#ethical technology

[goodoldbandit]

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo. skm.stayingalive.in 2025—A Year of Bold Possibilities The world is on the cusp of remarkable transformation, with 2025 set to bring innovations and ideas that will reshape how we live, work, and connect. From AI breakthroughs and sustainability efforts to reimagined workplaces and space exploration, the future is bursting with opportunities. This…

[captaingimpy]

Exploring the Themes of Atlas and the Role of Technology in Society

The Netflix film Atlas, starring Jennifer Lopez as the titular character, centers around her lifelong vendetta to decommission Harlan, an artificial intelligence created by her mother, portrayed by Simu Liu. Despite what critics tend to think of this movie, there are several things I appreciate that it made me think about. One thing I appreciate about the nakedness of new Hollywood is that, for…

[felixwylde]

Conscious Connection Spree

Where would you go on a shopping spree? Embarking on a shopping spree for me is an adventure that goes beyond the usual consumer hotspots; it’s a quest through spaces that champion creativity, sustainability, and human expression. Independent bookstores are my starting point, where each book is a portal to diverse narratives and overlooked voices. These treasures challenge norms and embrace the…

[neosciencehub]

Neuralink's Human Trials: Regulatory Hurdles of Neurotechnology

Neuralink's Human Trials: Regulatory Hurdles of Neurotechnology @neosciencehub #neosciencehub #science #neuralink #humantrails #neurotechnology #elonmusk #FDA #healthcare #medicalscience #ClinicalResearch #health #AITech #BrainComputer #DataPrivacy #NSH

The journey of Neuralink, Elon Musk’s ambitious neurotechnology venture, to its first human trials represents a significant achievement in the field of biomedical innovation. However, this path was not without its challenges. Neo Science Hub’s Scientific Advisory Team examines the intricate regulatory landscape that companies like Neuralink must navigate, highlighting the complex interplay of…

[kk]

AI as Your Creative Co-pilot: A Down-to-Earth Guide for the Architecture, Engineering & Construction Industries

Through experiments with generative design, simulations and human-AI partnerships, I've gained insights and surprising discoveries that have expanded my view of what's possible. In this post, I share lessons learned in the hope it inspires other architect

Hey there, friends and fellow explorers of the digital frontier. If you recall, I recently had the honor of giving the keynote presentation at the Canadian Society for Marketing Professional Services (CSMPS) Annual General Meeting about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industries. I’ve talked about how AI has revolutionized…

[techtrendloop]

The Future of Technology: 10 Predictions for the Next 20 Years

Welcome to our channel! In this captivating video, titled "The Future of Technology: 10 Predictions for the Next 20 Years," we embark on an exciting journey into the realms of innovation and speculate on what lies ahead in the world of technology. As we stand at the cusp of a new era, it's essential to explore the potential advancements and groundbreaking transformations that await us in the next two decades. Join us as we unveil our top 10 predictions for the future, based on current trends and emerging technologies. From artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to augmented reality (AR) and quantum computing, we'll delve into the cutting-edge fields that are set to revolutionize multiple industries. Discover how these technologies will reshape our daily lives, from transportation and healthcare to communication and entertainment. Moreover, we'll explore the ethical considerations and societal implications that come hand-in-hand with these advancements. As we embrace the power of technology, it's crucial to reflect on the impact it may have on our privacy, employment landscape, and social dynamics. Throughout the video, we'll present compelling insights and expert opinions to provide a comprehensive understanding of the possibilities and challenges that lie ahead. Join us in pondering the future of technology and how it will shape the world we live in. Don't miss this opportunity to gain foresight into the exciting advancements that await us. Be sure to like this video, share it with your friends and family, and subscribe to our channel for more thought-provoking content on the intersection of technology and society.  #FutureTech #TechnologyPredictions #Innovation #EmergingTechnologies #AI #Robotics #AR #QuantumComputing #EthicalTechnology #SocietalImplications #TechTrends #TechInfluence #DigitalTransformation #StayInformed

[incognitopolls]

For the purposes of this poll, research is defined as reading multiple non-opinion articles from different credible sources, a class on the matter, etc.– do not include reading social media or pure opinion pieces.

Fun topics to research:

Can AI images be copyrighted in your country? If yes, what criteria does it need to meet?

Which companies are using AI in your country? In what kinds of projects? How big are the companies?

What is considered fair use of copyrighted images in your country? What is considered a transformative work? (Important for fandom blogs!)

What legislation is being proposed to ‘combat AI’ in your country? Who does it benefit? How does it affect non-AI art, if at all?

How much data do generators store? Divide by the number of images in the data set. How much information is each image, proportionally? How many pixels is that?

