Dave R ✅ Voted for Harris
Dave R ✅ Voted for Harris  ·  yesterday
Another great read from @pluralistic about the reason that disaster fantasies are popular among the right: it replaces actual disasters caused by *systemic problems* with imaginary disasters to be solved by *individuals*, which in turn elevate the status of the prepper to a one-man (let’s face it, it’s usually a man) hero who saves the day.

It also strikes me that the #TESCREAL nonsense that #AI techbros seem to gravitate to is just another flavor of this prepper story: why bother saving eight billion real humans today when you can save countless trillions of potential humans tomorrow by building a treasure trove that you deploy into your favorite technologies? You’re not a profit-driven resource hoarder—you’re a #longtermism one-man superhero!

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/24/mall-ninja-prophecy/#mano-a-mano

Eric Maugendre
Eric Maugendre  ·  12 months ago
#AI systems accelerate the pace of war. "AI can contribute to mis- or disinformation, creating and amplifying dangerous misunderstandings in times of war. AI systems may increase the human tendency to trust suggestions from machines (this is highlighted by the Habsora system, named after the infallible word of God)".
"If a person has enough similarities to other people labelled as an enemy combatant, they too may be labelled a combatant themselves."

https://theconversation.com/israels-ai-can-produce-100-bombing-targets-a-day-in-gaza-is-this-the-future-of-war-219302 @ethics @ai

#warfare

Eric Maugendre
Eric Maugendre  ·  4 weeks ago
"The emphasis on human oversight as a protective mechanism allows governments and vendors to have it both ways: they can promote an algorithm by proclaiming how its capabilities exceed those of humans, while simultaneously defending the algorithm and those responsible for it from scrutiny by pointing to the security (supposedly) provided by human oversight."

Ben Green https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3921216 via @pluralistic

#compliance#AIEthics#AIRisks #governance #efficiency #productivity#AI #generativeAI

JW Prince of CPH
JW Prince of CPH  ·  4 weeks ago
"Humans in the loop experience "a diminished sense of control, responsibility, and moral agency." That means that they feel less able to override an algorithm – and they feel less morally culpable when they sit by and let the algorithm do its thing..."

This technology is fundamentally harmful, even if some useful applications can be found. Like how certain deadly venoms have medicinal applications.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113396440337744404#AI#tech #business @pluralistic

Princess / Dimi Piraat
Princess / Dimi Piraat  ·  4 weeks ago
@pluralistic :

"Worrying about AI" is a zero-sum game. When we train our fire on the stuff that isn't important to the AI stock swindlers' business-plans (like creating AI slop), we should remember that the AI companies could halt all of that activity and not lose a dime in revenue. By contrast, when we focus on AI applications that do the most direct harm - policing, health, security, customer service - we *also* focus on the AI applications that make the most *money* and drive the most investment.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#AI#ArtificialIntelligence

Gentleman & Gangster
Gentleman & Gangster  ·  4 weeks ago
Also: "potentially lethal" #AI

"I think it behooves us to be a little skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/
#corydoctorow @pluralistic

Johannes Ernst
Johannes Ernst  ·  4 weeks ago
Ben Moskovitz of Consumer Reports argues that 1) customer service is going to be utterly transformed by #AI over the next few years and 2) this opens up a here-and-now opportunity to rethink and redo the relationship between consumers and companies.

Intriguing. I wonder how this line of reasoning relates to the fediverse. I think it could.

Marcel Waldvogel
Marcel Waldvogel  ·  last month
#PenguinRandomHouse changes their in-book copyright statement to forbid #AI training on the content.

However, this is no reason for authors to joy, says @pluralistic, citing evidence going back to #Napster and #Spotify. #MustRead

«Until then, remember, just because you're on their side, it doesn't mean they're on your side. They don't want to prevent AI slop from reducing your wages, they just want to make sure it's their AI slop puts you on the breadline.»
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/19/gander-sauce/#just-because-youre-on-their-side-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-on-your-side

Richard Littler
Richard Littler  ·  last month
Just got back from my dentist. Her boss has introduced #AI into the clinic. It claims to automatically detect many conditions and right away it found 4 issues affecting my teeth.

The only downside was that its findings were 100% wrong, which my dentist of many years' experience spotted immediately.

Richard Littler
Richard Littler  ·  last month
The upshot was that my appt. was needlessly longer because: a) Standard human dental checkup b) Compare results against #AI c) Human re-check to investigate AI results d) Confirm that AI results were bollocks e) Discussion about AI being bollocks and dangerous.
Everything after A was unnecessary
Richard Littler
Richard Littler  ·  last month
Just got back from my dentist. Her boss has introduced #AI into the clinic. It claims to automatically detect many conditions and right away it found 4 issues affecting my teeth.

The only downside was that its findings were 100% wrong, which my dentist of many years' experience spotted immediately.