"In the end then, the silence of the AI Ethics movement towards its burgeoning use in the military is unsurprising. The movement doesn’t say anything controversial to Washington (including the military industrial complex), because that’s a source of money, as well as an invaluable stamp of importance. It’s fine—even encouraged—to make veiled digs at China, Russia or North Korea, at the “bad actors” it sometimes refers to, but otherwise the industry avoids anything “political.” It also mostly frames the issues as centered on LLMs, because it wants to paint the tech products of its leaders as pivotally important in all respects. This then makes it a bit awkward to bring in military applications because it’s pretty obvious that LLMs have little current military value.
I personally came to AI research nearly ten years ago, from a deep curiosity about the nature of the mind and the self. At that time it was still a somewhat fringe subject, and as the field exploded into public awareness, I’ve been horrified to watch it intertwine with the most powerful and destructive systems on the planet, including the military-industrial complex, and, potentially, the outbreak of the next major global conflicts. To find the right way forward, we need to think much more deeply about where we’re going and what our values are. We need an authentic AI Ethics movement that questions the forces and assumptions shaping current development, rather than imbibing the views passed down from a few, often misguided, leaders."
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-ethics-discourse-ignores-its-deadliest-use-war
I’m speaking at Defuse – Design For Use – at The Sugar Club in Dublin on November 10th at 7PM.
The theme is “Reclaiming Design: Taking Back Purpose in an Automated Age” and my talk’s titled “Think small.”
It’s first come, first served, so mark your calendars and show up early (and find me and say hi if you do!) :)
#ThinkSmall #DefuseDublin #IXDA #IXDADublin #SmallTech #SmallWeb #events #Dublin #Ireland #tech #design #ethics
Popular online books archive Anna's Archive is monetizing access to their dataset by selling high-speed access to their collection to LLM vendors, and I don't know what to think about it.
Popular online books archive Anna's Archive is monetizing access to their dataset by selling high-speed access to their collection to LLM vendors, and I don't know what to think about it.
Texas Private Schools Hire Relatives and Enrich Insiders. Soon They Can Do It With Taxpayer Money.
—
An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found more than 60 instances of nepotism, self-dealing and conflicts of interest among 27 private schools that likely would have violated state laws had the schools been public.
https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-vouchers-private-schools-conflicts-of-interest?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
Texas Private Schools Hire Relatives and Enrich Insiders. Soon They Can Do It With Taxpayer Money.
—
An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found more than 60 instances of nepotism, self-dealing and conflicts of interest among 27 private schools that likely would have violated state laws had the schools been public.
https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-vouchers-private-schools-conflicts-of-interest?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
Many reasons, inspired by emotion and logic. I think those can work well together. I embrace and use my rage.
Rather than rehash here, I'll just say I have many posts dealing with it including a recent post dedicated to ethics and computing.
#Apple#Fascism#Ethics#Computing#TimCook#FreeSoftware
Great questions. I recently asked another one that might add to this list..
#Ethics. Are we able to control what we create, as we introduce it into society in real-time?
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fediverse-activitypub-and-the-ethics/5432
Next was an amazing talk by Russell Poldrack on reproducibility in cognitive neuroscience at the UW eScience Institute. Poldrack combines incisive statistical commentary with devastating analyses and experiments demonstrating the extremely brittle nature of neuroscience results, moving on to suggest approaches to improve the field. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haNjW58rbWM (4/7) #statistics #neuroscience #science
Next was an incredible talk by Anita Chan on eugenics in Big Tech at the UCSD Design Lab. Chan convincingly demonstrates the connection from the eugenics and anti-immigration movements to today and approaches to resist. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Sxm3AJmZg (5/7) #ethics
FOSS: "I made actor identity independent of DNS"
FOSS: "Nice! I bridged all the social web protocols"
FOSS: "And I made service development dead easy, intuitive and productive"
Fedizen: "This is so wonderful. What a cozy place we have"
Meta: "We agree! We embraced the technology and today announce free fediverse access for anyone. Our datacenters are primed and ready for a billion more fedizens. That's not all! With Service Mart you're in full control!"
FOSS: "I made actor identity independent of DNS"
FOSS: "Nice! I bridged all the social web protocols"
FOSS: "And I made service development dead easy, intuitive and productive"
Fedizen: "This is so wonderful. What a cozy place we have"
Meta: "We agree! We embraced the technology and today announce free fediverse access for anyone. Our datacenters are primed and ready for a billion more fedizens. That's not all! With Service Mart you're in full control!"
Like a lot of nerds I've always had a "Uses/My set-up" page on my site. I'm embarrassed that it hadn't occurred to me that I should also have the opposite. I've set up a "Boycotts" page where I've documented the details of the companies, products and in some cases, categories of products, that I avoid or refuse to buy because they cause harm to my fellow humans and planetary ecosystems.
Ethics should play a role in what we use.
#democracy #ethics #climate #technology
https://beardystarstuff.net/boycott.html
Like a lot of nerds I've always had a "Uses/My set-up" page on my site. I'm embarrassed that it hadn't occurred to me that I should also have the opposite. I've set up a "Boycotts" page where I've documented the details of the companies, products and in some cases, categories of products, that I avoid or refuse to buy because they cause harm to my fellow humans and planetary ecosystems.
