morals/values

Why AI is a threat to democracy – and what we can do to stop it — from asumetech.com by Lawrence Cole

Excerpts:

In the US, however, we also have a tragic lack of foresight. Instead of creating a grand strategy for AI or for our long-term futures, the federal government has removed the financing of scientific and technical research. The money must therefore come from the private sector. But investors also expect a certain return. That is a problem. You cannot plan your R&D breakthroughs when working on fundamental technology and research. It would be great if the big tech companies had the luxury of working very hard without having to organize an annual conference to show off their newest and best whiz bang thing. Instead, we now have countless examples of bad decisions made by someone in the G-MAFIA, probably because they worked quickly. We begin to see the negative effects of the tension between doing research that is in the interest of humanity and making investors happy.
…
The problem is that our technology has become increasingly sophisticated, but our thinking about what free speech is and what a free market economy looks like has not become that advanced. We tend to resort to very basic interpretations: free speech means that all speech is free, unless it conflicts with defamation laws, and that’s the end of the story. That is not the end of the story. We need to start a more sophisticated and intelligent conversation about our current laws, our emerging technology, and how we can make the two meet halfway.

So I absolutely believe that there is a way forward. But we have to come together and bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and DC, so that we can all steer the boat in the same direction.

— Amy Webb, futurist, NYU professor, founder of the Future Today Institute

Also see:

“FRONTLINE investigates the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, from fears about work and privacy to rivalry between the U.S. and China. The documentary traces a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our lives, our jobs and our world, and allow the emergence of the surveillance society.”

The film has five distinct messages about:

1. China’s AI Plan
2. The Promise of AI
3. The Future of Work
4. Surveillance Capitalism
5. The Surveillance State

Emerging Tech Trend: Patient-Generated Health Data — from futuretodayinstitute.com — Newsletter Issue 124

Excerpt:

Near-Futures Scenarios (2023 – 2028):

Pragmatic: Big tech continues to develop apps that are either indispensably convenient, irresistibly addictive, or both, and we pay for them, not with cash, but with the data we (sometimes unwittingly) let the apps capture. But for the apps for health care and medical insurance, the stakes could literally be life-and-death. Consumers receive discounted premiums, co-pays, diagnostics and prescription fulfillment, but the data we give up in exchange leaves them more vulnerable to manipulation and invasion of privacy.

Catastrophic: Profit-driven drug makers exploit private health profiles and begin working with the Big Nine. They use data-based targeting to over prescribe patients, netting themselves billions of dollars. Big Pharma target and prey on people’s addictions, mental health predispositions and more, which, while undetectable on an individual level, take a widespread societal toll.

Optimistic: Health data enables prescient preventative care. A.I. discerns patterns within gargantuan data sets that are otherwise virtually undetectable to humans. Accurate predictive algorithms identifies complex combinations of risk factors for cancer or Parkinson’s, offers early screening and testing to high-risk patients and encourages lifestyle shifts or treatments to eliminate or delay the onset of serious diseases. A.I. and health data creates a utopia of public health. We happily relinquish our privacy for a greater societal good.

Watchlist: Amazon; Manulife Financial; GE Healthcare; Meditech; Allscripts; eClinicalWorks; Cerner; Validic; HumanAPI; Vivify; Apple; IBM; Microsoft; Qualcomm; Google; Medicare; Medicaid; national health systems; insurance companies.

REALLY?!!! “A face-scanning algorithm increasingly decides whether you deserve the job”

On 11/06/2019, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, ethics, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, society, sociology, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

A face-scanning algorithm increasingly decides whether you deserve the job — from washingtonpost.com by Drew Harwell
HireVue claims it uses artificial intelligence to decide who’s best for a job. Outside experts call it ‘profoundly disturbing.’

Excerpt:

An artificial intelligence hiring system has become a powerful gatekeeper for some of America’s most prominent employers, reshaping how companies assess their workforce — and how prospective employees prove their worth.

