5 ms·

We're Not Censoring You, Just Your Computer

54 points by capo 14y ago

unimpressive 14y ago
We're not censoring you, just your printing press. This whole dialogue is ridiculous.
- grecy 14y ago
  > This whole dialogue is doubleplus bad. Newspeak, citizen.
  - thwarted 14y ago
    I think you mean doubleplus ungood.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Printing presses don't make decisions and are not electronically connected to a greater network of presses. Computers aren't A.I. yet, but they sure aren't staplers either.
  - ajuc 14y ago
    Computers don't make decisions yet, and if they did, we should give them the same rights we have, including free speech.
    - grecy 14y ago
      How about the right to bear arms?
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Strangely, few people seem to have a problem with "we're not censoring you, just your corporation."
  - gpvos 14y ago
    That's not strange. Corporations are not people, and their rights should be different from people. In some ways they may be less restricted, in some ways more restricted. Free speech is for real people. As the saying goes, I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.
    - yummyfajitas 14y ago
      Computers/printing presses aren't people, and their rights should be different from people. Free speech is for real people. Property doesn't have free speech rights, the people who own it do.
      - Dylan16807 14y ago
        Corporations are standalone 'people'. An employee can free speech whatever they want, they just can't do certain things and attribute them to the corporation. They can use the corporation's equipment, even.
  - leot 14y ago
    Perhaps because every person who makes up a corporation enjoys full freedom of speech.
tokenizer 14y ago
The internet was different from the radio and television, but now it seems that governments want to prohibit its provocative nature. The problem is though, is that the internet is two way communication oppose to one way like most radio and television, and that attempting to "limit" it, means limiting one path of that communication, us. I feel like regulating the internet will cause more harm than allowing a few miscreants to organize through it. The miscreants will always find a way. Like DRM, this will only hurt the innocent and ignorant, not the savvy and mischievous.
- ihsw 14y ago
  Unlike DRM it gives control to governments, which is more desirable and more effective than client-side half-measures.
Karunamon 14y ago
Worth Mentioning: Cato is a Koch Bros. group with a very very far right bent. Evaluate everything said with that in mind.
- othermaciej 14y ago
  First of all, your argument is pure ad hominem. You didn't give any explanation to how Koch funding Second, Cato is not controlled by the Koch brothers. They were involved with the founding of the organization and recently attempted a takeover; that's now being worked out in mediation. So the premise of your ad hominem is false. Cato has a history of taking libertarian positions and criticizing both the left and the right in a principled way. And beyond that, Julian Sanchez, the guest author here, is well known for criticizing the right (for example, he coined the phrase "epistemic closure" to refer to the lack of openness of the right to outside information, as he perceived it). So, in brief, what you said was not actually worth mentioning. It would have been a poor argument even if true, and is actually totally false.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    Actually, when placing a piece in greater context, mentioning the source and the tendencies of a source, is not an ad hominem fallacy. (It is ad hominem, just not fallaciously so). A part I noted in the article that is subtly trying to conflate two things, is that privacy guards are injected as a first amendment violation, in an article over the absurdity of computers being an independent actor in free speech. They may be related topics, but suggesting privacy protections are silly because they are obviously first amendment issues akin to computer speech is a bit questionable. Further the article presents some strawman arguments with regard to that particular issue - for instance the issue of hand compilation suddenly being ok for everyone worried about computer speech wrt privacy: well no, that particular issue has been hashed out many times in pre-computer eras, with things like city directories and telephone books. Second, just because someone criticizes the left and the right both, does not matter when characterizing the things a particular organization cares to publish, particularly when that statement doesn't support the characterization of the group as a right leaning group. Plenty of "liberal" groups criticize the left, even though no one would disagree they are liberal (e.g. socialist groups regularly attack the democrats for not doing enough, bowing to centrism, whatever). Finally, it was worth mentioning in that without such a warning about strong political leanings, one may not be inclined to be on the lookout for the above mentioned types of issue conflation. A warning about this is fair, whether you agree or disagree with the conclusion, it doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention for it and understand implicit biases in a piece.
dfc 14y ago
The NYT article this is in response to was discussed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4139519 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4139519
losethos 14y ago
I said it was God. Tongues. If it can puppet you and put words in your mouth... Watch this: God says... repelled uprightness cosmetics iron don't hungered rounds slight Already revelation prevails solstices labourers justly pliant Covetousness do_I_have_to mingled trial's masses Puerto_Rico echoed vanity subtile thereon hands alternately converse white underwent Her game_over hiddest fit
InclinedPlane 14y ago
We're not censoring you, we're just censoring the air in between your mouth and other people's ears. Air can't have rights, so this is not a problem.
- sophacles 14y ago
  Obviously you didn't write the paper, it was merely the result of the ink choosing to stick better to some chemicals rather than others, and the resulting pattern being adhered to the paper.
tikhonj 14y ago
I think this question is much more interesting regarding WolframAlpha than a normal search engine. A search engine listing is just a directory of links (although Google and friends are adding new capabilities constantly) where a WolframAlpha result is a curated, rewritten summary of the content in question. Right now, WolframAlpha is one of the nearest things we have to the "advanced Artificial Intelligence" from the article; in a certain sense, it actually does create new content. Should this have speech protections? From an ideological point of view, I think it should, but I am sure about its legal status. A question I'm not even sure about ideologically is copyright--how much copyright protection do you give to things like WolframAlpha's result pages? Either way, the most important point is that the future where computers produce novel and useful content is not the future at all--it's now.
- davidhollander 14y ago
  > WolframAlpha is one of the nearest things we have to the "advanced Artificial Intelligence" from the article; in a certain sense, it actually does create new content. The conclusions one draws from the article is that it creates new content in the same manner as a web scraper, calculator, or printing press creates new content. Wolfram Alpha cannot be said to possess independent agency because it does not possess its own set of intrinsic preferences which it seeks to maximize. Rather the preferences are extrinsic and determined by humans, classifying it as a tool rather than agent.
planetguy 14y ago
Concrete examples here would make this whole debate a lot clearer. It's important to realize that the choice isn't between "Computers have free speech" vs "The government can censor anything a computer does". The choice is between "existing free-speech precedent applies to computers" vs "computer program output falls into some other legal framework which we might not have figured out yet". The only legal case which seems to be mentioned in either article is a nine-year-old suit against Google by someone unhappy with Google's ranking of search results. In that case, the court bought Google's argument that "Hey, our ranking can say whatever we like, free speech". But as to how far that argument goes, it hasn't yet been tested. US free speech law means that it's very hard to be held legally liable for any consequences of your speech. On the other hand, if you build a machine, you can in many circumstances be held liable for what that machine does. Now, is a computer program more like speech, or is it more like a machine?
jeffdavis 14y ago
Similar arguments are made regarding campaign finance: "We're not regulating your speech, we're regulating your money.".
ajuc 14y ago
If text written by computer programmed by human isn't a product of human, it surely can't be protected by copyright?