Ethics should play a role in what we use.
#democracy #ethics #climate #technology
https://beardystarstuff.net/boycott.html
"The intent of proprietary computing is that everything users do should come under the dictates of the owners of the code...
You can agree to your own subjugation, that’s your choice. It may seem more convenient. It may seem comfortable. It may even seem pleasurable and safe. But in the end, you’re handing over your own fate."
#fsf#FreeSoftware#GNU + #Linux#Freedom#Democracy#Computing#Apple#Microsoft#Google#Amazon#Ethics#Libre
"Важные истории" выпустили продолжение своего расследования про Telegram.
Я подозреваю, что за то, что я напишу дальше меня запишут в кого угодно - хоть в сотрудников ФСБ, но меня прям бомбит.
Как человеку, который не специализируется на этом, но чуть-чуть понимает про сети - уже первую часть их расследования было больно слушать.
Во второй части вместо того чтобы адресовать реальную критику первой (там было много технических моментов!) они решили опубликовать разговор с каким-то чуваком, который владеет точками обмена трафиком и сетями, также предоставляя услуги Telegram.
Как-то даже не хочется начинать говорить про журналистскую этику, но они сами открыто признаются, что он просил их разговор не публиковать, а они (все в белом такие) - его публикуют, хоть и частично. Океееееей.
Смотрим сам разговор. Чувак ровно в тех же местах, где мне хочется им сказать "бля, вы же нихуя не понимаете о чём говорите" делает ровно это и пытается как идиотам объяснять о том, что если они размещают какое-то оборудование для Telegram - это не значит, что у них есть доступ к данным пользователей. Он им прямо открыто говорит: "я могу пойти и поставить какую-нибудь железку между их оборудованием и сетью, только непонятно зачем мне это делать". И правда: ему это делать в общем-то не за чем 🤷
И про то, что ФСБ может получать данные о трафику он им объясняет, что вообще-то у всех операторов стоят ТСПУ и СОРМ и съём трафика там предусмотрен. Если есть возможности работать с big data, то не нужно никаких заговоров оператора со спецслужбами чтобы вычислить сеансы связи между двумя абонентами на территории РФ.
Почему-то при этом его слова "журналистами" воспринимаются как будто бы как подтверждение того, что они ранее говорили и они продолжают задавать ещё более тупые вопросы.
Да, в какой-то момент они там начинают что-то рассказывать про бумажки и кто за кого их подписывал и была ли у него должность в Telegram или нет. Но с технической точки зрения (в которую их и тыкали носом ранее) это вообще не имеет никакого значения. Даже если бы у него была должность в ФСБ это не поменяло бы того, что они несут чушь.
Это так глупо и отвратительно смотреть, что мне сложно выразить всю полноту своих эмоций после того как я это сделал.
Telegram - это не безопасный мессенджер. У него по дефолту не включено E2E шифрование и UX этого E2E там такой, что стимулирует им не пользоваться. Также у специалистов есть вопросики к кастомным протоколам.
Но это расследование не указывает на реальные проблемы Telegram, а выдумывает какое-то соломенное чучело и радостно тычет в него.
И ещё одно. В самом начале они говорят, что якобы многие независимые специалисты критиковали их, но на самом деле это всё был вот этот товарищ, разговор с которым они показали против его воли.
Нет! Их критиковал даже грёбаный Климарёв, который у нас уже давно признан экстремистом. И куча других людей, которые хотя бы базово понимают работу сетей.
То есть вся эта "работа" - это манипуляция на манипуляции. И я даже не знаю - это они специально это делают на заказ или они просто НАСТОЛЬКО некомпетентны.
Короче, пиздец, товарищи. Пиздец и позор.
#log #Russia #Telegram #security #journalism #ethics #thoughts #review #ВажныеИстории
"The intent of proprietary computing is that everything users do should come under the dictates of the owners of the code...
You can agree to your own subjugation, that’s your choice. It may seem more convenient. It may seem comfortable. It may even seem pleasurable and safe. But in the end, you’re handing over your own fate."
#fsf#FreeSoftware#GNU + #Linux#Freedom#Democracy#Computing#Apple#Microsoft#Google#Amazon#Ethics#Libre
There is no mention of me being a geany pig or a lab rat on my French passport... #France#EU
So basically, in the name of decentralization, a small group of people, that have not been elected, decided that nothing could be deleted online (because they let GAFAMs scrap their data while being against it????). That's called democracy? I don't think so. #Diaspora #fediverse#GDPR#rightToBeForgotten #threads#Meta#FB#X ...
And Dennis Schubert is interviewed by Ars Technica, is this a joke?
Mozilla is pro-Ai, there is an AI chat on the web browser now, and this guy Dennis Schubert, the techlead of #Diaspora, is working at #Mozilla as far as I remember. And he is so against deleting anything, leaving all public "public is public", and against blocking GAFAMs' scrapers?? (he was in 2017, 2018, ... I remember)..
(Mozilla which actually helped this project.)
So I am pretty sure, there is a real problem here with conflict of interests..
Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.
She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