Designed by the recruiting-technology firm HireVue, the system uses candidates’ computer or cellphone cameras to analyze their facial movements, word choice and speaking voice before ranking them against other applicants based on an automatically generated “employability” score.

The system, they argue, will assume a critical role in helping decide a person’s career. But they doubt it even knows what it’s looking for: Just what does the perfect employee look and sound like, anyway?

“It’s a profoundly disturbing development that we have proprietary technology that claims to differentiate between a productive worker and a worker who isn’t fit, based on their facial movements, their tone of voice, their mannerisms,” said Meredith Whittaker, a co-founder of the AI Now Institute, a research center in New York.

From DSC:
If you haven’t been screened out by an algorithm from an Applicant Tracking System recently, then you haven’t been looking for a job in the last few years. If that’s the case:

Then you might not be very interested in this posting.
You will be very surprised in the future, when you do need to search for a new job.

Because the truth is, it’s very difficult to get the eyes of a human being to even look at your resume and/or to meet you in person. The above posting/article should disturb you even more. I don’t think that the programmers have programmed everything inside an experienced HR professional’s mind.

Also see:

In case after case, courts reshape the rules around AI — from muckrock.com
AI Now Institute recommends improvements and highlights key AI litigation
Excerpt:
When undercover officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office bought crack cocaine from someone in 2015, they couldn’t actually identify the seller. Less than a year later, though, Willie Allen Lynch was sentenced to 8 years in prison, picked through a facial recognition system. He’s still fighting in court over how the technology was used, and his case and others like it could ultimately shape the use of algorithms going forward, according to a new report.

Deepfakes: When a picture is worth nothing at all [law.com]

On 11/06/2019, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, digital audio, digital video, emerging technologies, ethics, morals/values, policy, society, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, by Daniel Christian

Deepfakes: When a picture is worth nothing at all — from law.com by Katherine Forrest

Excerpt:

“Deepfakes” is the name for highly realistic, falsified imagery and sound recordings; they are digitized and personalized impersonations. Deepfakes are made by using AI-based facial and audio recognition and reconstruction technology; AI algorithms are used to predict facial movements as well as vocal sounds. In her Artificial Intelligence column, Katherine B. Forrest explores the legal issues likely to arise as deepfakes become more prevalent.

YouTube’s algorithm hacked a human vulnerability, setting a dangerous precedent — from which-50.com by Andrew Birmingham

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Even as YouTube’s recommendation algorithm was rolled out with great fanfare, the fuse was already burning. A project of The Google Brain and designed to optimise engagement, it did something unforeseen — and potentially dangerous.

Today, we are all living with the consequences.

As Zeynep Tufekci, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, explained to attendees of Hitachi Vantara’s Next 2019 conference in Las Vegas this week, “What the developers did not understand at the time is that YouTube’ algorithm had discovered a human vulnerability. And it was using this [vulnerability] at scale to increase YouTube’s engagement time — without a single engineer thinking, ‘is this what we should be doing?’”

The consequence of the vulnerability — a natural human tendency to engage with edgier ideas — led to YouTube’s users being exposed to increasingly extreme content, irrespective of their preferred areas of interest.
…
“What they had done was use machine learning to increase watch time. But what the machine learning system had done was to discover a human vulnerability. And that human vulnerability is that things that are slightly edgier are more attractive and more interesting.”

From DSC:
Just because we can…

“Can you make AI fairer than a judge? Play our courtroom algorithm game” [Hao & Stray] Plus several other legal-related items.

On 10/17/2019, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, ethics, Europe, global / globalization, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, new business models, society, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Can you make AI fairer than a judge? Play our courtroom algorithm game — from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao and Jonathan Stray
Play our courtroom algorithm game The US criminal legal system uses predictive algorithms to try to make the judicial process less biased. But there’s a deeper problem.

