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Repeating the mistakes of AI past
With the current news cycle being dominated by all things ChatGPT and AI, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit a book I first read in 1997/1998, the year it was released.
The book is “HALs Legacy - 2001’s Computer as Dream and Reality”. It was issued by MIT Press in 1997 and was edited by David G. Stork. You may find a secondhand hard copy, but no ebook exists as far as I can tell.
It contains a forward by one of my favourite Science Fiction authors, Arthur C. Clarke, who you will no doubt know was the writer of the original novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This paragraph in Chapter 1 struck me :
Marvin Minsky (who, incidentally, nearly lost his life consulting on 2001.) argues (in chapter 2) that the field made such good progress in its early days that researchers became overconfident and moved on prematurely to more immediate or practical problems —for example, chess and speech recognition. They left undone the central work of understanding the general computational principles —learning, reasoning and creativity— that underlie intelligence. Without these, he believes, we will end up with a growing collection of dumb experts and will never achieve Al.
I can’t help thinking about the parallels to this new rush of AI deployment, and it feels as though we are falling into the same trap once again. The various ChatX machine learning algorithms impress on one level but are brutally stupid and over-confident simultaneously on another. The risks are multiple, some benign and others too frightening to ponder.
What is it that we say about the past and the future?
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana
6 April 2023 — French West Indies
The open blockchain, my arse! More like Fraudola.
In a Bloomberg article by Nick Baker called An NFT Just Sold for $532 Million, But Didn’t Really Sell at All, we see that transactions on blockchains were there, but no one understood what the hell was going on… to the tune of more than half a billion dollars!
The process started Thursday at 6:13 p.m. New York time, when someone using an Ethereum address beginning with 0xef76 transferred the CryptoPunk to an address starting with 0x8e39.
About an hour and a half later, 0x8e39 sold the NFT to an address starting with 0x9b5a for 124,457 Ether -- equal to $532 million -- all of it borrowed from three sources, primarily Compound.
To pay for the trade, the buyer shipped the Ether tokens to the CryptoPunk’s smart contract, which transferred them to the seller -- normal stuff, a buyer settling up with a seller. But the seller then sent the 124,457 Ether back to the buyer, who repaid the loans.
And then the last step: the avatar was given back to the original address, 0xef76, and offered up for sale again for 250,000 Ether, or more than $1 billion.
It is discussed in more detail in DSHR's Blog: How Bubbles Are Blown.
This is a great example of how one of the central ideas of openness and transparency on the blockchain is, in fact, complete bullshit.
If anyone tells you that the blockchain is “open” and therefore anyone can see what’s going on, ask them to show you how. Practically. In simple steps. Not just a parroting of the crypto-bro indoctrination mutterings.
If they can’t, then show them this article about how those manipulations play out in plain sight precisely because it is indecipherable to most.
Fraudola.
5 April 2023 — French West Indies
WSJ: Meta to Let Users Opt Out of Some Targeted Ads, but Only in Europe
From the Wall Street Journal.
Meta Platforms Inc. is planning to let European users of Facebook and Instagram opt out of certain highly personalized ads as part of plans to limit the impact of a European Union privacy order, according to people familiar with the planning.
What this proves, beyond doubt, is that Meta will only respect your privacy when it is legislated to do so.
Note also the “opt-out” rather than the “opt-in” that is desired.
Why else wouldn’t they roll this out to the entire world?
It seems to me that Meta is on the wrong side of worldwide public opinion. At some point, this will present a serious enough risk for the company —either through data mishandling (selling some data to unscrupulous brokers) or being the target of a massive breach (it is only a matter of time) —for them to act on it fundamentally.
From what we know, most “digital marketing” is smoke and mirrors, providing no real value to advertisers over and above Media/TV/Radio and billboards. The value chain has been hijacked to introduce these gatekeepers that squeeze profits from both sides, making most small businesses poorer.
From the European Commission’s Study on the impact of recent developments in digital advertising on privacy, publishers and advertisers:
The most widely used products in digital advertising rely on large amounts of personal data and profiling of individuals. However, there is limited evidence to suggest that the efficiency and efficacy gains to advertisers and publishers outweigh the societal impact of these products. There is a lack of independent analysis to assess the benefits of using personal data and profiling in advertising. The few studies that do exist fail to take into account important considerations such as the impact of fraud and buyer expectations.
I thoroughly recommend the report.
30 March 2023 — French West Indies
Platformer: Microsoft just laid off one of its responsible AI teams
What was I saying about that Silicon Valley mantra again?
From Platformer:
Some members of the team pushed back. “I'm going to be bold enough to ask you to please reconsider this decision,” one employee said on the call. “While I understand there are business issues at play … what this team has always been deeply concerned about is how we impact society and the negative impacts that we've had. And they are significant.”
Montgomery declined. “Can I reconsider? I don't think I will,” he said. “Cause unfortunately the pressures remain the same. You don't have the view that I have, and probably you can be thankful for that. There's a lot of stuff being ground up into the sausage.”
Commercial pressures trump societal damage limitation, it seems.
Who the fuck do these people think they are?
14 March 2023 — French West Indies
First, drive people apart. Then sell them tech to bring them together. But only on our terms. And monetised.
While I’m on the topic of bullshit and the onanistic nature of Silicon Valley, it seems the “metaverse” is dying on its arse.
Fucking good riddance to it, too.
It’s a solution looking for a problem. That is nothing new, and most people have instinctively felt that from when it first burst onto the news cycle. Some of us were sceptical (stating it politely), and others saw the grit opportunity it afforded.
But what is new is that it is a solution to a problem created by the same tech companies that have worked hard to break society and monetise human interaction by being the gatekeepers and mediators.
