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Trusting software produced by others is not a new problem; I consider AI to be a tool, and so my techniques for establishing trust are the same as they have alw

Trusting software produced by others is not a new problem; I consider AI to be a tool, and so my techniques for establishing trust are the same as they have always been. I look at the person wielding the tool.

za_creature 6d ago
Then you best hope that person has read https://people.cs.umass.edu/~emery/classes/cmpsci691st/readings/Sec/Reflections-on-Trusting-Trust.pdf https://people.cs.umass.edu/~emery/classes/cmpsci691st/readi...
ben_w 6d ago
> I look at the person wielding the tool. I look at the whole chain of influence behind them, and it's quite a lot more upsetting than the smiling face I interact with. The whole "AI is a Lovecraftian tentacle monster wearing a smiley face" thing applies to simple bureaucracies (replace Lovecraft with Kafka), to corporations (replace Lovecraft with IDK, most anarchists?), and governments (Orwell?) Tools made by tools made by tools, along more steps than most people know even when their job is one of them. Somewhere there's a kid working a dangerous mine without the right safety equipment, elsewhere there's a sweatshop, another place a "reeducation camp". But who do I see? A cashier, mostly. Someone whose job involves smiling to customers even when we're idiots.
- rpdillon 6d ago
  I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I put trust in individual people, not organizations. You seem to be making a point about supply chains, but I'm not sure how it relates to the point about trust. You seem to be making a different point about some kind of exploitation.
  - ben_w 6d ago
    Almost everything I interact with was made by an organisation (or a disorganisation), not by an individual. Say I download an app. Who made it? The programmer? Their PM? Apple's store requirements? The US government, for whom there was a special tickbox I had to agree to last time I uploaded an app? Trust is for the mechanic, driver, builder; but for 90% of my interactions I have to trust my government set good rules and other people followed them. I can't do this with AI, neither good rules nor them being followed, but I also can't do it when the OS company and app devs are foreign, as they generally are to me now.

za_creature 6d ago

Then you best hope that person has read https://people.cs.umass.edu/~emery/classes/cmpsci691st/readings/Sec/Reflections-on-Trusting-Trust.pdf https://people.cs.umass.edu/~emery/classes/cmpsci691st/readi...

ben_w 6d ago

> I look at the person wielding the tool. I look at the whole chain of influence behind them, and it's quite a lot more upsetting than the smiling face I interact with. The whole "AI is a Lovecraftian tentacle monster wearing a smiley face" thing applies to simple bureaucracies (replace Lovecraft with Kafka), to corporations (replace Lovecraft with IDK, most anarchists?), and governments (Orwell?) Tools made by tools made by tools, along more steps than most people know even when their job is one of them. Somewhere there's a kid working a dangerous mine without the right safety equipment, elsewhere there's a sweatshop, another place a "reeducation camp". But who do I see? A cashier, mostly. Someone whose job involves smiling to customers even when we're idiots.

rpdillon 6d ago
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I put trust in individual people, not organizations. You seem to be making a point about supply chains, but I'm not sure how it relates to the point about trust. You seem to be making a different point about some kind of exploitation.
- ben_w 6d ago
  Almost everything I interact with was made by an organisation (or a disorganisation), not by an individual. Say I download an app. Who made it? The programmer? Their PM? Apple's store requirements? The US government, for whom there was a special tickbox I had to agree to last time I uploaded an app? Trust is for the mechanic, driver, builder; but for 90% of my interactions I have to trust my government set good rules and other people followed them. I can't do this with AI, neither good rules nor them being followed, but I also can't do it when the OS company and app devs are foreign, as they generally are to me now.