Excerpt:

As a child, you develop a sense of what “fairness” means. It’s a concept that you learn early on as you come to terms with the world around you. Something either feels fair or it doesn’t.

But increasingly, algorithms have begun to arbitrate fairness for us. They decide who sees housing ads, who gets hired or fired, and even who gets sent to jail. Consequently, the people who create them—software engineers—are being asked to articulate what it means to be fair in their code. This is why regulators around the world are now grappling with a question: How can you mathematically quantify fairness?

This story attempts to offer an answer. And to do so, we need your help. We’re going to walk through a real algorithm, one used to decide who gets sent to jail, and ask you to tweak its various parameters to make its outcomes more fair. (Don’t worry—this won’t involve looking at code!)

The algorithm we’re examining is known as COMPAS, and it’s one of several different “risk assessment” tools used in the US criminal legal system.

But whether algorithms should be used to arbitrate fairness in the first place is a complicated question. Machine-learning algorithms are trained on “data produced through histories of exclusion and discrimination,” writes Ruha Benjamin, an associate professor at Princeton University, in her book Race After Technology. Risk assessment tools are no different. The greater question about using them—or any algorithms used to rank people—is whether they reduce existing inequities or make them worse.

You can also see change in these articles as well:

Legal Innovation – It’s Not Just For Big Law — from artificiallawyer.com
Say the words ‘legal innovation’ and Big Law firms often come to mind. But, the reality is that the firms genuinely focused on innovation and leveraging legal tech to improve how they deliver legal services is a rapidly widening group, and far beyond just the massive global firms.
PwC Legal Arm Partners With Contract Startup ThoughtRiver — from by Simon Lock
The agreement will see PwC launch pre-screening products for clients in collaboration with ThoughtRiver by the first quarter of 2020.
Artificial Intelligence Is on the Case in the Legal Profession — from observer.com by Harmon Leon
Artificial intelligence (AI) is, in fact, becoming a mainstay component of the legal profession. In some circumstances, this analytics-crunching technology is using algorithms and machine learning to do work that was previously done by entry-level lawyers.
KPMG Legal Expands in Eastern Europe by Absorbing Tech-Centric Law Firm — from by Varsha Patel
KPMG absorbed Fernbach & Partners in a move to create “the leading technology, IP and privacy practice in Romania”.

Google’s war on deepfakes: As election looms, it shares ton of AI-faked videos [Tung]

On 09/27/2019, in A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, computer science, emerging technologies, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, Google, Microsoft, morals/values, pace of change, platforms, political science, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

Google’s war on deepfakes: As election looms, it shares ton of AI-faked videos — from zdnet.com by Liam Tung
Google has created 3,000 videos using actors and manipulation software to help improve detection.

Excerpt:

Google has released a huge database of deepfake videos that it’s created using paid actors. It hopes the database will bolster systems designed to detect AI-generated fake videos.

With the 2020 US Presidential elections looming, the race is on to build better systems to detect deepfake videos that could be used to manipulate and divide public opinion.

Earlier this month, Facebook and Microsoft announced a $10m project to create deepfake videos to help build systems for detecting them.

Reflections on “Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system” [Elgan]

On 08/27/2019, in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, face-to-face, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, hearts -- matters of the heart, intelligent systems, internet, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, platforms, policy, political science, privacy, society, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system — from fastcompany.com by Mike Elgan
In China, scoring citizens’ behavior is official government policy. U.S. companies are increasingly doing something similar, outside the law.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Have you heard about China’s social credit system? It’s a technology-enabled, surveillance-based nationwide program designed to nudge citizens toward better behavior. The ultimate goal is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to the Chinese government.

In place since 2014, the social credit system is a work in progress that could evolve by next year into a single, nationwide point system for all Chinese citizens, akin to a financial credit score. It aims to punish for transgressions that can include membership in or support for the Falun Gong or Tibetan Buddhism, failure to pay debts, excessive video gaming, criticizing the government, late payments, failing to sweep the sidewalk in front of your store or house, smoking or playing loud music on trains, jaywalking, and other actions deemed illegal or unacceptable by the Chinese government.
…
IT CAN HAPPEN HERE
Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.