What ways are there to remove yourself from AI datasets if you want to opt out? Which of these are effective (ie, are there workarounds in AI communities to circumvent dataset poisoning, are the test sample sizes realistic, which generators allow opting out or respect the no-ai tag, etc)

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[savagechickens]

The Latest Technology.

And more technology.

[padiduys]

I’ll be honest, I don’t really fw influx of AI images of drivers here.

[reasonsforhope]

"Major AI companies are racing to build superintelligent AI — for the benefit of you and me, they say. But did they ever pause to ask whether we actually want that?

Americans, by and large, don’t want it.

That’s the upshot of a new poll shared exclusively with Vox. The poll, commissioned by the think tank AI Policy Institute and conducted by YouGov, surveyed 1,118 Americans from across the age, gender, race, and political spectrums in early September. It reveals that 63 percent of voters say regulation should aim to actively prevent AI superintelligence.

Companies like OpenAI have made it clear that superintelligent AI — a system that is smarter than humans — is exactly what they’re trying to build. They call it artificial general intelligence (AGI) and they take it for granted that AGI should exist. “Our mission,” OpenAI’s website says, “is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”

But there’s a deeply weird and seldom remarked upon fact here: It’s not at all obvious that we should want to create AGI — which, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be the first to tell you, comes with major risks, including the risk that all of humanity gets wiped out. And yet a handful of CEOs have decided, on behalf of everyone else, that AGI should exist.

Now, the only thing that gets discussed in public debate is how to control a hypothetical superhuman intelligence — not whether we actually want it. A premise has been ceded here that arguably never should have been...

Building AGI is a deeply political move. Why aren’t we treating it that way?

...Americans have learned a thing or two from the past decade in tech, and especially from the disastrous consequences of social media. They increasingly distrust tech executives and the idea that tech progress is positive by default. And they’re questioning whether the potential benefits of AGI justify the potential costs of developing it. After all, CEOs like Altman readily proclaim that AGI may well usher in mass unemployment, break the economic system, and change the entire world order. That’s if it doesn’t render us all extinct.

In the new AI Policy Institute/YouGov poll, the "better us [to have and invent it] than China” argument was presented five different ways in five different questions. Strikingly, each time, the majority of respondents rejected the argument. For example, 67 percent of voters said we should restrict how powerful AI models can become, even though that risks making American companies fall behind China. Only 14 percent disagreed.

Naturally, with any poll about a technology that doesn’t yet exist, there’s a bit of a challenge in interpreting the responses. But what a strong majority of the American public seems to be saying here is: just because we’re worried about a foreign power getting ahead, doesn’t mean that it makes sense to unleash upon ourselves a technology we think will severely harm us.

AGI, it turns out, is just not a popular idea in America.

“As we’re asking these poll questions and getting such lopsided results, it’s honestly a little bit surprising to me to see how lopsided it is,” Daniel Colson, the executive director of the AI Policy Institute, told me. “There’s actually quite a large disconnect between a lot of the elite discourse or discourse in the labs and what the American public wants.”

-via Vox, September 19, 2023

[quotesfrommyreading]

What I came to realise was that these men are actually the losers. The billionaires who called me out to the desert to evaluate their bunker strategies are not the victors of the economic game so much as the victims of its perversely limited rules. More than anything, they have succumbed to a mindset where “winning” means earning enough money to insulate themselves from the damage they are creating by earning money in that way. It’s as if they want to build a car that goes fast enough to escape from its own exhaust.

Yet this Silicon Valley escapism – let’s call it The Mindset – encourages its adherents to believe that the winners can somehow leave the rest of us behind.

Never before have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unliveable for everyone else. Nor have they ever before had the technologies through which to programme their sensibilities into the very fabric of our society. The landscape is alive with algorithms and intelligences actively encouraging these selfish and isolationist outlooks. Those sociopathic enough to embrace them are rewarded with cash and control over the rest of us. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop. This is new.

Amplified by digital technologies and the unprecedented wealth disparity they afford, The Mindset allows for the easy externalisation of harm to others, and inspires a corresponding longing for transcendence and separation from the people and places that have been abused.

Instead of just lording over us for ever, however, the billionaires at the top of these virtual pyramids actively seek the endgame. In fact, like the plot of a Marvel blockbuster, the very structure of The Mindset requires an endgame. Everything must resolve to a one or a zero, a winner or loser, the saved or the damned. Actual, imminent catastrophes from the climate emergency to mass migrations support the mythology, offering these would-be superheroes the opportunity to play out the finale in their own lifetimes. For The Mindset also includes a faith-based Silicon Valley certainty that they can develop a technology that will somehow break the laws of physics, economics and morality to offer them something even better than a way of saving the world: a means of escape from the apocalypse of their own making.

