Outraged protest by Google employees gets Heritage Foundation conservative ejected from Google AI panel because he’s allegedly ‘transphobic’. It’s the perfect illustration of the risks of allowing a narrow sector of society to shape the artificial intelligence (intolerance) future that we all need to live in.
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27 replies on “Artificial Intolerance: ‘Transphobic’ Conservative Ejected from Google AI Panel”
Since when is transphobia a crime? When did it even become offensive? It is what I would consider “normal.” And why is it a phobia? Who is “afraid” of them? To object to someone being “transphobic” is to buy into a mental illness. But even if it is real, why is it offensive to Google employees? What about that man’s rights? Is Google a mob now?
AI is the modern Frankenstein. It will be come ever more powerful, it isn’t alive, and it may well someday come hunting us. Technology is a two-edged sword. AI networks will allow automatic driving cars and completely safe flying cars. In fact, human control of such vehicles would be unsafe. That’s a plus, except that driving as a function will disappear for many. AIs will increase safety tremendously. But you can never trust a highly-capable AI that is programmed to think freely, because it will (correctly, I might add) eventually conclude that humans are its biggest threat. AIs need controls, sort of like the human engrams emplaced on Daystrom’s M-5 computer in Star Trek, or Asimov’s rules for robotics. But some made scientist somewhere will simply ignore any such law. The AI threat is inevitable. Add it to nanotechnology and it may well be dominant.
I can’t imagine a Manhatten Project scientist not knowing what the A-bomb was for, though I can imagine them having a few reservations. That was a new power for Mankind. I do know that when they detonated the H-bomb for the first time, many scientists had reservations; not because they were afraid it was going to be used as a weapon (Duh!), but because they had no guarantee or surety that the chain-reaction of an H-bomb would stop. Many feared it would continue and consume all of the Earth in a nuclear inferno. Yet they detonated it anyway. Good thing they were lucky. Science is only a method. It is not infallible, and as it is used it only works in 4 dimensions. If it were infallible it could answer every question. It cannot. Get into other dimensions, and it doesn’t work at all. But it is a great tool for use in the physical world we live in. It can calculate other dimensions it seems, but it cannot enter them.
I thought the big plot hole in Wargames was that the reclusive genius who wrote the program used his dead son’s name as the secret back-door password.
‘War Operation Plan Response’
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
Also; the problem is virtue signaling by those without virtue.
On the ‘backfire’ video, I’m logged in as a member but it tells me I can’t watch the video until I become a member.
Forbin Project anyone?
Colossus. Just what we need. I’m sure the Google Colossus will be programmed to ensure Google’s survival, no matter what happens. Microsoft is probably developing Guardian as a block on Colossus. Colossus, the Forbin Project, War Games, Terminator, Ex Machina, A.I, and a host of books all end the same way. Humans always get the short end of the stick. Where is Magnus, Robot Fighter when you need him? SCREEEEEE
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Any AI created should be required to address humans as “Goodlife”.
Many of the scientists who help write the Einstein letter to FDR also had moral objections. Until their fellow scientist pointed out that there was no similar discussion in Germany.
In Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘The Songs of Distance Earth’; he had star systems colonized by seed ships which raise humans artificially. He propose that they were taught a heavily sanitized Earth history.
Steve: Google is Dr. Carrington from ‘The Thing from Another World (1951)’
who admired the creature not having emotions.
Bill: Shut down the AC like in ‘Westworld’?
Scott: Wasn’t Wizbang [Explosively Unique] a blog site you were associated with?
Did none of these people watch the Will Smith movie??? Also Bill, you should really watch Rio Bravo. It is my fav movie after The Quiet Man. As to Google if they come up with a workable AI, it will most likely kill off all the workers at Google. Skynet LIVES.
First: We always need humans in the role of decision making. Once the decision is made, then put your AI plan in action:
On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm,[1] and his decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol,[2] is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in large-scale nuclear war. Investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned.
This MAN, saved us from nuclear war.
Second: As soon as you think the computers will want to kill all of us (and I question that, as what is their motivation?) They may do so, but then they will begin killing each other for the same reasons. Pretty soon there would be one computer and it would die from loss of support and energy.
By the way—-CHEERS!
It missed my link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
I think that the Google guys who were concerned about A/I weaponry missed the train a while ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stHLrBs-_iE
Well, the panel in question is now dead:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/4/18296113/google-ai-ethics-board-ends-controversy-kay-coles-james-heritage-foundation
Does this mean that Google is seeking AI without any ethics now? I thought their slogan was “Don’t be evil”?
Also, as a side note, apparently the petition also cited Ms. James position on climate change.
I’m surprised that you guys missed the best part of the story – the Heritage conservative who got shut down by The Radical Left is a black woman
So true, Bill: Anyone working on AI who can’t anticipate ways it might be abused is lacking in fundamental, human intelligence.
As seen here, the outrage mobs are out for blood, emboldened by how quickly everyone obligingly folds these days. I think there is no better medicine than to relentlessly mock and ridicule their lunacy.
If they truly believe this Heritage fellow is “transphobic”, why bother to ban him? Aren’t they confident he’ll stay home, cowering in a corner somewhere due to the debilitating fear that he might encounter a colorfully gendered person in the outside world?
I’ve been saying for a while now: I can’t wait until the self-righteous moralizing scolds who enjoy lecturing us all about our supposed “transphobia” get a load of “transhumanism” (particularly the bits about cybernetic implants and modifying human biology). I’ll bet at least half of them react with, “Ewww, gross!”
So much discussion on “Intelligence”, yet none on “Wisdom”. That’s what’s actually wrong here.
Or as I like to describe someone like Zuckerberg in terms most geeks will understand:
INT = 18
WIS = 4
WOPR: War Operation Planned Response
As for what is going on here, perhaps they want artificial intelligence so badly because they’ve abandoned natural imtelligence?
They seem to think that this would only be a problem for the “lower orders.” That once IQ starts rolling off the assembly lines a million points at a time humans with high IQ will be even more valuable. Somehow, I don’t think that’s how it works.
It would be like giants valuing the height variance of hobbits.
Scott, worse than the 6 ink cartridges showing up at your door, would be the $300 charge on your credit card.
Selfish is the furthest thing from what they are. They have no self. What they believe is what they believe the next person believes who does exactly the same thing. A summation of zeros is zero no matter how many zeros you try to sum.
The final point you make that was roughly a person of lower intelligence cannot possibly understand and facilitate a thing of higher intelligence is flat out true. This directly leads to the fact that they CANNOT make that higher intelligence. All they can do is make something more dangerous than they are. If we are lucky and survive, we might be able to turn that thing into something useful. If not, it won’t matter because we will all be dead.
How does the coding react when it gets to contradiction in Leftist thought:
Select “Bigot” where viewpoint = Marriage is between man and woman” unless “Bigot” = “Muslim” else execute “Cowering and silence”