They have driven human interaction to a transaction that (shitty and racist) advertising can piggyback—in turn, driving a wedge in human interaction, leaving at least one generation inadequate or incapable of having normal relationships with themselves and, therefore, with others.
13 March 2023 — French West Indies
“Move fast and break things”. - Silicon Valley’s mantra. I call bullshit.
It’s been the mantra for some time now in the valley. Everyone benefits by moving fast and breaking a couple of things because we move faster at a quicker pace. But is that true?
My take: It’s bullshit and always has been.
On inspection, this mantra should actually be:
Break things and move fast.
Silicon Valley and all the poor copycats dotted around the planet are causing untold harm on a social level, let alone on an economic one.
Don’t believe me or think that I’m being alarmist?
Have a read of this article from Jon Haidt.
Conclusion: Social Media Is a Major Cause of Mental Illness in Girls, Not Just a Tiny Correlate
On the financial side.
FTX, SVB. I could go on.
As for “move fast”, that really means “run away” and blame others or deny responsibility.
13 March 2023 — French West Indies
Facebook tests deliberately drain phone batteries
As reported by 9to5 Mac from an article in the New York Post —I’ll leave you to make up your own mind about that— Facebook seems to have been conducting A/B testing that can drain the battery on your smartphone.
They raise important points about safety and transparency, as well as moral issues confirming that Facebook continues to show that it is morally corrupt (link).
But there’s another aspect.
This might seem picky and a little silly, but this is deliberate damage to a device. Accidental damage, we can all pass off; it happens. A drop or an app that goes haywire through some random bug. No real problem.
But deliberately draining the battery, which has a finite lifespan of around 500 charges to 80% of the battery capacity, is intentionally damaging the battery, ensuring the affected users will have to either replace their phones or their phone batteries before it can be reasonably expected.
The tests might be limited and, therefore, not affect too many people, so this is a small-scale panic. Still, Facebook should be absolutely upfront about this and offer compensation for those affected.
What they should have done, as responsible citizens (which they are not currently), is contact users requesting authorisation to be included in the test, guaranteeing batteries would be replaced free of charge.
What a shitty company, through and through.
2 February 2023 — French West Indies
The End of Writing
From ia.net.
Soon, you won’t need to write much anymore. Artificial Intelligence will do it for you. With all the free time we will have, we could try to rethink how we learn, work, and how we communicate.
An excellent blog post from the developer of a fantastic writing application. One that requires good old sweat and tears. None of this prompted 12-year-old-level gibberish produced by Open AI’s latest baby.
30 January 2023 — French West Indies
The enshittification of air travel
Ever since the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, the airlines and various states’ security organisations trusted with guaranteeing security have gone into overdrive to enshittify air travel.
From condescending orders barked at you by barely-trained staff with no interest in making their job easier on themselves to the already frustratingly-long queues to get past that hurdle of show and tell. A burden that was already astonishingly tedious, usually as a direct result of a passenger not understanding that metal detectors detect … wait for it … metal!
A Swiss hacker reports that he/she/they discovered a file containing all the names and other information on the US Government’s “No Fly List”. A list that, like the first rule of fight club, no one talks about.
If that wasn’t bad enough, consider that on that list, there are children as young as four years old, according to those that have seen the list.
But here we reach a new low.
The name of the “database” of names?
NoFly.csv
Yep, you got that right. A fucking comma-separated file.
Words cannot describe the level at which this is unacceptable, regardless of circumstances.
… but wait. It does get worse.
I’ll let you read on through the Techdirt article for more analysis.
24 January 2023 — French West Indies
Apple AirTag tracks a big detour of luggage
In an article on Apple Insider, a couple of Air Canada passengers followed their luggage after it was lost for several days.
To their surprise, the luggage took quite a detour, proving all the communications from Air Canada were either wilfully incorrect or ineptly incorrect. Either way, it shows how frail baggage systems can be. As one might imagine, those systems are not 100% robotised and computer-controlled. They rely on several steps operated entirely by humans.
And what can humans be, if not stupid? Corrupt. Just look hereand here.
I write about this personally, having had a similar incident while travelling with Air Canada. Flying out of the French West Indies to get to Toronto, we have to fly to Montreal, then hop over to Toronto. Arriving at Montreal, given that it is the entry point, we must collect the bag and then go through customs and immigration. Unfortunately, my bag wasn’t there, and I was told to go to Toronto anyway, as they’d find my bag and deliver it to me at my hotel. So off I went after filling in the requisite lost luggage forms.
To cut a long story short, I got my bag with, as far as I can tell, everything in it, but given that I flew in on Sunday night and my bag was delivered on Wednesday evening, I had to purchase some new clothes to tie me over, not knowing if or when the bag would arrive.
I have a theory about what happened, as the bag went to Paris before winding its way across the Atlantic several days later. Drugs.
I’m pretty convinced that there are baggage handlers or others in the chain of operations that select bags and then divert them to other airports for them to be recovered and sent to the actual destination days later, thus providing a decent cover for the transport of drugs and arms to and fro.
It’s pretty easy to open a suitcase or a bag, even with a lock, thanks to security legislation after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Every lock has a back door —a TSA-compatible key. Finding one for each lock type is trivial. And it grants unimpeded access to every piece of luggage passing through the basement of an airport. A basement that offers plenty of opportunity to conduct this kind of illicit business.
Technology offers us a view into the depths when we use it for good. Who knows, It might make it harder for illicit activity to proliferate.
I, for one, am investigating picking up a couple of AirTags for when I next travel, checking in luggage. I try to fly light, ensuring I only have cabin luggage, but that is not always feasible.
20 January 2023 — French West Indies