54 points by capo 14y ago

unimpressive 14y ago

We're not censoring you, just your printing press. This whole dialogue is ridiculous.

grecy 14y ago
> This whole dialogue is doubleplus bad. Newspeak, citizen.
- thwarted 14y ago
  I think you mean doubleplus ungood.
sliverstorm 14y ago
Printing presses don't make decisions and are not electronically connected to a greater network of presses. Computers aren't A.I. yet, but they sure aren't staplers either.
- ajuc 14y ago
  Computers don't make decisions yet, and if they did, we should give them the same rights we have, including free speech.
  - grecy 14y ago
    How about the right to bear arms?
yummyfajitas 14y ago
Strangely, few people seem to have a problem with "we're not censoring you, just your corporation."
- gpvos 14y ago
  That's not strange. Corporations are not people, and their rights should be different from people. In some ways they may be less restricted, in some ways more restricted. Free speech is for real people. As the saying goes, I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    Computers/printing presses aren't people, and their rights should be different from people. Free speech is for real people. Property doesn't have free speech rights, the people who own it do.
    - Dylan16807 14y ago
      Corporations are standalone 'people'. An employee can free speech whatever they want, they just can't do certain things and attribute them to the corporation. They can use the corporation's equipment, even.
- leot 14y ago
  Perhaps because every person who makes up a corporation enjoys full freedom of speech.

tokenizer 14y ago

The internet was different from the radio and television, but now it seems that governments want to prohibit its provocative nature. The problem is though, is that the internet is two way communication oppose to one way like most radio and television, and that attempting to "limit" it, means limiting one path of that communication, us. I feel like regulating the internet will cause more harm than allowing a few miscreants to organize through it. The miscreants will always find a way. Like DRM, this will only hurt the innocent and ignorant, not the savvy and mischievous.

ihsw 14y ago
Unlike DRM it gives control to governments, which is more desirable and more effective than client-side half-measures.