  —  The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse

[fibrielsolaer]

"Ethical AI" activists are making artwork AI-proof

Hello dreamers!

Art thieves have been infamously claiming that AI illustration "thinks just like a human" and that an AI copying an artist's image is as noble and righteous as a human artist taking inspiration.

It turns out this is - surprise! - factually and provably not true. In fact, some people who have experience working with AI models are developing a technology that can make AI art theft no longer possible by exploiting a fatal, and unfixable, flaw in their algorithms.

They have published an early version of this technology called Glaze.

https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu

Glaze works by altering an image so that it looks only a little different to the human eye but very different to an AI. This produces what is called an adversarial example. Adversarial examples are a known vulnerability of all current AI models that have been written on extensively since 2014, and it isn't possible to "fix" it without inventing a whole new AI technology, because it's a consequence of the basic way that modern AIs work.

This "glaze" will persist through screenshotting, cropping, rotating, and any other mundane transformation to an image that keeps it the same image from the human perspective.

The web site gives a hypothetical example of the consequences - poisoned with enough adversarial examples, AIs asked to copy an artist's style will end up combining several different art styles together. Perhaps they might even stop being able to tell hands from mouths or otherwise devolve into eldritch slops of colors and shapes.

Techbros are attempting to discourage people from using this by lying and claiming that it can be bypassed, or is only a temporary solution, or most desperately that they already have all the data they need so it wouldn't matter. However, if this glaze technology works, using it will retroactively damage their existing data unless they completely cease automatically scalping images.

Give it a try and see if it works. Can't hurt, right?

[omegaphilosophia]

The Relationship Between Cyberpunk and Posthumanism

Cyberpunk and posthumanism are two interconnected paradigms that explore the implications of advanced technology on human identity, society, and the future. Both address themes of human augmentation, the blurring of boundaries between human and machine, and the socio-political ramifications of technological advancements. Here's an exploration of their relationship:

1. Technological Augmentation and the Human Body

Cyberpunk: Cyberpunk narratives frequently depict a world where humans enhance their bodies with cybernetic implants and other technological modifications. This genre questions what it means to be human when our physical form is increasingly defined by technology.

Posthumanism: Posthumanism critically examines how technological enhancements can transform human identity and capabilities. It challenges traditional notions of the human body and mind, proposing that technology can fundamentally alter human existence.

2. Identity and Consciousness

Cyberpunk: Characters in cyberpunk often grapple with their sense of identity, especially when their consciousness can be uploaded, transferred, or altered by technology. These stories explore the fluidity of identity in a technologically advanced world.

Posthumanism: Posthumanist theory delves into the philosophical implications of such scenarios, questioning the nature of consciousness and identity. It posits that identity is not fixed but can be reshaped by technological and biological changes.

3. Socio-Political Implications

Cyberpunk: Cyberpunk worlds are typically characterized by vast socio-economic divides, corporate dominance, and a dystopian society where technology exacerbates inequality. This genre highlights the dark side of technological progress and its impact on society.

Posthumanism: Posthumanism engages with these socio-political issues, critiquing the power dynamics and ethical considerations that arise with advanced technology. It explores how technology can both empower and oppress, depending on its use and distribution.

4. Blurring of Boundaries

Cyberpunk: A key theme in cyberpunk is the dissolution of boundaries between human and machine, reality and virtuality. Characters often exist in hybrid states, part human and part machine, challenging the clear-cut distinction between the two.

Posthumanism: Posthumanism philosophically supports this blurring of boundaries, suggesting that the human experience is inherently intertwined with technology. It advocates for a more integrated understanding of humanity that includes our technological extensions.

5. Ethical and Existential Questions

Cyberpunk: Cyberpunk narratives frequently raise ethical and existential questions about the implications of living in a world dominated by technology. Issues such as privacy, autonomy, and the essence of humanity are central to the genre.

Posthumanism: Posthumanism provides a theoretical framework to address these questions, proposing that we rethink ethical norms and existential meanings in light of our evolving technological landscape. It emphasizes the need for ethical considerations in technological development.

The relationship between cyberpunk and posthumanism is deeply intertwined, with cyberpunk providing a narrative exploration of themes that posthumanism examines philosophically. Both explore the transformative impact of technology on humanity, identity, and society, highlighting the potential and pitfalls of a technologically enhanced future. By engaging with both cyberpunk and posthumanist thought, we can gain a deeper understanding of the ethical, existential, and socio-political implications of our technological advancements.

[tumbler-polls]