3y ago

[flagged]

walterbell 3y ago
s/AI/technology/ It's not a paper, it's introducing multiple papers. While it does not mention "capitalism", it mentions "the power, wealth, and ideology of a small cohort of industrialists". > This introductory essay for the special issue of First Monday, “Ideologies of AI and the consolidation of power,” considers how power operates in AI and machine learning research and publication. Drawing on themes from the seven contributions to this special issue, we argue that what can and cannot be said inside of mainstream computer science publications appears to be constrained by the power, wealth, and ideology of a small cohort of industrialists. The result is that shaping discourse about the AI industry is itself a form of power that cannot be named inside of computer science. We argue that naming and grappling with this power, and the troubled history of core commitments behind the pursuit of general artificial intelligence, is necessary for the integrity of the field and the well-being of the people whose lives are impacted by AI.
barfbagginus 3y ago
They do criticize the role of corporation and money in the development of AI power, but in a liberal statist way Rather than a revolutionary queer automated communist way, which is indeed disappointing. However I think the discussion is interesting when they also talk about forces like anti-humanist utopianism and the eugenic approach of some AI accelerationist. Keep in mind this is just an intro to the other papers in the issue, which you can find here: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/749 https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/749 The article on eugenics seems promising. It theorizes eugenics as a driver of the AGI frenzy, where eugenics spurns the production of AI/AGI that centralizes power and harms marginal communities. The article on excluding robot rights is aggravating because it excludes humans who either directly identify as robots or integrate deeply with assistive technologies, and their valid ethical and legal claims to rights and protections specific to their needs as robotic-humans. I do believe there are marginal people and communities that will require productions - the biggest example right now is that we need access to free and open source LLMs. AI dependent people currently depend on centralized AI models that compromise our privacy in return for providing necessary assistance with, for instance, emotional processing and communications needs.
- mycologos 3y ago
  > They do criticize the role of corporation and money in the development of AI power, but in a liberal statist way Rather than a revolutionary queer automated communist way, which is indeed disappointing. It's disappointing that their criticism doesn't conform to four disparate and specific adjectives seemingly plucked from thin air? What?
  - barfbagginus 3y ago
    It's disappointing that their criticism does not call for the abolition of corporations and states, like my concept of automated communism does. Liberal statists assume that corporations and states could in theory be reformed to not centralize AI power in a way that hurts people. I think that corporations and states needs to be disbanded, because they'll centralize and abuse AI power no matter what.
- golergka 3y ago
  > is aggravating because it excludes humans who either directly identify as robots I honestly can't tell if this comment is a parody at this point.
  - makeitshine 3y ago
    Satire has, in many cases, become indistinguishable from reality. In this case I'd wager its satire.
    - zeruch 3y ago
      Possibly. In most cases, the satire has become so arid, and reality such a cataclysmically stupid bit of incoherent lunacy, that "satire" is now just a corpse of bones that all the most bleak and nihilistic forms of humor sit upon like a throne...or clown-ass shitposters. It's impossible to tell anymore, and that makes me weirdly happy and angry at the same time.
      - 3y ago
stanleykm 3y ago
Capital is the power that must not be named in the abstract, surely.
tbrownaw 3y ago
Even if it you were correct that it didn't mention the high computing expenses (ie, capital requirements) involved and the resulting inability for anyone but large companies to do much, why would that matter? What exactly makes it impossible to properly discuss gatekeeping by academic cliques without also discussing the permissibility of economic free enterprise?
kevingadd 3y ago
The abstract literally says 'constrained by the power, wealth, and ideology of a small cohort of industrialists' so I'm not sure you tried very hard

kazinator 3y ago

So there are three things that are hard in CS? 1. Cache invalidation. 2. Naming things. 3. Naming verboten things, from the inside.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Animats 3y ago

After the first two paragraphs, I thought "How long before they're talking about Derrida or Focault". Page 3.

4bpp 3y ago

From what I can tell, this is essentially a complaint about a reviewer gently pushing back when Timnit Gebru (& less-famous coauthor) tried to instantiate Godwin's Law in an academic paper, padded to article length with applause lights for those who are concerned about AI, academia and/or capitalism and references to postmodernist literature. To experience the actual ideologies of AI and consolidation of power, one may try to submit an AI paper that dismisses the Gebru and Torres conception of safety as a goal, or, if feeling especially cheeky, push back against Foucauldian discourse being appropriate for deciding questions of scientific ethics and purpose, for example in one of those "how can we improve review and grow our community" sessions every other CS conference seems to have these days. I doubt the pushback will be confined to a few side remarks from a single stray reviewer (no doubt since reprimanded and/or blacklisted). This camp has won comprehensively, and yet here they are talking up a tiny pocket of sheepish anonymous resistance as if all the powers that be were aligned against them.

barfbagginus 3y ago
I'd estimate that maybe a trillion dollars of capital will be sunk into AI in the next 5 years. If this camp had won comprehensively, they'd dictate the nature of that spending. Instead, AGI-seeking capitalists/nationalists will be making those decisions. I would say the "we're the resistance" vibe is consistent with the fact that those people will control perhaps less than 1% of the capital expenditures. Sure they've got the capitalists paying lip service to the ideas of safety. But who are they making AI safe for? Corporations and states, if anyone at all. So it seems the win you describe is a false win - they arguably win the right to play petty woke games with other people who are ultimately excluded from true power. I would say their anxiety and sense that they lack power is actually rather keen and based in fact. There are billions of cash flow they can't control, going into projects that oppose their goals. Let them lament their loss and try to regroup. We should all be aligned against corporate and state vanguardism in the development of AI, since it will surely harm those of us on the margins of society.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  dont bring nationalists into this -- most of these multi-nationals have no gods, masters, states, or religions outside of getting that money

mellosouls 3y ago

I don't always understand these sorts of treatises, especially when they deal with cultural and sociological aspects of our world at an abstract or philosophical level, but I'm glad they exist. When they are genuinely intellectually motivated but not constrained by ideology they can be at least provocative enough to help us reflect on our own assumptions and biases, even if we ultimately reject the thesis.

ps10 3y ago

Tale as old as time. At the end of the day, Walmart or AT&T or Disney or JPMorgan or Pfizer or Raytheon or Google are all engineered to make choices that increase their market power not reduce it. Anyone or group within these orgs even hinting at decisions that imply loss of market power, will be marginalized and pushed out. You can argue talking about it is necessary, and as long as they need your skill and expertise, the corporate robots are programmed to nod their heads and act as if they care. They will bribe you with goodies you can't get anywhere else, overload your surroundings with rituals of conspicuous luxury and conspicuous leisure, fund your conferences and side projects where you can feel important, build a golden cage around you, all the while extracting whatever they can. Even circus lions are allowed to roar, but they are still circus lions. Moral of the story is don't work for a corporation if you value integrity and your mental health. Large systems, like a Hurricane, require a whole lot of activity to be kept alive but don't mistake activity for control of the path of the hurricane. Nothing is controlling the path. As these complex dynamic systems get larger and larger they will collapse by themselves as contradictions accumulate.

ipnon 3y ago
It’s a shame someone as insightful as you has to make a throwaway just to post criticism of megacorps in general.
- krapp 3y ago
  They didn't have to. People criticize "megacorps" under their own accounts and often even real names all the time. It isn't even that controversial to do.