Here are some of the elements of America’s growing social credit system.

If current trends hold, it’s possible that in the future a majority of misdemeanors and even some felonies will be punished not by Washington, D.C., but by Silicon Valley. It’s a slippery slope away from democracy and toward corporatocracy.

From DSC:
Who’s to say what gains a citizen points and what subtracts from their score? If one believes a certain thing, is that a plus or a minus? And what might be tied to someone’s score? The ability to obtain food? Medicine/healthcare? Clothing? Social Security payments? Other?

We are giving a huge amount of power to a handful of corporations…trust comes into play…at least for me. Even internally, the big tech co’s seem to be struggling as to the ethical ramifications of what they’re working on (in a variety of areas).

Is the stage being set for a “Person of Interest” Version 2.0?

Amazon, Microsoft, ‘putting world at risk of killer AI’: study

On 08/23/2019, in Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, society, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, by Daniel Christian

Amazon, Microsoft, ‘putting world at risk of killer AI’: study — from news.yahoo.com by Issam Ahmed

Excerpt:

Washington (AFP) – Amazon, Microsoft and Intel are among leading tech companies putting the world at risk through killer robot development, according to a report that surveyed major players from the sector about their stance on lethal autonomous weapons.

Dutch NGO Pax ranked 50 companies by three criteria: whether they were developing technology that could be relevant to deadly AI, whether they were working on related military projects, and if they had committed to abstaining from contributing in the future.

“Why are companies like Microsoft and Amazon not denying that they’re currently developing these highly controversial weapons, which could decide to kill people without direct human involvement?” said Frank Slijper, lead author of the report published this week.

Addendum on 8/23/19:

EU reportedly wants strict limits for ‘indiscriminate’ facial recognition — From cnet.com by Katie Collins
Europe could introduce sweeping reforms governing how facial recognition technology can be used.

Why cities are banning facial recognition technology [Wired.com]

On 08/08/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, data related items, ethics, human-computer interaction (HCI), intelligent systems, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, pace of change, platforms, society, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, by Daniel Christian

A handful of US cities have banned government use of facial recognition technology due to concerns over its accuracy and privacy. WIRED’s Tom Simonite talks with computer vision scientist and lawyer Gretchen Greene about the controversy surrounding the use of this technology.

The new kind of warfare being waged amongst humankind. How far have we really come through the centuries? [Christian]

On 06/21/2019, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, computer science, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, future, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, platforms, programming, society, the downsides of how people use tech, trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

Russian hackers behind ‘world’s most murderous malware’ probing U.S. power grid — from digitaltrends.com Georgina Torbet

U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid — from nytimes.com by David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth

DC: After seeing an article on how hackers/nations R looking 2cripple energy grids of other nations,this article strikes me as another piece of the new kind of warfare being waged amongst humankind.

AI-based malware will soon become a widespread plague.https://t.co/Y7Wu5o1aXx

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) June 15, 2019

DC: I’m struggling to see how far (or not) that humankind has come though the centuries…

Attached are 2 pics from a bookstore I visited in May plus an article I just ran across at https://t.co/aYSnq77tTv pic.twitter.com/zBkAJtRWRZ

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) June 15, 2019

Reflections on “Machine Learning: Living in the Age of AI | A WIRED Film”

On 06/21/2019, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, ethics, morals/values, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
As many times happens with humans use of technologies, some good and some bad here. Exciting. Troubling. Incredible. Alarming.

Companies, please make sure you’re not giving the keys to a $137,000, powerful Maserati to your “16 year olds.”

Just because we can…

And to you “16 year olds out there”…ask for / seek wisdom. Ask yourself whether you should be developing what you are developing. Is it helpful or hurtful to society? Don’t just collect the paycheck. You have a responsibility to humankind.