Karunamon 14y ago

Worth Mentioning: Cato is a Koch Bros. group with a very very far right bent. Evaluate everything said with that in mind.

othermaciej 14y ago
First of all, your argument is pure ad hominem. You didn't give any explanation to how Koch funding Second, Cato is not controlled by the Koch brothers. They were involved with the founding of the organization and recently attempted a takeover; that's now being worked out in mediation. So the premise of your ad hominem is false. Cato has a history of taking libertarian positions and criticizing both the left and the right in a principled way. And beyond that, Julian Sanchez, the guest author here, is well known for criticizing the right (for example, he coined the phrase "epistemic closure" to refer to the lack of openness of the right to outside information, as he perceived it). So, in brief, what you said was not actually worth mentioning. It would have been a poor argument even if true, and is actually totally false.
- sophacles 14y ago
  Actually, when placing a piece in greater context, mentioning the source and the tendencies of a source, is not an ad hominem fallacy. (It is ad hominem, just not fallaciously so). A part I noted in the article that is subtly trying to conflate two things, is that privacy guards are injected as a first amendment violation, in an article over the absurdity of computers being an independent actor in free speech. They may be related topics, but suggesting privacy protections are silly because they are obviously first amendment issues akin to computer speech is a bit questionable. Further the article presents some strawman arguments with regard to that particular issue - for instance the issue of hand compilation suddenly being ok for everyone worried about computer speech wrt privacy: well no, that particular issue has been hashed out many times in pre-computer eras, with things like city directories and telephone books. Second, just because someone criticizes the left and the right both, does not matter when characterizing the things a particular organization cares to publish, particularly when that statement doesn't support the characterization of the group as a right leaning group. Plenty of "liberal" groups criticize the left, even though no one would disagree they are liberal (e.g. socialist groups regularly attack the democrats for not doing enough, bowing to centrism, whatever). Finally, it was worth mentioning in that without such a warning about strong political leanings, one may not be inclined to be on the lookout for the above mentioned types of issue conflation. A warning about this is fair, whether you agree or disagree with the conclusion, it doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention for it and understand implicit biases in a piece.

dfc 14y ago

The NYT article this is in response to was discussed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4139519 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4139519

losethos 14y ago

I said it was God. Tongues. If it can puppet you and put words in your mouth... Watch this: God says... repelled uprightness cosmetics iron don't hungered rounds slight Already revelation prevails solstices labourers justly pliant Covetousness do_I_have_to mingled trial's masses Puerto_Rico echoed vanity subtile thereon hands alternately converse white underwent Her game_over hiddest fit

InclinedPlane 14y ago

We're not censoring you, we're just censoring the air in between your mouth and other people's ears. Air can't have rights, so this is not a problem.

sophacles 14y ago
Obviously you didn't write the paper, it was merely the result of the ink choosing to stick better to some chemicals rather than others, and the resulting pattern being adhered to the paper.

tikhonj 14y ago

I think this question is much more interesting regarding WolframAlpha than a normal search engine. A search engine listing is just a directory of links (although Google and friends are adding new capabilities constantly) where a WolframAlpha result is a curated, rewritten summary of the content in question. Right now, WolframAlpha is one of the nearest things we have to the "advanced Artificial Intelligence" from the article; in a certain sense, it actually does create new content. Should this have speech protections? From an ideological point of view, I think it should, but I am sure about its legal status. A question I'm not even sure about ideologically is copyright--how much copyright protection do you give to things like WolframAlpha's result pages? Either way, the most important point is that the future where computers produce novel and useful content is not the future at all--it's now.

davidhollander 14y ago
> WolframAlpha is one of the nearest things we have to the "advanced Artificial Intelligence" from the article; in a certain sense, it actually does create new content. The conclusions one draws from the article is that it creates new content in the same manner as a web scraper, calculator, or printing press creates new content. Wolfram Alpha cannot be said to possess independent agency because it does not possess its own set of intrinsic preferences which it seeks to maximize. Rather the preferences are extrinsic and determined by humans, classifying it as a tool rather than agent.

planetguy 14y ago

Concrete examples here would make this whole debate a lot clearer. It's important to realize that the choice isn't between "Computers have free speech" vs "The government can censor anything a computer does". The choice is between "existing free-speech precedent applies to computers" vs "computer program output falls into some other legal framework which we might not have figured out yet". The only legal case which seems to be mentioned in either article is a nine-year-old suit against Google by someone unhappy with Google's ranking of search results. In that case, the court bought Google's argument that "Hey, our ranking can say whatever we like, free speech". But as to how far that argument goes, it hasn't yet been tested. US free speech law means that it's very hard to be held legally liable for any consequences of your speech. On the other hand, if you build a machine, you can in many circumstances be held liable for what that machine does. Now, is a computer program more like speech, or is it more like a machine?

jeffdavis 14y ago

Similar arguments are made regarding campaign finance: "We're not regulating your speech, we're regulating your money.".

ajuc 14y ago

If text written by computer programmed by human isn't a product of human, it surely can't be protected by copyright?