To whom much is given…

Facial recognition smart glasses could make public surveillance discreet and ubiquitous — from theverge.com by James Vincent; with thanks to Mr. Paul Czarapata, Ed.D. out on Twitter for this resource
A new product from UAE firm NNTC shows where this tech is headed next. <– From DSC: though hopefully not!!!

Excerpt:

From train stations and concert halls to sport stadiums and airports, facial recognition is slowly becoming the norm in public spaces. But new hardware formats like these facial recognition-enabled smart glasses could make the technology truly ubiquitous, able to be deployed by law enforcement and private security any time and any place.

The glasses themselves are made by American company Vuzix, while Dubai-based firm NNTC is providing the facial recognition algorithms and packaging the final product.

From DSC…I commented out on Twitter:

Thanks Paul for this posting – though I find it very troubling. Emerging technologies race out ahead of society. It would be interested in knowing the age of the people developing these technologies and if they care about asking the tough questions…like “Just because we can, should we be doing this?”

Addendum on 6/12/19:

Vuzix smart glasses get automatic facial recognition designed for law enforcement — from techcrunch.com by Darrell Etherington

‘Robots’ Are Not ‘Coming for Your Job’—Management Is — from gizmodo.com by Brian Merchant; with a special thanks going out to Keesa Johnson for her posting this out on LinkedIn

A robot is not ‘coming for’, or ‘stealing’ or ‘killing’ or ‘threatening’ to take away your job. Management is.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

At first glance, this might like a nitpicky semantic complaint, but I assure you it’s not—this phrasing helps, and has historically helped, mask the agency behind the *decision* to automate jobs. And this decision is not made by ‘robots,’ but management. It is a decision most often made with the intention of saving a company or institution money by reducing human labor costs (though it is also made in the interests of bolstering efficiency and improving operations and safety). It is a human decision that ultimately eliminates the job.

From DSC:
I’ve often said that if all the C-Suite cares about is maximizing profits — instead of thinking about their fellow humankind and society as a whole — we’re in big trouble.

If the thinking goes, “Heh — it’s just business!” <– Again, then we’re in big trouble here.

Just because we can, should we? Many people should be reflecting upon this question…and not just members of the C-Suite.

San Francisco becomes first city to bar police from using facial recognition [Hautala]

On 05/16/2019, in 21st century, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, emerging technologies, ethics, future, hearts -- matters of the heart, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, platforms, society, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, by Daniel Christian

San Francisco becomes first city to bar police from using facial recognition— from cnet.com by Laura Hautala
It won’t be the last city to consider a similar law.

Excerpt:

The city of San Francisco approved an ordinance on Tuesday [5/14/19] barring the police department and other city agencies from using facial recognition technology on residents. It’s the first such ban of the technology in the country.

The ordinance, which passed by a vote of 8 to 1, also creates a process for the police department to disclose what surveillance technology they use, such as license plate readers and cell-site simulators that can track residents’ movements over time. But it singles out facial recognition as too harmful to residents’ civil liberties to even consider using.

“Facial surveillance technology is a huge legal and civil liberties risk now due to its significant error rate, and it will be worse when it becomes perfectly accurate mass surveillance tracking us as we move about our daily lives,” said Brian Hofer, the executive director of privacy advocacy group Secure Justice.

For example, Microsoft asked the federal government in July to regulate facial recognition technology before it gets more widespread, and said it declined to sell the technology to law enforcement. As it is, the technology is on track to become pervasive in airports and shopping centers and other tech companies like Amazon are selling the technology to police departments.

Also see:

San Francisco is first US city to ban facial recognition— from bbc.com by Dave Lee
Saving face: San Francisco’s ban on recognition technology — from economist.com

Learning Ecosystems

YouTube’s algorithm hacked a human vulnerability, setting a dangerous precedent [Birmingham]

Categories

Tags